Dr Marilyn Waring to undertake NZAID review

Development specialist and former MP, Dr Marilyn Waring, will undertake a ministerial review of NZAID, the government's aid agency, Aid Minister Marian Hobbs announced today.

"I am delighted Dr Waring, who heads Massey University's Public Policy Programme, has accepted the role," Marian Hobbs said. "We're pleased to have someone of her calibre. She has extensive experience with growth and development issues, women’s work, economics and human rights.

"The review is very important. It will check that NZAID is achieving the government’s aim of a more effective aid programme.

"In addition to reviewing operations in Wellington, Marilyn will visit NZAID programmes in the Pacific, assessing the important work that NZAID is doing on the ground in New Zealand's own region."

NZAID became a semi-autonomous agency within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade on 1 July 2002. Before this New Zealand’s official development assistance was delivered through the ministry. NZAID's primary focus is the Pacific region where New Zealand has close links.

The agency is also working in Asia and Latin America, and is assisting with reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. NZAID's main areas of support are basic education, basic health, good governance and developing the poorer countries' potential to generate income and jobs for their own people.

New Zealand's aid budget is $260 million a year. The review will be completed by May 2005.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>