Evaluation of australian law and justice assistance
Whole-of-government issues
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Whole-of-government issuesThe Indonesian experience shows the potential benefits of a whole-of-government approach to delivering law and justice assistance. The relationships between Australian law and justice institutions and their Indonesian counterparts can have distinct advantages over those involved in technical assistance delivered by a managing contractor. Capacity building by foreign consultants often involves implicit assumptions as to “expatriate expertise and recipient ignorance”,66 which stands in the way of effective assistance. This is particularly the case in a country like Indonesia with its high levels of human capital. By contrast, when peer organisations from different countries meet, there is an assumption of equality that lends itself to a more constructive relationship. The twinning relationship between courts in the two countries seems to have been highly valued for this reason. Australian Government agencies may also be able to provide more relevant and up-to-date advice than contractors. Whole-of-government assistance also helps to build long-term relationships between Australian and Indonesian institutions, which are in both countries’ interests. There are, however, some limitations. Australian Government agencies without a permanent presence in Indonesia are limited in the types of assistance they can provide. They are limited to offering support that can be provided remotely or on short missions, such as training courses, studies or draft legislation. Assistance of this type, even when formally agreed with the partner institution, can easily become supply-driven. It is also unlikely to be sufficient for supporting complex reform processes, unless anchored in a broader program of assistance. The multiplication of small-scale assistance delivered by separate agencies has been criticised by the Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness as a driver of fragmentation in the Australian aid program, with costs for both coherence and value for money. We are informed that, to address this issue, AGD has recently stationed an officer in the Australian Embassy in Jakarta to support the delivery of its law and justice assistance. These problems of whole-of-government coordination in law and justice assistance are not unique to Australia. In response to a similar proliferation of aid activities,67 the United Kingdom established the Justice Assistance Network, with the original goal of developing a common strategy. This goal proved unachievable, given the diversity of institutional interests and perspectives involved, and was downgraded to sharing information and mapping activities.68 There are many steps that might help to overcome the risks of incoherence and fragmentation in whole-of-government delivery of law and justice assistance, including at Canberra level:
Possible measures at the country program level would include:
In determining roles and responsibilities of the different agencies, it might be useful to draw a distinction between two different types of legal assistance: (a) the general law and justice development portfolio, and (b) support for mutual legal assistance and international criminal cooperation. The latter, although part of Australian ODA, is distinctive in that there are more direct Australian interests at play, and the lead more naturally falls to other government agencies, including AGD and the AFP, than to AusAID. While international cooperation on crime may be in the interests of both countries (indeed, as a global public good it is of interest to the wider international community), it may not be a high priority for poverty reduction, which the Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness has said should be the touchstone for Australian aid. Indeed, there are a number of law and justice-related activities in Indonesia (such as JCLEC or assistance for security at Bali airport) that are not obviously part of Indonesia’s national poverty reduction agenda, even though they are of interest to both governments. In practice, the two strands of the assistance have already been separated. International criminal cooperation has been excluded from AusAID’s new program because it was not seen as a priority by AusAID’s counterpart. On the other hand, AGD continues to support other Indonesian agencies, in particular the Indonesia Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center and the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, on more technical areas such as asset forfeiture and operations to counter the financial cost of terrorism. For the general law and justice development portfolio, it would be preferable for all Australian Government assistance to be brought within a single planning and budgetary process, with the agencies deciding jointly on a common set of priorities against a known envelope of funding from the bilateral aid program. In this process, AusAID should play the lead role as the specialist development agency, but should draw on the sectoral expertise of the other agencies. Having been through a joint planning process, AusAID could then legitimately resist proposals for new activities that are not covered by the agreed priorities. This will pose a challenge for some of the other agencies, particularly AGD, which has been accustomed to developing its international cooperation activities through a proliferation of short-term activities without a clear strategic framework. Rather than attempting to sell its services to willing buyers, AGD will need to work harder to anchor its support within a broad Australian Government strategy, and to ensure its support meets the requirements of aid effectiveness. For the area of transnational crime and international crime cooperation, different interests and considerations apply, and it might be appropriate for this to be located in a separate planning and budget process. The emphasis here should be on Australia’s contribution to promoting global and regional public good around fighting transnational crime and terrorism. It might make sense for there to be a single budgetary allocation for this purpose, from which the responsible agencies could decide priorities in terms of country allocations and activities. The lead agencies here would be AGD and the AFP, rather than AusAID. However, these funds still qualify as ODA and should be subject to Australia’s international commitments on aid effectiveness. AusAID should therefore continue to play a role in advising the other agencies. Directory: aid aid -> 1 Productivity Growth and the New Economy aid -> Using Multicultural Literature as a Tool for Multicultural Education in Teacher Education Juli-Anna Aerila aid -> Attachment a ryan White Program Services Definitions core services aid -> Patient Care Contract Administrative Guidelines fy 2013-2014 Appendix A aid -> Proposal for improving primary health care and health education in rural india aid -> - aid -> Alaska Renewable Energy Fund Round V methods for Proposal Evaluation and Grant Recommendation aid -> Tuesday January 23rd, 2007 7: 30 – 8: 00am registration Ted Ferry Civic Center 8: 00 – 9: 00am continental Breakfast aid -> American Visitors Download 319.5 Kb. Share with your friends:
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