Post-Busan partnership in the Pacific? An analysis of donor–NGO relations

Abstract

This paper explores the possibility of a partnership between foreign aid donors and South Pacific NGOs. This partnership focus emerged out of the 2011 Busan Outcome Document. Drawing on 51 interviews of donors and Pacific-created NGOs in four countries (Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu), this paper finds limited donor–NGO partnership. Reasons include insufficient donor interest in a partnership, capacity and accountability concerns for Pacific NGOs, and scarce core funding. While global agreements to encourage partnership are important components of development effectiveness discussions, donor–NGO partnership is not yet possible within the Pacific context.

Keywords:

• Partnership
• foreign aid
• South Pacific
• donors
• non-governmental organizations

Acknowledgements

This paper benefitted from comments provided at the Australian Political Science Association conference (2017) and the American Society of Public Administration conference (2018). The author is grateful for the early guidance of Peter Larmour and the recent inputs of Garry Rodan and Kanishka Jayasuriya. Any errors are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The civil society organization (CSO) and non-governmental organization (NGO) terms are used interchangeably.

2 In interviews with OECD staff, Eyben (2013, p. 86) noted that an interviewee found members struggled to with who to invite given ‘people in head offices have little direct contact with anyone in aid-recipient countries, including – with a laugh – their own colleagues in the field.’

3 §22: ‘Civil society organizations (CSOs) play a vital role in enabling people to claim their rights, in promoting rights-based approaches, in shaping development policies and partnerships, and in overseeing their implementation. They also provide services in areas that are complementary to those provided by states. Recognizing this, we will A) Implement fully our respective commitments to enable CSOs to exercise their roles as independent development actors, with a particular focus on an enabling environment, consistent with agreed international rights, that maximizes the contributions of CSOs to development. B) Encourage CSOs to implement practices that strengthen their accountability and their contribution to development effectiveness, guided by the Istanbul Principles and the International Framework for CSO Development Effectiveness.’

4 The 2012 Nairobi Declaration for Development Effectiveness was written by NGOs a year after Busan. It is unrelated to Outcome Documents from the 2016 High-Level Forum meetings in Nairobi.

5 In November 2018, Fiji held elections widely considered free and fair. The electoral winner was the leader of the 2006 coup d’état, Frank Bainimarama. Bainimarama had previously won the 2014 elections.

6 This reflects small country size and limited NGOs despite significant foreign aid. For a list of NGOs interviewed (but not who was interviewed given ‘not for attribution’ status), please email the author.

7 See Samoa Civil Society Support Programme and its Steering Committee (Government of Samoa, 2018).

8 See the United Nations’ 2014 launch of its “UN Decade for Sustainable Energy for All” in Fiji.

9 Core funding concerns are unlikely to be limited to Pacific-based NGOs. There is considerable space within the foreign aid and civil society literatures to ask whether Pacific-based NGOs are disproportionately impacted by core funding concerns and/or if their regional concerns vary from other regions – whether developed or developing.

Additional information

Funding

The Graduate School of Pan-Pacific Studies of Kyunghee University (South Korea) provided travel support for the author to visit each of the four Pacific countries and to conduct interviews. The author is grateful for KHU’s assistance.

Notes on contributors

Kim Moloney

Kim Moloney is a Senior Lecturer at Murdoch University in Perth Australia. Her research has engaged island-states, transnational administration, multilateral development banks, and global governance. She is co-editor (with Diane Stone) of the 40-chapter Oxford Handbook of Global Policy and Transnational Administration (2019, Oxford University Press).