Four girls standing in front of Austalian and Indonesian flags

Regional Governments

Aid programs are more sustainable when owned and driven by partner governments.

Australia increasingly looks for opportunities to use partner country processes and systems to deliver the aid program.

There is increasing recognition within the aid community of the drawbacks of traditional approaches to aid delivery, in which projects are contracted out to external managing agents. Moves have begun towards adopting more programmatic approaches involving greater partner government responsibility in decision making and, sometimes, funding.

Australia supports the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. This calls for closer partnerships between aid agencies and partner countries through the delivery of aid via the partner country's budget and the use of its procurement and financial management systems where possible.

In Papua New Guinea for example, partner government agencies now manage Australia's funding for road maintenance and are responsible for contracting out project implementation.

See also:

Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness 2005 [external website]
Countries and regions