tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/colombo-plan-7286/articlesColombo Plan – The Conversation2019-10-02T21:47:20Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1244522019-10-02T21:47:20Z2019-10-02T21:47:20ZNeither hero nor villain: Canada stuck in the middle of the pack on international aid<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295301/original/file-20191002-49404-ciqf71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C0%2C1973%2C1110&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Canadian Forces troops assist a U.S. Navy helicopter unload its cargo of aid at the airport in Jacmel, Haiti in January 2010. Canada uses the rhetoric of a global foreign aid leader, but in fact, it's a laggard.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is promising to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservatives-foreign-aid-1.5303926">cut overseas aid</a> by 25 per cent. </p>
<p>Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-oecd-report-urges-canada-to-increase-spending-on-foreign-aid/">pledges</a> to increase aid, but will still leave the amount Canada spends on aid at barely <a href="http://cidpnsi.ca/canadas-foreign-aid-2012-2/">0.28 per cent</a> of Canada’s gross national income, well below the levels attained by previous governments. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295206/original/file-20191002-49383-6ot9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C450%2C4390%2C2784&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295206/original/file-20191002-49383-6ot9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C450%2C4390%2C2784&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295206/original/file-20191002-49383-6ot9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295206/original/file-20191002-49383-6ot9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295206/original/file-20191002-49383-6ot9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295206/original/file-20191002-49383-6ot9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295206/original/file-20191002-49383-6ot9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295206/original/file-20191002-49383-6ot9pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Conservative leader Andrew Scheer is pledging to cut Canadian foreign aid. It’s already at historic lows.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward</span></span>
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<p>Neither one shows much awareness of the twists and turns of Canada’s 70 years in the aid field, or a willingness to learn from the past. Both seem to assume aid is an act of pure generosity. </p>
<p>Yet as the contributors to our new book, <em><a href="https://press.ucalgary.ca/books/9781773850405/">A Samaritan State Revisited</a></em>, demonstrate, government policy goals have been much more important than altruism in shaping Canadian aid. </p>
<p>Compared to the size of our economy, our aid has been slipping since the 1980s, and Canada lags behind most other donors. Time and again, we have failed to match our rhetoric with action. We’ve been a middle-of-the-pack aid donor rather than the global leader we should be. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295075/original/file-20191001-173380-7g0d9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295075/original/file-20191001-173380-7g0d9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295075/original/file-20191001-173380-7g0d9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295075/original/file-20191001-173380-7g0d9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295075/original/file-20191001-173380-7g0d9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295075/original/file-20191001-173380-7g0d9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295075/original/file-20191001-173380-7g0d9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295075/original/file-20191001-173380-7g0d9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Aid as a percentage of Gross National Income.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Webster</span></span>
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<p>The first Canadian ventures into aid built on relief efforts in Europe during and after the Second World War, especially the massive mission by the <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4078516/">United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration</a> (UNRRA). Canada sent aid both multilaterally, through the UN and its agencies, as well as bilaterally to favoured countries. It pledged both technical assistance (experts, scholarships and skills transfer) and capital aid (money for major development projects). </p>
<h2>Branding projects</h2>
<p>Within the <a href="http://colombo-plan.org/colombo-plan-history/">Colombo Plan</a>, the Commonwealth’s aid scheme for Asia that Canada helped launch in 1951, recipient governments drew up their own development plans and donors pitched in, sometimes in exchange for the chance to “brand” projects — a Canada dam here, a Canada bridge there.</p>
<p>Aid was linked to Canadian products, serving as economic stimulus at home. If India needed tractors or Burma needed rail cars, and no Canadian company made them, then Canada wouldn’t provide them as aid.</p>
<p>Still, Canada manufactured plenty of things, and was willing to send them to Asia — at least to those parts that were non-communist and, most especially, Commonwealth members. </p>
<p>In the first 15 years of Canada’s aid program, from 1950 to 1965, 95 per cent of Canadian assistance flowed to three Asian Commonwealth member countries: India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Aid administration and project selection was freewheeling and creative, open to recipient government priorities. </p>
<p>Ottawa left the big picture to the UN, its aid programs distinct but conceived as part of a bigger multilateral effort —not a bad summary of how Canadians saw their foreign relations as a whole. </p>
<h2>Africa, the Caribbean</h2>
<p>By the late 1950s, requests from newly independent states in the Caribbean and Africa prompted the creation of more programs. And domestic pressure to respond to demands from French Canada for a foreign policy reflecting Canadian biculturalism spawned cultural, educational and economic aid packages for francophone West Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295204/original/file-20191002-49361-1ghejl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295204/original/file-20191002-49361-1ghejl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295204/original/file-20191002-49361-1ghejl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295204/original/file-20191002-49361-1ghejl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295204/original/file-20191002-49361-1ghejl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295204/original/file-20191002-49361-1ghejl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295204/original/file-20191002-49361-1ghejl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young women learn business skills such as food preparation at Centre D'Apprentissage Feminin in Bamako, Mali, Africa in June 2018. The school is funded by the Canadian NGO, Education Internationale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In 1960, Progressive Conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker moved all aid operations to a new External Aid Office (EAO). Almost overnight, aid scattered in an ad hoc fashion over poorer parts of the globe became “development assistance.”</p>
<p>It was a structured and often multilateral approach that marshalled technical and capital assistance, trade and financial policy and co-ordinated donor support into a complex and long-term campaign for social change and economic growth. </p>
<p>In May 1968, egged on by its reformist director-general, Maurice Strong, Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau transformed the EAO into the <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/canadian-international-development-agency">Canadian International Development Agency</a> (CIDA). In doing so, Trudeau’s government signalled its intention to become a major player in global aid, an ambition marked by a growing roster of recipient countries and a rising aid budget. </p>
<p>The evolving shape of Canadian aid administration echoed global trends, epitomized in the work of a UN-backed <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000056743">Commission on International Development</a> chaired by former Liberal prime minister Lester B. Pearson. The result was Partners in Development, a report released in 1970 that famously set <a href="https://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/the07odagnitarget-ahistory.htm">0.7 per cent of gross national income</a> as the amount that wealthier states ought to spend on development assistance. </p>
<p>Under Strong and his successor, Paul Gérin-Lajoie, CIDA became almost a state within a state. The agency offered room for thinking about development differently. Yet results fell short of the rhetoric. </p>
<p>Measured as a percentage of GDP, Canadian aid under Trudeau reached its pinnacle at 0.54 per cent in 1978 even as other government departments tied CIDA’s budget to broader foreign policy goals. Commercial considerations, in particular, came to the fore.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295076/original/file-20191001-173347-1kosuq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295076/original/file-20191001-173347-1kosuq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295076/original/file-20191001-173347-1kosuq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295076/original/file-20191001-173347-1kosuq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295076/original/file-20191001-173347-1kosuq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295076/original/file-20191001-173347-1kosuq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295076/original/file-20191001-173347-1kosuq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aid Canada vs donor average.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Webster</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Canada’s aid-to-GDP ratio briefly recovered to 0.5 per cent in 1988 under Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney. His government backed CIDA president Margaret Catley-Carlson’s stress on boosting civil society, helping the poorest and promoting “<a href="http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BCCF9/(httpPublications)/D9C3FCA78D3DB32E80256B67005B6AB5">women in development</a>.” </p>
<p>Yet public support for aid was flagging. In a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3233002?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">1985 Decima survey</a>, half of respondents thought that aid was at the right level, whereas only 24 per cent wanted it to increase and 17 per cent judged it too high. </p>
<h2>Cuts to aid begin</h2>
<p>So there was not much political cost for governments that wanted to reduce Canada’s involvement in international development. Cuts began under Mulroney in 1989 to 1992, reflecting both a desire to trim deficits and the decreasing prominence of aid as the Cold War sputtered to an end and the Global South ceased to be an arena of superpower contestation. </p>
<p>Global trends after the Cold War made aid increasingly conditional on the neoliberal <a href="http://www.globalissues.org/article/3/structural-adjustment-a-major-cause-of-poverty">structural adjustment programs</a> championed by international financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and major donor states. </p>
<p>Under its president, Marcel Massé, CIDA embraced this free market “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/09/the-world-bank-and-the-imf-wont-admit-their-policies-are-the-problem">Washington consensus</a>,” pushing governments in the Global South to deregulate their economies, reduce public spending and turn to market-based policies.</p>
<p>In a reflection of Canadian trade goals, CIDA prioritized more middle-income countries such as Indonesia and China as major recipients, while cutting out lower-income countries. </p>
<p>Mulroney also began to dismantle the architecture of public engagement on which CIDA’s popular support had rested. The process accelerated under Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien and culminated in the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/timeline-oda-and-the-kairos-funding-1.1027221">outright hostility</a> toward many aid NGOs expressed by Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper’s government. </p>
<p>Hapless CIDA officials were unable to defend their agency from calls to merge it with the much larger Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, a merger accomplished in 2013. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295077/original/file-20191001-173375-1n3rv2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295077/original/file-20191001-173375-1n3rv2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295077/original/file-20191001-173375-1n3rv2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295077/original/file-20191001-173375-1n3rv2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295077/original/file-20191001-173375-1n3rv2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295077/original/file-20191001-173375-1n3rv2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295077/original/file-20191001-173375-1n3rv2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295077/original/file-20191001-173375-1n3rv2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aid as a percentage of GNI for Canada, France, the U.K. and the U.S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Webster</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Canadian aid has moved through new policies and new priorities over the decades, but coherence has long been lacking. </p>
<p>Its current rate of 0.28 per cent of gross national income is half of its 1970s peak and well below the average for all donor states. Ambitious positioning of Canada as global leader is <a href="https://www.cips-cepi.ca/2014/04/28/cidas-underspending-the-ministers-explanations-dont-add-up/">undermined by the scant resources allocated</a> to aid. </p>
<p>Still, Canadians see their country as generous and sympathetic, and Canadian governments have never ceased to be major players in global development debates. <em>A Samaritan State Revisited</em> reminds us that Canada is neither a heroic do-gooder nor an imperialist exploiter. Rather, our country is in a more ambiguous position that has both reflected and shaped global trends in Canadian development thought and practice. </p>
<p>The erosion of public support for aid under Mulroney, Chretien and Harper made Canada’s meagre aid a tempting target for cuts — even as the facts show that Canada is a laggard, not a leader, on aid. </p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Webster receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council for an unrelated project. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greg Donaghy is Director of the Bill Graham Center for Contemporary International History</span></em></p>Compared to the size of our economy, Canadian aid has been slipping since the 1980s, and we now lag behind most other donors. Our rhetoric is unmatched by action.David Webster, Associate Professor of History / Professeur Agrégé, Département d’Histoire, Bishop's UniversityGreg Donaghy, Director, Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/283012014-06-25T04:23:01Z2014-06-25T04:23:01ZNew Colombo Plan can change how we see Asia – if done right<p>The government has high hopes that the <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/new-colombo-plan/">New Colombo Plan</a> will lead to a more Asia-literate society and people-to-people links will improve our relations with Asian nations in the program. But for this to be successful, there’s a few things it still needs to think about, such as the calibre of the students as diplomats, and whether they’re in Asia long enough to really immerse themselves.</p>
<p>In announcing Australia’s “new aid paradigm” at the National Press Club recently, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop topped and tailed <a href="http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/speeches/Pages/2014/jb_sp_140618.aspx">her speech</a> with the Colombo Plan. </p>
<p>Bishop began by recalling the thousands of Asian students who were sponsored to study in Australia under the Colombo Plan for aid to south and southeast Asia, commencing in 1951. She concluded with reference to a new “signature policy in foreign affairs” that is the government’s New Colombo Plan, which provides support for Australian students to study and undertake internships in a partner Asian country.</p>
<h2>The ‘long view’ of Australian engagement</h2>
<p>The bigger story according to Bishop is the “long view” of Australia’s engagement in its region: flows of people to and from Asia creating people-to-people linkages over time. </p>
<p>However, this raises important questions. The first thing to note is the awkwardness of linking scholarships with a policy speech about greater aid effectiveness. </p>
<p>It will always be problematic to measure the original Colombo Plan’s success in terms of aid. We can point to political, business, research and community leaders through Asia who were once Colombo Plan scholars such as Indonesian vice-president Boediono, and we trust that some of them have made a difference in the development of their respective countries. But keeping track of all of the returned alumni and measuring their effectiveness in terms of poverty alleviation or development is devilishly hard.</p>
<p>The story is different in terms of “soft power”. The Colombo Plans, old and new, generate wonderful human-interest material as students experience new lands and learning. And they are ready-made vehicles for the “humanising” of foreign policy objectives, such as cultivating friends and two-way understanding of Australia and our region – public diplomacy in modern parlance.</p>
<p>The original Colombo Plan, 63 years old next month, signalled the potential and also the limits of using sponsored student movements as public diplomacy. In training more than 20,000 students (some of whom rose to prominence upon returning home), Australian governments cultivated ties that would endure. They added “ballast” to relationships with key neighbours such as Indonesia and Malaysia. </p>
<p>Even more importantly, perhaps, the Colombo Plan educated Australians who knew too little about post-independence Asia, and broke down barriers to greater communication and understanding.</p>
<p>But there were limits to what could be achieved in the name of the Colombo Plan. Some of the publicity around Australian efforts stalled when it was not translated into local languages, and it was hard to maintain a profile in countries such as India, where the numbers spending time in Australia represented a miniscule fraction of the population. </p>
<p>As mentioned, it was also very hard to keep track of where Colombo Plan alumni ended up. Those who had positive experiences in Australia were invariably those who proved easiest to track down later, but their number didn’t account for anything like the full complement.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51979/original/4ysbnq7v-1403575402.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51979/original/4ysbnq7v-1403575402.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51979/original/4ysbnq7v-1403575402.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51979/original/4ysbnq7v-1403575402.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51979/original/4ysbnq7v-1403575402.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51979/original/4ysbnq7v-1403575402.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51979/original/4ysbnq7v-1403575402.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51979/original/4ysbnq7v-1403575402.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Governments hope cultural exchanges create people-to-people links between nations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/afsusa/8609804413">Flickr/AFS-USA intercultural</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What do these lessons suggest for the New Colombo Plan?</h2>
<p>The aim of fostering interest in the region and replacing the largely one-way flow of Asian students to Australia with a two-way flow is widely welcomed. The first tranche of funding under the New Colombo Plan started in February, and 24 Australian universities sent more than 300 students to Asia for study, language training and internships.</p>
<p>This year’s pilot program involves Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. Next year, the New Colombo Plan will involve a broader range of partner countries in the Indo-Pacific, and we already know one of these is China. </p>
<p>In policy language, there is a sense of Australian students being generational pioneers for “our destiny” in Asia. This is almost an inversion of the older development paradigm through which Asians were encouraged to see education in Australia.</p>
<p>If it is to be successful and be seen – as Bishop intends – as “a rite of passage” for young Australians, then two crucial criteria must be met. First, we will need the Australian public as well as universities to embrace the plan. We look for stimulating stories about the institutions visited and educational or internship experiences enjoyed. </p>
<p>The New Colombo Plan has the potential to help shift us from seeing Asia primarily through the eyes of tourists and exporters. It might enable us to draw more on the experiences of the roughly half a million Australians who already live and work in the region. </p>
<p>We also need our new New Colombo Plan scholars to be great listeners and learners – qualities not necessarily instilled if, as has sometimes been the case this year, their overseas ventures are very short-term. Good listening is an essential quality of public diplomacy initiatives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Lowe receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Australian Aid (Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade).</span></em></p>The government has high hopes that the New Colombo Plan will lead to a more Asia-literate society and people-to-people links will improve our relations with Asian nations in the program. But for this to…David Lowe, Director of the Alfred Deakin Research Institute, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/183132013-09-30T04:24:35Z2013-09-30T04:24:35ZYoung people, employment and the Coalition’s regional challenge<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31621/original/skvp346g-1379559204.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What does the future hold for young adults under a Coalition government?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Julian Smith</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Coalition government has begun its term in office with some controversial policy proposals related to Australia’s international engagement. These include <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national-news/federal-election/coalition-promises-cuts-to-foreign-aid-public-service-and-murray-darling-scheme/story-fnho52ip-1226711731026">cuts to international aid</a>, hardline responses to asylum seekers and, less controversially, revisiting the <a href="http://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2013/08/30/coalitions-policy-new-colombo-plan">Colombo Plan</a>. They reflect a series of tensions arising in Australia’s engagement with the region. Education is seen to play a significant role in “soft diplomacy”.</p>
<p>The 2013 edition of <a href="http://www.fya.org.au">How Young People are Faring</a>, published by the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA), highlights some key trends in young people’s transition from school to work, study and training related to their cultural backgrounds, as well as Australia’s economic relationship to the region. It pulls into focus certain cultural and economic challenges for the Coalition government that require a nuanced understanding of some key dynamics of Australia’s engagement with Asia. </p>
<p>These dynamics suggest that any strategy to engage the region should recognise this engagement as a two-way street; one that flows inwards and outwards and which should draw from a nexus between local and international education. </p>
<h2>Looking inwards</h2>
<p>Modern Australia is defined by its cultural diversity. As demographer <a href="http://theconversation.com/the-cornerstone-of-democracy-why-and-how-the-census-counts-7607">Graeme Hugo</a> points out, there are 62 birthplace groups with more than 10,000 members in Australia, making it “one of the most ethnically diverse in the world”.</p>
<p>Asia looms large in Australia’s cultural makeup. <a href="http://foi.deewr.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/state_of_australias_young_people_a_report_on_the_social_economic_health_and_family_lives_of_young_people.pdf">One in five</a> young Australians speaks a language other than English at home (mostly an Asian language). Five of the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/1301.0Feature%20Article7012009%E2%80%9310?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1301.0&issue=2009%9610&num=&view=">top ten languages</a> spoken at home include Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Hindi and Tagalog. </p>
<p>The authors of the <a href="http://www.fya.org.au">FYA report</a> from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) note that the rate of achievement of Year 12 and higher education qualifications for 20-24 year olds from non-English speaking backgrounds is far higher than for Australia as a whole. A challenge to the Coalition government is to understand what is going on in these households and if/how this understanding can be applied across the population in general.</p>
<h2>Speaking the language of the region</h2>
<p>Looking outwards, the Coalition has <a href="http://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2013/08/30/coalitions-policy-new-colombo-plan">promised A$100 million</a> to fund a new Colombo Plan in the form of a five-year pilot scheme and trial next year. This will seek to encourage Australian undergraduates to study and work in the region as part of their degree. </p>
<p>In a speech in June last year, then-opposition leader Tony Abbott <a href="http://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2012/06/30/leader-oppositions-address-56th-federal-council-liberal-party-australia">announced</a> that the new plan:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…doesn’t just bring the best and the brightest from our region to Australia but that takes Australia’s best and brightest to our region.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Abbott recognises that our engagement with regional economies is vital to future prosperity. Citing research by Asialink, the FYA report highlights that Australia conducts more trade with Asia than the <a href="http://asialink.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/619793/Developing_an_Asia_Capable_Workforce.pdf">rest of the world combined</a> and that Asia’s real GDP will more than double from US$26 trillion in 2011 to US$67 trillion in 2030. This amounts to more than the projected GDP of the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/editorial/asia-offers-us-more-than-coal-and-iron-ore-sales--if-we-know-how-20120906-25hcl.html">Americas and Europe combined</a>.</p>
<p>In the same 2012 speech, Abbott added: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We should better appreciate not just how much Australia can give our neighbours but how much they can give us, in cultural insights as well as in trade benefits. But that’s hard when there are, for instance, 17,000 Indonesians studying here but only some 200 Australians studying there. </p>
<p>So a modern version of the Colombo Plan, operating as a two way rather than as a one way street… should reinforce our own and overseas future leaders’ understanding of all the things we have in common.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Recent evidence is unequivocal that Australian education is failing to meet the most basic requirement of regional engagement: language. University of Sydney vice-chancellor <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/opinion/reverse-colombo-needs-cash-to-match-asia-ambitions/story-e6frgcko-1226721058509">Michael Spence</a> reminds us that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…so few of our students are Asia-ready…[S]tudents are unlikely to fully embrace Asia - or to be of any use to Asia-based businesses - if they can’t communicate in a local language.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As Asialink’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/learning-to-live-in-the-asian-century-3586">Kathe Kirby</a> points out, most students in other developed countries exit schooling with two or more languages. Thus allowing greater work opportunities in an interconnected world.</p>
<p>But in 2010, only 18% of Australian school students studied an Asian language, decreasing to only 5.4% by Year 12. Indonesian was losing <a href="https://theconversation.com/learning-to-live-in-the-asian-century-3586">10,000 students a year</a>. If the pattern continues, Kirby argues, there may be no students studying Indonesian at Year 12 by 2020.</p>
<p>This deficit flows on to Australian business - less than half of 380 businesses surveyed by <a href="http://asialink.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/619793/Developing_an_Asia_Capable_Workforce.pdf">Asialink and the Australian Industry Group</a> reported having any board members or senior executives with Asian experience or language ability. Taking Australia’s “best and brightest to our region” requires policy and business engagement to develop the necessary cultural and linguistic capacity of Australians to properly engage the region. </p>
<p>The role of business and NGOs is seen to be an important base of support for the revitalised Colombo Plan, for example, through internships. This is a good idea which needs to fully acknowledge that relations with Asia must be a two-way street based on a strong, long-term commitment to language education, the development of cultural competencies, in-country study and other hands-on experience.</p>
<h2>A two-way street</h2>
<p>Other <a href="http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/cpur/files/2013/08/Scarce-Jobs.final_.pdf">recent research from Monash University</a> highlights another challenge to the government: temporary migrant workers who may be taking away jobs from young Australians. The authors, Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy, <a href="http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/cpur/files/2013/08/Scarce-Jobs.final_.pdf">point out</a> that in the year to May 2013, there was a rise of 168,000 recently-arrived overseas born migrants aged over 15 in Australia - 108,200 of whom were employed. This is almost as large as the increase in employment during that period (126,000).</p>
<p>In 2012-13, the number of Working Holiday Maker (WHM) visas issued was roughly equivalent to the number of school leavers who enter the workforce each year (around 250,000). These WHMs are aged 30 or less and seeking work in Australia, rather than a holiday supplemented by work. As a consequence, many young Australians “are seeking refuge in low-level training courses because of lack of employment opportunities”.</p>
<p>Even so, migration will play a major role in sustaining the Australian labour force. Given the ageing of the population, young adults make up a smaller proportion overall than previously. The workforce arguably has to come from somewhere, unless either fertility rates change significantly or sustainable alternatives can be proactively developed.</p>
<p><a href="http://theconversation.com/colombo-ii-send-students-to-asia-but-dont-ignore-the-asian-students-at-home-18156">Other considerations</a>, such as better meeting the needs of the international students already in Australia, have also been raised. </p>
<h2>Big picture policy</h2>
<p>With the Coalition government’s focus on Asia through education, a fresh opportunity arises to engage the region beyond the “business as usual” and pilot project-based funding to approaches that have too often been the case in the past. Responses need to be adequately resourced and deeply embedded in our education curricula and workplace practices. </p>
<p>They should join the dots between Australia’s existing cultural fabric and challenges to cement our pathways to and from the region, and demonstrate that Australia means business. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18313/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucas Walsh is Senior Research Fellow at the Foundation for Young Australians.</span></em></p>The Coalition government has begun its term in office with some controversial policy proposals related to Australia’s international engagement. These include cuts to international aid, hardline responses…Lucas Walsh, Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Berwick), Faculty of Education, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.