Australia’s multilateral aid

Until recently, however, there has been little in the way of a publicly articulated framework which explains how the Australian Government determines its funding relationship with the banks and other multilateral institutions.

In 2009 AusAID developed a draft multilateral engagement strategy which for the first time articulated a broad framework giving some direction to decisions about funding levels, priority partners and priority areas of concern.[1] Some key directions outlined in the strategy include:

• maintaining aid channelled through multilateral organisations at between 25 and 35%
• increasing core funding to priority multilateral institutions based on their effectiveness, relevance to Australia’s aid priorities and responsiveness to Australia’s interests
• using multilateral funding to increase Australia’s profile and influence institutions to focus on areas that are of strategic importance to Australia, i.e. the Asia-Pacific region.

Since 2008, the Australian Government has also signed partnership framework agreements with 10 UN humanitarian and development agencies, which include commitments for increased multi-year funding. The partnership agreements include mutual commitments to: the Millennium Development Goals; increase aid effectiveness; support UN reforms; and increase public awareness of partnerships between AusAID and respective UN agencies.[2]

Next page Last updated 12 November 2010

[1] AusAID (2009) Draft Multilateral Engagement Strategy for the Australian Aid Program 2010 -2015. As at October 2010, it is unclear whether the draft strategy has been finalised as it is not publicly available.

[2] AusAID (2010) Multilateral Organisations http://www.ausaid.gov.au/partner/multilateral.cfm Partnership agreements with UN agencies are available at: http://www.ausaid.gov.au/partner/partnership_frameworks.cfm