Oxfam New Zealand Comments on the NZAID Pacific Strategy ...

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The lack of inclusion of trade policy in the Pacific strategy is surprising in the light of the recent Ministerial Review of Progress in Implementing 2001 Cabinet Recommendations establishing NZAID (the Waring review). While the findings of the review have only recently been made public, they were presumably known to NZAID during the formative stage of preparing this draft consultation. The Waring Review concluded that “NZAID’s effectiveness in the Pacific region is inhibited by the lack of coherence strategy covering all <strong>New</strong> <strong>Zealand</strong> agencies operating in the region.” (page 25). The review’s recommendation 12 states: “That a programmed and inclusive strategic process, directed at coherence, operational sustainability and effectiveness of delivery, which recognises the Pacific strengths of NZAID, be established as a matter of urgency for the Government as a whole, with reliable regular mechanisms of accountability and reporting to enable a cohesive multi-agency process for Pacific engagement.” (page 25). NZAID has a clear mandate to work on trade in the Pacific. NZAID’s policy ‘Harnessing Trade for Development’ calls for critical factors to be in place for trade to contribute to development. It is clear that these factors are not in place in the Pacific. Therefore a relevant question for this strategy is whether NZAID will apply its influence to change put in place the necessary conditions, implying a slow pace of negotiations, or question the appropriateness of the trade liberalisation initiatives to the Pacific. <strong>Oxfam</strong> considers that it is vital that NZAID’s Pacific strategy does not duck the challenge of policy coherence. Trade policy is important to the Pacific, it is important to the achievement of the aims of this strategy and it is important that NZAID play an active role in shaping <strong>New</strong> <strong>Zealand</strong>’s trade policy so that it supports poor and vulnerable people in the Pacific. We therefore recommend that the strategy include two additional NZAID programme areas to: • Support the Pacific governments to build their capacity, and that of civil society, to be able to undertake objective and independent research and assessment, to develop alternative policy options (as part of the commitment to “sound, evidence-based policy”), and to build a basis for wide consultation and public education (as part of the commitment to good governance) • Strive for policy coherence towards the Pacific within the <strong>New</strong> <strong>Zealand</strong> government and with multilateral agencies, including trade policy (extend Para 59). This programme area should be explicit about NZAID’s own capacity building needs and the ways in which the <strong>New</strong> <strong>Zealand</strong> government could be engaging with
civil society and demonstrating that it is putting into practice the principles of evidence-based policy making, transparency of information and prior informed consent. The Missing Opportunity on Labour Mobility Similarly, the draft Strategy is virtually silent on one of the other major potential influences over the development prospects for the Pacific – labour mobility. ONZ considers that the current policy frameworks for the movement of labour fail to deliver on the potential benefits for the PICs, for <strong>New</strong> <strong>Zealand</strong> and for the Pacific workers themselves. ONZ considers that the strategy could play a key role in initiating the development of an improved framework that addresses the problems such as the recruitment of experienced professionals from the Pacific, thereby contributing to ‘brain drain’, the shortages of labour at key times for the <strong>New</strong> <strong>Zealand</strong> agriculture and horticulture sector, concerns over the potential for workers to overstay their visas, and social problems caused when men or women leave their families and communities to work overseas. ONZ believes that addressing these problems has the potential to create a framework that could provide more benefits to all parties. Substantial improvement towards a so-called ‘win-win’ framework is possible. We have forwarded documents on seasonal movement of labour, written by Nic Maclellan of <strong>Oxfam</strong>’s Pacific Programme, to NZAID’s Pacific Group Director following the recent consultation meeting on the draft Pacific strategy. <strong>Oxfam</strong> recommends that the Strategy includes a section that seeks engagement with PIC governments, NZ government departments and civil society in <strong>New</strong> <strong>Zealand</strong> and the Pacific, including trade unions, to develop an improved framework for migration and seasonal labour mobility. Strengthening NZAID’s Understanding of Pro-Poor Growth “Is the reason we talk about growth so much that we understand so little about it?” Dani Rodrik, Growth Strategies, Harvard University 2004. We agree with the inclusion in the strategy of a need for policy dialogue that is “conducive to pro-poor and broad-based growth” (para 55). However, there are many different understandings of pro-poor growth and the strategy does little to define what is meant by these terms. There is new analysis emerging on the policy basis for pro-poor outcomes, not only from economic historians like Ha-Joon Chang of Cambridge University, or leading academics such as Deepak Nayyar (Delhi University) and Dani Rodrik of Harvard University (cited above), but also new thinking from the more pro-liberalisation institutions, such as the recent World Bank report “Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform”.
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Oxfam New Zealand Comments on the NZAID Pacific Strategy ...

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