Overseas aid NGOs face more cuts from McCully

Overseas aid NGOs face more cuts from McCully while staff morale suffers


Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully continues to slash aid delivered through non-government organisations, says Labour's associate foreign affairs spokesperson Phil Twyford.

Phil Twyford said the latest casualty is a programme helping villagers in four Pacific countries reduce the impact of disasters such as tsunamis, cyclones and floods through disaster preparedness training and working with local government.

The NGO managing the project has been shocked by the cut which it believes has come on the Minister’s orders. The Suva-based Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific reports NZ funding was cut a year before the contract was due to expire and without any assessment of the programme's impact.

The programme was initiated two years ago in collaboration with NZAID, the government aid agency disestablished soon after the National-ACT Government came to office, Phil Twyford said. New Zealand pledged to commit $500,000 a year for three years but now funding has been cut after only one year.

"Mr McCully is taking an axe to NGO-based programmes that he doesn't like the look of. The cuts seem to be made on the Minister's whim, not on the basis of any evidence or assessment by officials.

"Not content to cut the funding of NGOs in the Pacific, Mr McCully has also cut the funding of Global Focus, a Wellington-based service which provides information resources on international development. This comes on the heels of his 90% cut to the funding of the NGO umbrella group Council for International Development earlier this year which led to nine of its staff being laid off.

"The Minister’s ideological crusade is destroying years of good cooperation between NGOs and New Zealand's overseas aid programme," Phil Twyford said.

“Staff morale in the aid programme is at an all-time low, 18 months after the Government announced its intention to disestablish NZAID and switch the aid programme's focus to economic development.

“A revealing excerpt from a Ministry of Foreign Affairs document released under the Official Information Act quotes ministry CEO John Allen saying to a staff meeting: ‘I understand the impact on morale of the challenges that staff have faced in the past year. I understand that the decisions that have been made are tough and they impact on people, on organisational identity, and on staff morale. It is legitimate for people to have strong feelings and views on these issues’."

ENDS