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  • AID/WATCH IN THE NEWS: Concerns Laos-Australia aid being 'corporatised'

    in
    03 Apr 09

    In remote parts of Laos, some small hotels and guesthouses are about to get what could be a significant boost to their profile with international travellers. It will come courtesy of just over $US200,000 worth of investment by a Lao-owned business support company and matching funds through Australia's aid program. It is one of nine projects approved under the latest grants from Australia's Enterprise Challenge Fund. But at least one non-government group is cautious about the fund's approach, warning against what it calls the "corporatisation" of poverty.

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  • New Zealand foreign minister McCully out of order on foreign aid

    04 Mar 09

    Whilst Australia has insisted on keeping aid tied up in the portfolio of foreign affairs and trade, seven years ago NZ separated aid from its Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade recognising the possibility of giving “mixed messages and for a conflict in aims over what aid was for”. Now NZ Foreign Minister Murray McCully is looking set to change this.

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  • Media release - CHARITY ON TRIAL: ATO TRIES TO BAN CHARITABLE ADVOCACY

    11 Feb 09

    The Australian Taxation Office is to appear in the Federal Court today, seeking to establish a test case against charitable advocacy. The ATO’s case concerns AID/WATCH, a small charity that monitors Australia’s international aid programs.

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  • Backgrounder: Charitable Advocacy on Trial

    in
    10 Feb 09

    Last year the Rudd Government announced a new era of social inclusion, and a new Federal partnership with charities. Against the grain, the Australian Taxation Office is resorting to the Federal Court to establish a test case against charitable advocates. The ATO’s case concerns AID/WATCH, a small charity that monitors Australia’s international aid programs.

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  • A palmy balm for the financial crisis

    in
    09 Feb 09

    We in the West - and, unfortunately, almost all economists - tend to assume everyone in the world wants more modern "money". Last week, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said of the financial crisis: "What began with unrestrained greed on Wall Street has spread across every economy in the world." The blame might have been right, but the financial meltdown is not spreading to every economy. Some indigenous cultures are still chugging along quite happily, almost completely safe from the modern world's economic shenanigans.

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  • People's Protocol on Climate Change

    in
    01 Dec 08
    Flint Duxfield/ AID/WATCH Participants express their views on the Kyoto process at a workshop on the People's Protocol held at Inna Bali, Denpasar Bali on December 7, 2007

    The People's Protocol on Climate Change is a global campaign that aims to provide an avenue for grassroots, especially from the South - who are the worst-affected and yet are the least empowered to adapt to climate change - to participate in the process of drawing up a post-2012 climate change framework.

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  • Jatropha: Jobs for farmers or fuel for foreigners?

    in
    25 Nov 08
    Photo: La'o Hamutuk, Jatropha Pod

    In February 2008, the company Enviroenergy Developments Australia signed a contract with the Timor-Leste government to develop a multi-million dollar jatropha biodiesel processing facility in Baucau district. The proposed facility could become the largest non-oil private investment in Timor-Leste, with the government claiming that it will create 30,000 rural jobs. The Timorese organisation, La'o Hamutuk decided to find out more about the facts and future implications of the project.

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  • Is Australia Genuine About a "New Approach" to the Pacific?

    in
    24 Nov 08
    Local Markets in Oro Province, PNG

    The Rudd government has made much of its 'new approach' to Australia's island neighbours, but the view from the Pacific - especially of the aggressive pursuit of a new free trade deal as part of the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) - is that not much has changed.

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  • Aid talks threatened as rich countries refuse to budge

    in
    29 Oct 08
    "Developing countries are extremely frustrated by the refusal of a few key wealthy countries to commit to any substantial improvements in the aid they provide."

    Hopes for a progressive agreement to reform international aid look set to be dashed at this week’s aid talks in Accra, Ghana.Delegates to the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness have been at loggerheads for two days with the United States and Japan refusing to agree to the European Union's push for a more far reaching agreement.

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  • Forget About Missy

    in
    25 Oct 08

    Did Rudd's advisers muddle up the briefing papers? This week, the UN General Assembly will discuss the Millenium Development Goals, not the global financial crisis - or Our Missy

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