The Quality of Australian Aid: An International Perspective

How does the quality of Australian aid compare to international best practice?
This paper considers and compares the findings of recent external assessments of the Australian aid program. A cross-section of recent international evidence is used to analyse Australia’s performance in relation to global best practice and other comparable donors working in fragile states and in the Asia-Pacific over the same period.2 Together, the findings offer objective signals about what Australia is doing well and where it could improve aid effectiveness, especially in the fragile states which predominantly make up its partners.
Comparisons across donors operating in all countries around the globe rank Australia in the middle to upper groupings. More significantly, when compared with similar sized donors operating in Australia’s primary areas of interest, Australia’s aid program is world standard.