Australia’s Comprehensive Aid Policy Framework

Delivering on a promise made in July 2011, the Government released a new Comprehensive Aid Policy Framework on 8 May 2012. 

The Framework is a four-year plan for how, why and where Australian aid will be spent to 2015-16 and the results that will be achieved with that investment. It will guide growth in the aid budget to 0.45 per cent of GNI, or an estimated $7.7 billion by 2015-16. 

The Framework forecasts expenditure of all government agencies involved in delivering Australian aid overseas. It has informed the 2012-13 Aid Budget and will inform future Aid Budgets to 2015-16.

The budget forecasts, which are indicative, were informed by a comparative analysis between the regions by which the aid budget is organised (Pacific, East Asia, South and West Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and Latin America and the Caribbean) and were based on four criteria:

1. Poverty
2. National interest
3. Australia’s capacity to make a difference
4. Current scale and effectiveness of existing programs.

The outcome is that by 2015-16:

• Asia and the Pacific will continue to be the highest priority regions for the aid program, receiving an estimated 75 per cent of Australian aid
• our 12 largest bilateral aid recipients will be Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan, Solomon Islands, Vietnam, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Pakistan, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vanuatu
• over 30 per cent of our aid will be delivered through partnerships with multilateral organisations—with the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, World Food Programme and UNICEF our major partners
• 25 per cent of aid will be spent on education assistance, to get 4 million more children into school and provide 20 million children with a better quality of education
• at least 10 per cent of the aid budget (up from 6 per cent in 2007) will be delivered through partnerships with non-government organisations.

The budget forecasts are aligned to a set of key results to be achieved by 2015-16. For example, our aid will help:

• vaccinate more than 10 million children against disease to save lives
• provide a further 8.5 million people with access to safe water
• enable 1 million mothers to have their births attended by a skilled birth attendant.

Australia is one of few donors in the world to have developed such a high level of transparency and predictability in its medium-term aid allocations. Progress against the Framework will be assessed in an Annual Review of Aid Effectiveness. The Review findings will be considered by Cabinet each year as part of the annual budget process, and made publicly available soon after.

More information

Helping the World’s Poor: Australia’s Comprehensive Aid Policy Framework to 2015-16
Minister's media release
Budget 2012-13