New business network to cultivate partnerships for Australian aid for trade

Australia’s renewed drive to push aid for trade has been given a significant boost with the establishment of the Australian Trade and Development Business Network, a new collaboration seeking to cultivate partnerships between the public and private sectors as well as the academe in this realm. ATAB — an initiative by the University of Adelaide’s Institute for International Trade and several private firms with the support of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade — hopes to thoroughly enhance private sector engagement in development, one of the keystones of DFAT chief Julie Bishop’s “new aid paradigm” for the country. “[We] wanted to look at how we could deeply and seriously involve the private sector in aid, generally, and, in particular, aid for trade program in the future,” Jim Redden, a trade and development expert from the University of Adelaide recently appointed chair of the network, told Devex. “We believe there’s a unique opportunity for the private sector and development partners to work together for new and cost-effective development solutions.” Redden explained ATAB will seek to provide donor organizations such as DFAT with private sector perspectives and input into program design and implementation for instance to reduce the risk of duplication of work — especially when engaging with local governments and communities in partner countries. “Business needs to understand the development case, and government needs to understand business,” he said. “There needs to be a clear agreement about where the common ground is between commercial objectives and poverty reduction outcomes, [including] where investment and jobs are most needed, the role and placement of soft and hard infrastructure resources and how best to address obstacles to doing business more efficiently and increasing trade.” The establishment of ATAB comes at the heels of Bishop’s announcement of performance benchmarks in Australia’s aid program, with a particular focus on strengthened private sector engagement and development innovation. The department will also be setting up an innovation hub in the coming months separate from ATAB, a DFAT official confirmed to Devex. Overview Some of the goals of the business development network, according to Redden, include: 1. Increased private sector involvement in poverty reduction and good development solutions. 2. More private sector input into the design and thinking about what projects and programs will work in developing countries. 3. Strengthened cooperation and collaboration between universities, NGOs and the private sector. 4. Additional contribution from universities on high-quality research in aid for trade and engagement of the private sector policy space. 5. Promoting the value of private-public partnerships for development through the media, educational workshops and public events. Some of the private companies and development partners involved in the establishment of ATAB, following the national dialogue about partnerships last year, include Coffey, URS, Austraining International, ANZ Bank and DFAT. Coffey confirmed its participation to Devex, adding that its role in the network will be that of a technical adviser, sponsor and partner. Redden cited the example of an oil and energy project in Tanzania to illustrate the network’s projected role in the future. He explained that when multinational companies embark on projects in developing countries, they usually bring their own staff. What ATAB is facilitating, as a result of input from companies, is the provision of training and specific skills training for local communities so that locally sourced human resources can replace the expats. “The aim of this project is for DFAT to work together with the Tanzanian government and these companies to develop the best ways to train low-income local communities so that they will be able to take a number of well-paying jobs into the future,” he explained. What the private sector needs, Redden stressed, is help from aid agencies and governments “to correctly identify the people to be trained.” Then the private sector, along with other industry members, “can pool resources to pay for the training so that [host nations will be] far less reliant on foreign labor for the implementation of these projects.” How to join Redden said that the founding partners are very keen to involve more private companies, local and international NGOs, government agencies and members of the academe. In terms of membership requirements, the trade and development expert said there are no strict criteria other than commitment to the aims of ATAB — something that could bode well for business startups as well as small NGOs. “The main criteria at this stage is the commitment to PPPs and to development and poverty reduction. If you have that commitment, then obviously we’re very keen to welcome you into the network,” Redden noted, adding that a small membership fee may soon be implemented to sustain operations. Funding is also an issue that will hopefully be finalized in the next few weeks, Redden concluded, since “it doesn’t need high funding” but “we’re examining some options for resourcing and, ideally, it would be a mix of resourcing from the private and public sector as well as NGOs.” Read more development aid news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive top international development headlines from the world’s leading donors, news sources and opinion leaders — emailed to you FREE every business day.