Support for Australian Aid: It's an engagement thing

Written By Lisa Ritchie

In 2017 the Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, addressed a room full of aid professionals at the 2017 Australasian Aid Conference in Canberra. Bishop provided a comprehensive outline of key aspects of the aid program, all that was planned and even announced some new funding. But what struck me, and stayed with me, was the plea for the aid sector to communicate better.

Bishop implored that auditorium of development professionals to better communicate to the Australian public what they do.  The message was clear – work to build domestic support or face further cuts.

Quoted from the Australian Foreign Minister’s address to the 2017 Australasian Aid Conference, Canberra. Read the full speech here.

Roughly 18 months on, the aid budget continues to be squeezed. And it is happening against a backdrop of an increasingly uncertain world, where more and more countries are looking inwards not outwards and building walls rather than opening doors. The clarion call for the Australian aid sector to better communicate what it does to Australian audiences is only ringing louder, more urgently.

The Conversation recently published an article by Jonathon Pryke on the findings of a 2018 Lowy Institute poll. With poll questions framed differently to previous years, the results were illuminating, demonstrating that “when asked what percentage of the government budget is spent on foreign aid, Australians on average think that 14% of the budget is spent on aid, while they say 10% should be spent on aid. Australia’s aid budget is approximately 0.8% of the federal budget.”

These poll findings tell an interesting tale and, as Pryke notes, they highlight that Australians think little about foreign aid and they trust the government to do what is right.

This is where the lack of engagement comes into play. An unengaged audience will not invest to either understand or lobby an issue.  The Australian aid sector is faced with a double-whammy. We have an unengaged audience with views formed by long-standing assumptions. This is an audience that is hard to reach.

Bishop was right. The aid sector needs to find a way to better communicate what it does to the folks at home. However, the solution does not lie in more communication, but in better, targeted, sustained communication and engagement (and the difference between the two is important).

Mixed messages fuel misconceptions

There are a myriad of reasons why the Australian public does not, or perhaps cannot, engage with Australia’s aid program.


Aid is an ‘opt-in’ issue

Aid is something that happens somewhere else. Aid does not, as a rule, impact the lives of the Australian public unless they choose to be involved. It is essentially, an ‘opt-in’ issue. This is where better engagement is critical. If people have not ‘opted-in’ we are simply shouting to the wind.

Aid is complex

Aid is a necessarily complex field that is not easily communicated, and what is communicated domestically is communicated by different players with different objectives.

It’s a far more commercial and competitive industry than people realise, yet is often viewed, as Bishop noted the speech quoted above, through ‘the outdated lens of some sort of benevolent charity’.

The humanitarian and emergency response are the most easily recognisable elements of Australia’s aid program – and for good reason – yet these initiatives only scratch the surface of the depth and breadth of activities that are delivered.

The private sector, specifically managing contractors, have an important role to play in contributing to and building the Australian public’s understanding of aid. As does the Australian Government itself. That ‘charitable lens’ through which aid is seen can be refocused by a ‘professionalising’ of the communication, and not shying away from the complexities.

It’s a big machine with many moving parts

Aid is delivered through bilateral, multilateral, regional and global arrangements. There are NGOs, managing contractors, foundations, research institutes and private sector players. It’s delivered across a diverse range of sectors, addressing a multitude of development challenges in locations and contexts that themselves are not always understood of fully appreciated.  There can be a lot of ‘noise’ about what is happening, but no sense of the big picture.

‘Aid-speak’ is not ‘user-friendly’

There is then ‘aid-speak’. The aid sector is so full of acronyms, terms and oddities that they alienate rather than inform those not ‘in the know’. We build roads, we build capacity, we build diplomatic capital. We immunise, sanitise, commercialise. We speak of innovation, impact, inclusion. We talk of resilience while responding, rebuilding, re-designing and re-programming. We promote elusive terms such as shared-value in the same breath as national interest. The messages are conflicting and confusing.

Cohesively representing the aid program to the audience at home is therefore no small challenge. And, arguably, one that no-one has yet stepped up to tackle.

What next?

There are no quick fixes to the misconceptions surrounding Australia’s aid program. There are also no quick fixes to the mixed messages communicated by the aid sector itself.

But isn’t aid, by its very nature challenging? Why should those of us who front up to all sorts of challenges every day shy away from this one?

The question is, who is responsible for better shaping the sector’s communication and engagement with the Australian public?

That answer, for me, is simple. It is the responsibility of all of us who are involved.

The real question is ….. how?

 

Author’s note: I am currently researching the role of digital media in aid, and am specifically interested in examples of where Australian aid organisations have used digital media to reach Australian audiences. If you have been involved, or are aware of such such examples, I would love to hear more. 

References

Bishop, J 2017 ‘Address to the 2017 Australasian Aid Conference, transcript, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, viewed June 15 2018, https://foreignminister.gov.au/speeches/Pages/2017/jb_sp_170215.aspx

Oliver, A 2018, 2018 Lowy Institute Poll, viewed 30 June, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/2018-lowy-institute-poll

Pryke, J 2018 ‘New research shows Australians have wrong idea on foreign aid spending,’ The Conversation, viewed June 26, https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-australians-have-wrong-idea-on-foreign-aid-spending-98772

Lisa Ritchie
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