Hi All.  You've contributed some new ideas about where aid should be directed, much appreciated.  Are others prompted to think about this, too? If so, we'd like to hear from you.

Perhaps of recent interest is the UK DFID direction in aid, announced in March 2011 after two reviews.  For example, they'll now concentrate their resources and impact in 27 countries (http://bit.ly/iexhXK)

Do people have any views on this, any lessons for the aid program, or other ideas on this topic? Please feel free to comment here.

Two-thirds of the global population of persons with disability live in the Asia Pacific region, of which 82% live below the poverty line. Yet apart from Australia, the major bilateral donors active in disability inclusive development in Asia are limited to Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States. In addition, in times of natural disaster, Australia has an important coordination and leadership role to facilitate the inclusion of people with disabilities to ensure that delivery of aid is effective.

Two-thirds of the global population of persons with disability live in the Asia Pacific region, of which 82% live below the poverty line. Yet apart from Australia, the major bilateral donors active in disability inclusive development in Asia are limited to Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States. In addition, in times of natural disaster, Australia has an important coordination and leadership role to facilitate the inclusion of people with disabilities to ensure that delivery of aid is effective.

Thanks, Donna and Garth Luke for your comments and new viewpoints here.

It would be good to hear what others’ perspectives are…

• Should we be thinking differently about channelling aid through networks and interest groups, not geographically bound?
  
• What does effective, large-scale aid look like? And are the recent gains against malaria in many African countries, a good example of what can be
  made possible by coordinated long-term funding?
  
• Do you agree with Garth that we should focus aid first on the provision of essential services (basic health, education, water and sanitation, food security and nutrition)?
  

In response to your question about whether the amount or use of aid is most important:  It is clear that the effectiveness of aid spending is critical and needs much more attention (greater compliance with Paris and Accra principles being a good starting point), however I think that the amount of aid is also important.

As Jeff Sachs has pointed out, a poorly funded  fire brigade with a single garden hose and one officer is likely to be ineffective at putting out house fires.  But this is not evidence that fire brigades are a bad idea.

Most government donors do not like too many obligations around funding - they want to give the money they want to give in ways they determine.  This is not a good basis for effective large scale aid.  We need to ensure that adequate, coordinated long term funding is provided, Where this happens significant improvements are possible - a good example is in the significant recent gains against malaria in many African countries now that better coordinated and more adequate levels of aid are being provided  eg see http://www.unicef.org/health/files/WMD_optimized_reprint.pdf .  The Australian Government and AusAID recently dropped the ball on the Global Fund replenishment - they had the opportunity to provide their fair share of funding (around $500 m over 3 years)  but decided instead to lift funding to just $210 m over 3 years.  This was a missed opportunity to provide a meaningful level of funding to an effective program for a key issue at a time when their probem is how to allocate more money effectively.

In response to your question: would you prioritise aid to the poorest of the poor and focus on education, health and livelihoods?  Clearly there will be some political and diplomatic factors that will shape the distribution of aid, however the increase in aid program funding is a clear opportunity which we must seize to focus much more on the countries with the greatest numbers of people in poverty.  We are currenlty providing very high levels of per capita aid to many Pacific countries while providing very low levels to places in SE Asia and elsewhere which have high levels of poverty.  

I believe we should also focus first  on the provision of essential services (basic health, education, water and sanitation, food security and nutrition) in our aid program.  This is because these areas are fundamental to all other human development (and survival of course), we are required to under the MDGs and international human rights agreements and also because aid is proven to be effective in these areas. Once we have guaranteed that these areas are adequately covered then other areas of human development should also be supported.  Supporting livelihoods and economic growth is a much more tricky and less proven area of development and should not be given precedence over essential services.   The cost of providing our fair share of support to essential services would be around 47% of the projected aid up to 2015.

Our own Government ensures that the basics are met first in Australia and so should our aid program.

As it is often difficult to ensure that aid channelled through Governments reaches those in need, it might be timely to think in terms of networks or interest groups that are not geographically bound. There is a risk here of fragmentation and dilution but checks could be put in place to avoid this. This would certainly assist specialist NGOs for example.

Thank you, Nigam Vaid, for sharing your insights and perspectives on Africa, including experience in East Africa. You raise a number of interesting points.

What do others think about this topic? Do you agree it is better to ask not how much aid should be given, but how it is used, by whom and for what purpose? Would you prioritise aid to the poorest of the poor and focus on education, health and livelihoods?

Also - what mix of modalities or channels work best (and for what situation(s))? What about Nigam's example where smaller NGOs work where others (like donors) may not?

Plenty of aspects to think about. Maybe you agree, or perhaps you have different views. Please consider sharing your thoughts with others.

Thanks, Beth Fuller for your comment.

Disability inclusive development is an area well worth discussing for the Aid Review Panel.  It is interesting to know that people living with disabilities in the Asia-Pacific represent, in order of magnitude, some 20 x Australia's population size.

What do others think about Beth's comments including Australia's role in global leadership on this issue? Do you have examples of work you are doing in this area, other resources, information or events that you would like to share?

Aid should be directed to the marginalised groups within  populations where AusAID works, who continue to miss out on the benefits and processes of development. People with disabilities -  approximately 650 million worldwide, 80% of whom are in developing countries, and 400 million of whom live in the Asia and Pacific regions - are an important minority group. Australia has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and is therefore mandated to ensure its aid programs are inclusive of people with disabilities. Australia is in a good position to continue its global leadership on disability inclusive development, and we have much to offer the world through implementing and researching how disability inclusive development can be done most effectively.

Amber and others Africa is a continent with many countries, political systems, different resources, different past colonial masters, languages etc, so to lump all AID for Africa into a discussion would be incorrect. My experience which has been mainly in East Africa in the field of Agriculture extension and land care gave me some insight into aid and government policies. It is not the amount of aid but how it is used and by whom for what purpose. In my opinion aid channeled via smaller NGO's has a greater chance of reaching its intended target, aid channeled via large prjects through government channels fails in this respect. Most aid has strings atttached and also the stench of corruption, in some countries I knowdonors had to pay very senior officials etc to get approval for donating money to ceratin projects (who says beggars cannot be choosers). In Kenya most proposals for the north are rejected due to poltical considerations, donors raraely pursue avenues to help them, though the smaller NGO's are able to get into the area.

If i had to choose I would give aid to the poorest of the poor of any given country and attack three areas, education, health and livelihood.

Thanks, Amber, for sharing your comment.

What do others think of the expanded engagement in Africa? 

What, also, of the link between further aid to Africa (currently around 5% of Australia's bilateral aid budget (http://bit.ly/fGUXmV)) and a possibly greater trade interest?

I am a little confused by the expanded engagement in Africa. Aid often comes with a political/ trade cost to the recipient country by the donar country and is certainly not purely humanitarian in nature. I assume there is a greater trade interest in Africa now that its political instability has lessened somewhat?

Hi James, Thanks for your contribution and the link to the interesting article.

Do others agree or disagree with this idea or various ones in this discussion thread, including this excerpt from Gary Lee of Aid/Watch?

We have one more, final day for posts and comments before public voting begins... please add in your ideas here, if you like.

See comments by Gary Lee of Aid/Watch in this Herald article from Saturday: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/does-foreign-aid-do-more-harm-than-good-20110318-1c0a1.html

"Although the last review of Australia's aid program in 1997 called for a shift away from short-term foreign policy and commercial objectives to one focused on poverty reduction, the practice of using the aid program to promote Australia's national interest continues. For example, half of Australian aid to Afghanistan between 2007 and 2009 was channelled through the Australian Defence Force, which is not required to report or evaluate the impact of its aid."

Hi All

If you're keen to read more, feel free to check out whydev's longer discussion piece on this topic here: http://www.whydev.org/open-submission-to-the-ausaid-review/

Thanks

ADG Team

Hi Sam - thank you to your post and others, for your comments here. You raise some interesting points, and new perspectives. Much appreciated.

Here are some key points I saw emerging.  What do people think about some of these points? Do you agree or disagree? Maybe you find other points of interest?

1. Objective of Australian aid

• "To reduce poverty, achieve sustainable development... [but why also include] 'in line with Australia's national interests[?]'" (Thanks, Sam)
• Is the 'national interest' point "... ambiguous? Does that mean that we only provide aid if it helps our own country?" (Comment by Weh)
• "Can it not mean that aid should be part of... what Australia means in the world? (not only) 'taken to mean to support Australia's economic interests'?" (Thanks, Alex)
• "...we have a moral obligation to spend the 0.3% of our GNI which is aid money on alleviating poverty, and keep that separate from the remaining 99.7% which is for Australia's national interest" (Nishan's comment) 

2. Responsibility of government

• "regional stability in the Asia Pacific region" is important... but "is this really the role of foreign aid"? (Thanks, Weh)
• Perhaps "Human rights, and the promotion and securing of, must be the anchor of Australia's aid program" (Comment by Brendan)

Please feel free to add comments you have in the next few days. Then we'll close posts and comments on aid.collabor8.net, and open public voting… 

What do you think about Australian aid?

In terms of the Australian government's responsibility, it is absolutely their role look after regional stability in the Asia Pacific region, and yes, that is what we pay our taxes for. But, coming back to my original point (and the point made by Nishan elsewhere in the comments), is this really the role of foreign aid? Or would it be better allocated to another task performed by DFAT, while we separate AusAid from this department?

Just to throw a grenade in the midst, on the point of responsibility. Is it not our government's responsibility, as a representative of the Australian people, to look after our interests in the Asia Pacific region? To ensure stability, which will secure our own economic and social lives? Aid is the Australian taxpayers money. I am not taking this particular view, just trying to make sense of responsibility. Human rights, and the promotion and securing of, must be the anchor of Australia's aid program. I have no empirical evidence on me, but intuition tells me that the link between a person's human rights (Sen = ability to pursue a life that is meaningful to them) and poverty (as a relative term) is strong.

You have hit the nail on the head Nishan - housing AusAid under DFAT is a massive problem. Just take a look at the negotiations around the new trade agreement for the Pacific (Pacer Plus). This is supposedly a 'development-centered' round of trade talks, however its primary purpose is quite clearly to open up markets for Australian providers, particularly service exporters. Separating AusAid into a seperate department with another Minister would be a great sign of faith to the Australian NGO community and to the countries who are recipients of our aid money.

That is a very instructive way to frame it Nishan and a strong, rational argument for allocating 0.3% of GNI on the grounds of moral responsibility and human rights rather than national interest

I think the use of the term 'national interest' by the Australian government is fairly overtly about 'bringing benefit to Australia' rather than 'aligning to Australian morality' . AusAID is currently under the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), which has the objective of 'Advancing Australia's national interest'. To me this is clearly about Australias benefit and I think its reasonable that DFAT has this objective. However i think we have a moral obligation to spend the .3% of our GNI which is aid money on alleviating poverty, and keep that seperate from the remaining 99.7% which is for Australia's national interest.

"in line with Australia's national interests" - this is where I think things can become ambiguous. Does that mean that we only provide aid if it helps our own country? If so, I think this is fraught with danger because the recipient of aid is often placed secondary to our own needs. The example I am thinking of is that of the US providing condoms for African nations, which ultimately boosts their own manufacturing industry. However, if they were to outsource the production of condoms to African manufacturers, not only would they boost the local industries but they would also be able to produce them at a much lower cost. Therefore, if foreign aid is provided on a purely altruistic level (eg alleviation of poverty), this is clearly not a good use of resources.

"In Australia's national interest" has, in all these comments, been taken to mean to support Australia economic interests. What is the actual meaning of this statement? That aid should pave the way for Rio Tinto to pave over Borneo and Coles to open in Colombo or Suva? Can it also mean that aid should not be given to governments that don't deserve it, i.e. North Korea, Eritrea, and Burma? Even if the citizens of those countries are poor. Can it not mean that aid should be part of a larger discussion about what Australia's national interest is in the world? What Australia means in the world?

Hi Tony. There are some new perspectives here, thank you.  Here's a few things (para-phrased) that seemed to stand out. What did others think?

'... Effectiveness could be seen as narrowing the gap between our planning and the total context in which a project will unfold.'

'... Ideas: give a project manager the flexibility of a CEO in a small to medium sized enterprise; study the uptake of project evaluation recommendations; don't limit effective projects to a set ministy/province/country for the 1, 3 or 5 year project.'

Did you agree or disagree with some of these ideas on effectiveness?

There are so many ways "aid effectiveness" can be defined and that is clear from comments made already.  I had a wild, cynical thought that it could also be defined as minimizing the "evaporation" (what a nice nuetral word) that often occurs during project implementation.

Logically, from the meaning of "effectiveness", we appear to be talking out outcomes and impacts.  These are posited in project design, and as other commentators have said, outcomes and impacts are often not visible until several years after project completion.  Also, by the time several years have transpired after project completion, the desired outcome may be evident but what caused it?  Your project?  Other external factors? A combination of your project and other factors?  If so. how much causality can you attribute to your project?

In the folowing comments I am somewhat influenced by the work of psychologist Dr Richard E Nisbett in his book "The Geography of Thought.  How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why" Free Press, New York 2004.

One could start with the view that it is quite a gamble to posit what inputs (nature, size and timing) will, when completed (outputs) will produce the presupposed outcomes.

We might be blinded by our Western thought process of focussing on single objects or systems that are themselves interdependent with a wider and very dynamic context.  One could argue that the log frame, risk analysis, stakeholder analysis, participation analysis, etc contributes to this inadequate vision of reality.

Maybe increased effectiveness is about narrowing the gap between our specific guesses (planning) and the total context (relationship analysis) in which the project will unfold.

To start with, why not acknowledge that we are guessing when we predict the future through our modalities of planning and the project implementation discipline that follows.  All of us would have seen project sub-components persisted with even though it becomes obvious they should be dropped.

Of course country strategies can be a guide to donors provided the recipient countries, though both their political and administrative hierarchies have "bought in" to those strategies.

What if the project manager had the same flexibility as a CEO in a small to medium sized enterprise?  This includes constant attention to the external enviroment, seeing opportunities generated by changes in the external environment and responding promptly to them, building up "person based" relationships with the external environment, quickly cancelling activities where little progress is being made, reallocating financial and staff resources promptly, and progressively making the outcomes more specific from their original higher level of generality.  Of course there would need to be regular consultation with an easily accessible corporate board.

Another wild thought on measuring aid effectiveness is to study how many recommendations in project evaluation reports have been noted and then included in future aid projects in that sector in that country.

Of course, how effective an aid project is also related to where (institutionally and in terms of "mover and shaker" personnel) it is embedded.  When reviewing overall  aid projects in a recipient country , it is fairly obvious which institutions with their lead and middle level personnel have 100% bought into the projects and have driven them with gusto and little or no evaporation.  When these conducive "hot spots" are found, why need feed success and put more projects in their direction?  Why limit assistance to that ministry or province or county to one three to five year project?

Enough for now!

In order to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the aid program in relation to the inclusion of people with disabilities, people with disabilities in partner countries should be actively involved and consulted as far as practicable. Furthermore, disaggregated data should identify if and how people with disabilities are being included in development initiatives.

Hi All, Thanks for your perspectives and contributions here.

What do others think of some of these? What about…:

• The mismatch between the donor’s and recipient’s concept of aid effectiveness? (interesting points from Donna Vaughan)
• Broadening our thinking of effectiveness to include other factors from the recipient perspective, like trade policy and investment? (thanks, Joel Negin)
• The unexpected outcomes that could denote a program’s effectiveness – as assessed by a participant, rather than a project manager or donor’s view? (thx for alternative viewpoint, Gillian Fletcher)

It seems to me that a key question here is: what do we mean by 'effectiveness'? Further, who gets to set the measures of effectiveness, and who gets to assess it? (To put it crudely, assuming we are essentially talking about 'bang for buck', which type of bang, and who gets to say if it was a good one or not?)

The current M&E focus on collation and analysis of quantitative data can produce highly skewed pictures of effectiveness; number of people reached per program, for instance, is often presented as a measure of effectiveness. What about consideration of what was achieved by a program, both in terms of outcomes identified from the start of the program and also in terms of unexpected outcomes? A sex worker's view of the effectiveness of a project in which she is involved is likely to be greatly different to a project manager's view, or a donor's view. In HIV, for instance, a sex worker who has sat through literally hundreds of condom demonstrations is unlikely to consider the demonstration itself effective, but will value the opportunity to chat with friends, take a shower, learn about new brothels from other women... in my experience, little of this appears to be either captured or considered.

Following on from Donna's point below, aid effectiveness is very much a term that emanates from the donor perspective.  Developing country governments are more likely to speak of development effectiveness which broadens the scope to include trade policy, investment, and other areas of engagement beyond aid that contribute to growth and poverty reduction.

The aid review is focused on effectiveness for Australia but we shouldn't be too narrow in our thinking about other factors that impact on developing countries.

It is important to distinguish the donor's concept of aid effectiveness from the recipient's concept. These could be quite distinct. A sole focus on return on investment (economic or social) will tend to limit funding horizons and place unsustainable financial burdens on recipients once initial funding expires. Aid recipients at a grassroots level are often focused on long term benefits, and may have quite different needs or expectations of support from donors. This mismatch results in project failure. The wto must be aligned from the start through a consultative, participatory process.

Hi Susan, Thanks for contributing this link.

What do others think? It would be interesting to hear some views from charities or NGOs on this.

The article seems to point to the use of a tool (called Social Return On Investment (SROI)) that measures charities' impact. SROI attributes a financial value to inputs and outcomes and calculates these as a ratio.  A report by the UK-based Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC) finds some limitations to SROI though - including that it is difficult to use as a comparative tool (between charities).

Or - did you find something quite different on your reading of this article? And, are there other ROI tools used - whether by charities or others involved with delivery of Australian aid? It would be interesting to hear from you.

This article may be of interest http://www.ethicalinvestor.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4055&Itemid=402

Thank you, Toby, for your comments here and new perspectives. 

Others - any final ideas or inputs here before posts and comments close up and voting begins?

I would like to see much more innovation in Australian aid, and a flexible, effective and outcomes focussed team that draws on expertise and works with talent across sectors to find solutions. I think there is a great pool of talent attracted to work in aid that should be enabled to innovate and work with local institutions and staff to achieve outcomes in communities.  

And can we reduce outsourcing of programs? Outsourcing dilutes accountability and provides no incentive for ongoing improvement, rather encourages the cheapest delivery of minimal outcomes.

Please review our youth programs – tokenistic, ineffective projects are offensive and demoralising to the intelligent young Australians involved. We can do better.

Great to see a forum, hope more people comment!

Hi John and PNG guy, Thanks for your comments here and interesting viewpoints.

Are there other ideas people would like to share on this? What do you think - could experience be shared more in the public domain?

Please feel free to share your thoughts...

There is something in PNG guy's question, aid practioners gain quite a good, perspective on different countries and cultures, this is not used much by business and others with dealings in the developing world, possibly they think we are too niaive or not commercial? Collaboration between aid and infrastructure projects is one area of colloboration through the major engineering companies who do both types of work, but the experience is not in the public domain as png guy would like.   

I go to PNG and the Pacific on business sometimes. It's often hard to find the information I want. I'm sure I'm not the first to encounter certain challenges of in working in the region.

It would be great to have somewhere to share experiences and swap notes. It would be great to draw on other experiences and reports on line. And while story-telling may be part of the oral tradition in the Pacific, it seems these traditions have yet to find their voice online.

What if we each became more active in pooling our expertise online more (like in blogs, forums, online sites)? Would it really be such a leap? Could this be part of the solution toward delivering successes in the future? We can share lessons learnt in real-time.

gee john, you sound like an agency...... the agency needs to have a sense of what is happening but what change is the agency is planning for......

Hi John, Thanks very much for your considered comments here. 

I found a link to the World Bank publication you mention (http://bit.ly/hNdrl2) - there's a brief summary there in case others are interested.

Your point about mobile phone technology as an enabler may also be interesting to others. In 2010 there were 3.7 billion mobile phone subscriptions in developing countries (http://bit.ly/f9WyFV).

There are a number of subjects in this string that I can comment on from 30 years experience.

IT in development: Mobile phone technology has helped in general communications and in micro credit, it seems to be going to help in insurance, particulaly health and as web browsers become more 'mobile friendly' they will help more in education.

Australia's best contribution: Aid is part of Australia's 'presence' in the world, aid is cheap diplomacy and a somewhat effective means of 'extending' our skills, products etc to others. Our aid program shows we are prepared to contribute (think of the 2004 Tsunami). It follows from this that we should focus where our 'presence' is of most use to us, and where our skills and products can be useful to others. This is mostly our region but diplomatic and trade benefits can accure from effort in other regions. In my experience our education contributions in the widest sense have been the most useful to others, I have often been struck by this when meeting people I knew 20 years ago in senior postions, although our universities seem to be assidously degrading this benefit in the interests of income.

Consultants long and short term: This is not a simple subject, consultants supply the market provided by agencies, who are bureacracies made up of people with a mix of motives, fears and aspirations.  Bureacracies tend to punish failure more than they reward success (at least for the people at the coal face). AusAid's staff have been more successful than most in insulating them selves from the consequences of their actions (and so unfortunately the lessons) and consultants (and committees) are used in this process. The solutions? more indepth reviews and particulatly institutional shakeups. Delegate more to posts, reduce reliance on technical committees, make individual staff more responsible, implement projects with local/Australian joint ventures thus improving the educational effect. Some of this is already happening.

The value developing countries see from Australians: 30 years teaches me that people value our informality, friendliness and often our competence (an important part of the education benefit). Some times our confidence in the rightness of our positions is quite grateting but we are not alone in this regard among donors. Aus Aid seems to have a reputation for being expensive, inflexiable and isolated institutionally.  In spite of its rhetoric it remains a paternalistic institution.   

Do we achieve anything for the recipient partners? Yes, considering the risk, the complexity and resulting cultural misunderstandings this is a very difficult business. A World Bank publications of some time ago, Foreign Aid; What Works, What Doesn't and Why (Dollar and Pritchard) showed that joint private, public acivities between developed countries and developing countries with shared history (usually colonial) produced more ecomonic benefits that others (although our experience in PNG would seem to belie this). This suggests a long term thought through collaboration ith plenty of education in the widest sense will of most mutual benefit to us and our partners.   

Hi Dianne, 'Making a contribution', and Gillian.  An engaging discussion thread here. You’ve each raised some unique points – thanks very much.

How can we best make use of the contribution that advisers, volunteers, Australians and others want to make to and invest in, Australia’s aid program? 

What do people think about more ‘interaction and sharing of information between organisations’?

Please share your ideas with us and others... Keen to know what you think.

As a consultant, I have to agree with 'Making a contribution's' post re: the churning of consultants.

But I would like to add that this is often not the way that consultants want things to be! For example, it is extremely demoralising to be brought in to undertake research that youhave been told will be used to inform program development, only to find out that the program starts even before the research is complete (and that it is, essentially, a 'cut and paste' job with logframe copied from a pre-existing project).

Does anyone else ever feel like we are all just jumping through hoops, doing tasks because the tasks are expected rather than doing tasks because they are thought through, useful, and timely?

I agree with Dianne. Another contributing frustration to the problems of 'people churn' mentioned by Dianne would have to be an over use of consultants by AusAID (as well as many other country's aid programs). I have seen a number of consultants employed by AusAID fly in to the capital of a country for a week. Go around and meet with everyone who may be available on such short notice and then fly home to write a report for AusAID which no one ever sees again and no one knows what impact such reports ever had.

Some sort of internal ‘project office’ within AusAID to undertake the type of work currently been done by external consultants might be a solution to this and be able to provide a bit more accountability in these circumstances.

As a person who has just spent 6 years living and working in Rwanda on health development I think Monkey makes some good points about "the coming and going" of people.  I have been observing this dynamic from my privileged position of long service. Most people (?experts) come and go within a year, often less and rarely more. Sustainability of change and development take time and willingness to "wait", fit in, understand, encourage, teach and teach again, then reiterate. Too many development organisations want the quick fix which looks great on paper for attracting the funds but which is often meaningless and unsustainable on the ground. I have never been to Melanesia but I don't imagine the aid and development approach is too different there from where I am. Clearly I am a proponent of long term commitment.

Also one of the other contributors talks about donors tripping over each other. Aid is a competitive business, which can lead to a great deal of overlap and wastage of funding and resources. I have watched several organisations spending money on the same projects; all ending up producing pretty close to the same thing without any interaction or sharing of information. Whatever programme structure is implemented this needs to be considered.

Thanks, 'Monkey'.

Building on your comment a bit, do others have any further thoughts on the statement: "Melanesian partners value our aid efforts;... but how well do we know each other?"