New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully has ordered two reviews into NZAid, the outcome of which is expected to be its re-integration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This has led to concern that New Zealand’s half-billion-dollar foreign aid program will become a tool of foreign policy. McCully has criticised the program’s goal of poverty elimination, and though he told the New Zealand Herald it was too early to say what shape proposed structural changes would take, he also said that NZAid should move closer to the Government’s policy aims, such as economic development in the Pacific, the region that recieves 53% of New Zealand aid.

Scoop’s Gordon Campbell has pointed out what this might mean in practice, noting the current subsidies for Air New Zealand flights in Polynesia, which could likely become subsidised with aid money, and Green MP Kennedy Graham has asked rhetorically “in future will NZAID money be going to New Zealand companies to shovel hundred dollar bills into tourist condominiums?,” The ‘Don’t Corrupt Aid‘ campaign has launched by a number of non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) that want to keep NZAid focused on poverty elimination.

It would be wrong so say that New Zealand’s aid is currently apolitical however, sanctions New Zealand has maintained against Fiji since 2006 have prevented aid from going to there (with the excecpion of aid delivered via the Red Cross after devastating floods) Fiji is also excluded from a scheme that allows people from the Pacific to work in New Zealand. Work schemes are thought of as aid because remittances from Pacific Islanders working overseas, many in New Zealand, are a large source of of income for Pacific nations. As I’ve pointed out before, opening New Zealand’s boarders to workers from the islands is one of the best aid policies New Zealand could pursue.