Introduction
Following the terrorist attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001, some said that the "world had changed forever". While the truth of such an assessment is debatable, the anti-terrorism agenda has had a real effect on development aid in the Asia-Pacific. Combating terrorism has become the new growth sector for the expenditure of aid funds, under the banner of "good governance". Australia’s approach to aid and terrorism in the region illustrates a largely ignored but very real threat posed by international terrorism: that for donors, the war on terror is distorting and displacing the all-important war on poverty.
Counter-terrorism in Australian aid
The Australian aid program presents a good example of the influence of the terrorist agenda on aid programs in the region. Combating terrorism catapulted to the centre of Australia’s political and security agenda following September 11, 2001 and was further reinforced there in response to the deaths of 88 Australians in the Bali bombing of 12 October 2002. This shifting of Australian political priorities was quickly reflected in an increased use of aid for counter-ter rorist activities. The Australian Government’s development agency, AusAID, has explicitly taken up the counter-terrorism theme in its aid policy and budgeting over the last two years.
In the Australian aid budget for 2003-04, brought down in May 2003, counter-terrorism was highlighted as a key theme: The Australian aid program is helping to build the capacity of developing countries in the region to respond effectively to potential terrorist threats, including through strengthening police, banking and customs authorities, drafting and enacting new legislation, and improving law and justice systems.1 AusAID has not published the total amount of aid resources now being spent on counter-terrorism activities, but has announced several new initiatives in this area while maintaining total aid at the historically low level of 0.25% of Australia’s GNI.
One key initiative announced in the budget was a new A$7.5m Peace and Security Fund for post-conflict assistance and "initiatives to counter transnational crime and terrorism" in Pacific Island Countries. Another was an A$10 million (over four years) counter-terrorism initiative in Indonesia, focused on policing, tracking terrorist financing, and a "travel security program".
Subsequently, during a visit to the Philippines in July 2003, Australia’s Prime Minister announced an A$5m, three year package of counter-terrorism assistance to the Philippines, which will be funded from the AusAID budget.
Increased aid for various counter-terrorism activities fits under the cover-all and ill-defined heading of "good governance", which is the largest single sector in the Australian aid program. In 20032004, 21% of Australia’s aid will be spent on "good governance" activities. At the same time, the proportion of Australian aid spent on basic rights remained largely static - including 12% for health, 5% for basic education and 3% for water and sanitation.2 With relatively little to spend, the priority of the poverty reduction objective in Australian aid must be rigorously examined.
What’s wrong with aid for terrorism?
There have been various attempts by Governments, international organisations and civil society groups3, to articulate the links between poverty, aid and terrorism since the events of September 11. There is little doubt that conditions of poverty combined with perceptions of global injustice and alienation, contribute in some circumstances to the creation of environments which can breed instability and conflict, and at the extreme end, acts of terror.
Nevertheless, these are arguments for a greater commitment to poverty-focused assistance to provide greater economic and social equity to affected peoples, not aid focused on law enforcement, financial regulation and the like. As one NGO commentator has noted, if alleviating poverty reduces terrorism, there is no need to create a new counter-terrorism goal in aid programs. All that such a link implies is the need to step up poverty-focused aid in order to eradicate poverty.4
It is difficult to argue with the proposition that many types of aid for counter-terrorism may ultimately improve poverty reduction outcomes - more stable and better-governed states can benefit from international trade and growth more easily, and under the right circumstances, that growth can lift the living standards of the poor. But where spending scarce aid funds is at stake, doing things that may possibly, eventually, make some contribution to reducing poverty is not good enough - regardless of the foreign policy or national security benefits for the donor. Aid donors must ensure that their programs are the best, most effective way to use their limited resources to eradicate poverty. Much of the present aid for counter-terrorism activities would fail the test.
The exclusive attention on "international terrorism" by donors is further compromising aid’s mission to directly assist the poor and marginalised. The terrorist threats being countered by donors are almost always those directed towards rich countries and peoples, rather than threats to people in the countries of the terrorists’ origin, or those they work through. For better or worse, attempts by some developing country governments to access ODA to counter domestic terrorism have received far less support.
While it is understandable that countries like Australia want to protect their citizens and their defence and security interests by combating international terrorism, it is questionable whether diverting scarce aid money to this end is the appropriate way to fund these policy pursuits. That is to say, strengthening money-laundering regulations and customs police in East Timor or Cambodia may be in both governments’ national interests, but is it an activity truly directed at reducing poverty?
In Australia’s own backyard lies a prime example - that of aid relationships with Indonesia in 2003. As noted above, increased Australian aid for Indonesia in the 2003 budget was specifically linked to combating terrorism, through law enforcement, travel security, and education initiatives. This was very clearly, and understandably, a response to the publicly expressed need for Australia to do more about terrorism in Indonesia following the Bali bombing.
Meanwhile, within the territory of Indonesia, a military offensive has been launched in the province of Aceh, re-igniting a conflict in which hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands displaced and deprived since May 2003. In the brief period before independent journalism was totally excluded from Aceh, the region was horrified by images of over 500 schools burned to the ground. Such activity creates terror in the lives of vulnerable people, including children - whether it is caused by state military forces or by separatist militias. This terror is directly increasing poverty for the people of Aceh, but Australia has announced no new initiative or new money in the aid budget to respond to it.
Conclusion
Pursuit of the counter-terrorism agenda through aid, in Australia and elsewhere, warrants ong oing scr utiny. T he present Australian Government has reduced aid to its lowest level ever, has retreated markedly from multilateralism and the international promotion of human rights, and conceptualises Australia’s "national interest" in narrow, domestically-focused terms emphasising market-led economic growth and strong national security. Under these circumstances aid is increasingly funding a national security agenda, and it is the region’s poor and marginalised who will miss out on the resources needed to fulfil their basic rights. Australian and international civil society has a role to play in keeping governments honest about aid and protecting its poverty focus as the "war on terror" goes on.
Endnotes
1Australia’s Overseas Aid Program 2003-04, Statement by the Hon Alexander Downer MP, Minister for Foreign Affairs, 13 May 2003, p11.
2Aid Budget 2003-04: Overview and Analysis, Australian Council for Overseas Aid, May 2003, available at www.acfoa.asn.au.
3In the Australian context, examples include ACFOA’s Submission to the 2003-04 Federal Budget, March 2003, at http://www.acfoa.asn.au/publications&media/ submissions/budgetsubmission2003.PDF, and work by Oxfam Community Aid Abroad such as the Executive Director’s statement at http://www.caa.org.au/horizons/ december_2002/from_excdir.html.
4Gaughran, Audrey, Shifting Goalposts: Aid and Terrorism, British Overseas Network on Development (BOND), available at www.bond.org.uk.
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