Executive Summary
Purpose
The New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) commissioned Adam Smith International to conduct an independent evaluation of its country programmes in the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tokelau. The evaluation assessed the quality of New Zealand’s aid delivery, the results of its programme of assistance, and suggested ways New Zealand could better support the above countries.
The Key Evaluation Question is:
“How, and to what extent, has New Zealand’s development cooperation contributed to sustainable economic and human development in the target countries (Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tokelau`) and what lessons can be learnt from this to improve country programme assistance in the future?”
Three Secondary Evaluation Questions (SEQ’s) were developed to explore the issues raised in the Key Evaluation Question further:
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To what extent is New Zealand’s aid delivery to the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tokelau of a high quality?
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What are the results of New Zealand’s country programme in the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tokelau and how sustainable are these results?
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How can New Zealand better meet its obligations to the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tokelau?
Findings
With regards to Secondary Evaluation Question 1 (“quality of aid delivery”) the evaluation found that New Zealand’s aid delivery is of a high quality but more could be done to further improve aid delivery. Of significant importance is New Zealand’s efforts with regards to consolidation and its move to the use of higher order aid modalities such as budget support. There are only moderate levels of fiduciary risk associated with the provision of budget support in three of the four countries. The effectiveness of this support could be improved by adopting a performance management approach customised to the political-economic and institutional factors in each country. New Zealand is a strong and influential partner in each of the four countries. It should consider strengthening human resource capacity in key technical and operational areas to ensure that the policy dialogue and advice it provides is targeted towards influencing reform in each of the countries.
Relationships between New Zealand and each of the four countries are very strong and enduring. New Zealand should consider modifying its financial assistance arrangements with Niue and Tokelau so that they more accurately reflect the actual geo-political relationship, which is not a donor-recipient one. Better capacity building outcomes could be achieved if the relationship between New Zealand government agencies and Realm state counterparts was clarified and interactions made more systematic. New Zealand’s strategic framework of assistance works quite well at a high level. It is clear that departmental priorities are incorporated into country programmes (as evidenced by the consolidation efforts). However, aid quality could be improved with better strategic guidance and analysis at the country level. Analysis-based country strategies that consider the implementation context, the challenges this context presents, the priorities of New Zealand’s aid programme within this context, and how the sum of New Zealand’s financial and human resources will be deployed to address the constraints to human and economic development over the medium to long-term are required.
With regards to Secondary Evaluation Question 2 (“results”) the evaluation found that New Zealand’s support for economic and human development has produced some strong results across all four countries. A number of challenges must now be addressed to ensure these results are sustainable over the long-term.
In the area of economic development, New Zealand’s investments in tourism have contributed to increases in GDP in the Cook Islands and Niue. Tourism numbers and revenues have climbed considerably over the course of New Zealand’s support. In order to build on these investments and ensure sustainability, New Zealand and recipient countries need to strengthen the enabling environment for private sector development, extract more value from tourism, and improve tourism sector planning and coordination. New Zealand’s investments in renewable energy have been particularly important and have helped improve energy security. To ensure sustainability, effort should be concentrated on building the capacity to maintain existing infrastructure, and develop credible energy sector plans and viable models for renewable energy financing. New Zealand’s efforts in private sector development have achieved some sound results, but the enabling environment for private sector development remains weak across all countries and more needs to be done to address the structural issues that affect private sector investment. New Zealand could address this in a more systematic fashion through its country strategies.
In the area of human development, New Zealand’s support for health has generated some good results where there has been strong institutional linkages between New Zealand and recipient country health agencies. There has been less success supporting sectoral approaches. This is primarily due to a lack of good policy development, weak sectoral costing, prioritisation and planning within recipient governments. Lack of recipient government capacity is a constraint in a number of areas across all countries. New Zealand’s visiting medical officer schemes provide a high level of tertiary health care in small island states that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive.
In the area of education it is clear that the countries reviewed rely on New Zealand funds for spending over and above their salary budgets. Some countries have also benefited from having access to New Zealand’s curriculum, qualifications frameworks and tertiary education. Education budgets are very tight in all four countries and New Zealand funds support important quality improvement outcomes. New Zealand’s support for education has been more successful when it has been delivered through a strong Ministry of Education with good leadership, strong policies and good planning. Establishing a more systematic relationship between the Ministry of Education in New Zealand and recipient country Departments’ of Education would help strengthen education outcomes in Niue and Tokelau in particular.