Friendship for development: a new model of development practice?

ABSTRACT

Friendship forms the basis of 35 community partnerships between Australia and Timor-Leste. Friendship facilitates the ownership of project activities by Timorese partners bringing into the development relationship a mutual respect and a shared journey of a kind that is not typical in time-bound aid projects. This paper reviews different models of donor-recipient relationships. A case study is used to show how Friendship offers a development strategy aligned with solidarity through a long term commitment built on trust and mutual responsibility. The model should be considered alongside the many existing theories and approaches to effective community development.

KEYWORDS:

• Aid – NGOs
• civil society
• methods – partnerships
• Timor-Leste

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Balthasar Kehi was the former Timorese adviser to Friends of Suai/Covalima from 2000 for over 10 years. 

2 Australian Observer Delegation of the Popular Consultation, led by the Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer with Laurie Brereton (Shadow Foreign Minister) and Marise Payne (now Minister of Foreign Affairs. Following an overwhelming vote for independence, violence and destruction was unleashed on a massive scale by the departing Indonesians. For an account of our seven days in Timor-Leste see Fischer, Tim (2000) Seven Days in East Timor, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

3 During my work with a Timorese NGO in 1997–2000 the organisation was unwilling to have written documents such as strategic plans and job descriptions because of fear the Indonesian authorities might obtain these and close the programs or intimidate the staff, so there was little experience of typical NGO structures and governance processes at that time.

4 Originally known as Friends of Suai, the name changed to Friends of Suai/Covalima in 2010, recognising the outreach of the programs beyond to town of Suai to the district of Covalima. This followed the Timorese coordinator changing the Suai Community Centre to the Covalima Community Centre in 2007. They requested FOS to also include Covalima in the name.

5 The book based on my doctoral thesis is Wigglesworth, Ann (2016), Activism and Aid: Young citizens’ experiences of development and democracy in Timor-Leste, Monash University Publishing, Clayton.

6 I documented the friendship experience for the 20th Anniversary of FOS/C in 2020. My book “Friendship for Development: Stories of a partnership between Suai, Timor-Leste and the City of Port Phillip, Australia”. Copies can be purchased from https://www.aeta.net.au/product/friendship-for-development/ or contact me directly via Linked-In https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-wigglesworth-44989b27/

7 Bill Armstrong, AO, is the former Director of Australian Volunteers International (1982–2002) and former Chair of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid (now Australian Council for International Development). He was Chair of FOS/C from 2003–2016.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ann Wigglesworth

Dr Ann Wigglesworth has 30 years experience in international development, working for non-government organisations focussed on Asia, the Pacific, Africa, and Latin America, including living nine years overseas in Asia and Africa. Ann returned to study to graduate from Monash University with a Master's degree in Development Studies in 1994. In 2005 she embarked on a PhD at Victoria University, focussing on Timor-Leste, at the time the world's newest nation. She graduated in 2010 with a doctoral thesis on civil society activism in Timor-Leste. Ann has worked as a consultant in social development focussed on civil society, gender issues, young people, and migratory experiences. She has taught in the International Development Master's program at RMIT and Victoria University. As an Honorary Fellow at Victoria University she continues to publish papers that promote local perspectives and gender equality in developing contexts. Her first book was Activism and Aid: Young citizen's experiences of development and democracy in Timor-Leste published in 2016. She published Friendship for Development: Stories of a partnership between Suai, Timor-Leste and the City of Port Phillip, Australia in 2020.