Daniel Oakman told Radio National recently that he thought the assumptions behind the Colombo Plan may sound fanciful today. These included the idea that aid would stimulate economic development and that such growth would in turn promote stability and moderate political conflict. Also that exposure to the Western capitalist system and values would act as a deterrent to communist influence.
I’m not so sure things have changed. We still expect miracles from tiny commitments of aid. That those miracles don’t occur fuels the arguments from skeptics about waste and corruption and the ineffectiveness of aid, yet the money keeps flowing, particularly in times of threat: communism then, terrorism now.
Government-sponsored aid then and now is about politics. It is never purely humanitarian but must accord with broader foreign-policy objectives and with the so-called national interest. Yet the taxpayer’s dollar can do good: not always by achieving the outcomes desired of a particular project; indeed more often by building trust and understanding in donor and recipient countries. Certainly, Oakman shows that it was the effect on individuals that reaped the largest returns on Australia’s investment in the Colombo Plan.
Facing Asia is a meticulous study of the Colombo Plan, the first comprehensive aid package for Asia. The plan involved convening a regional consultative committee, made up of donors and recipients, to discuss the overall direction of the plan, while programs of assistance were decided upon and delivered bilaterally. This unique form created an institution that has lasted 50 years and is seen by its Asian members as their own, rather than something imposed by the West.
Australia had an important role in the plan’s conception mainly, as Oakman portrays it, because of Percy Spender, the then Foreign Minister, who pushed hard for the scheme in a manner that got results. But his heavy-handed approach also alienated people and saw what was first termed the Spender Resolution evolve into the Colombo Plan, adopted in London in October 1950.
Spender’s successor, Lord Casey, latched onto the plan’s propaganda value. He insisted that projects be clearly identified as Australian and serve to build Asian goodwill. Badging its aid was again a priority for the government in the late 1990s. This was insisted upon even in face of the fact that some projects will turn out to be white elephants, given the risky nature of the development game.
Oakman spends considerable time discussing the effectiveness of aid. He