CANBERRA — With the outcome of Australia’s federal election determined, work is progressing on the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific scheduled to start operating in July.
The implementation of AIFFP will be a collaboration between the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation — Australia’s export credit agency providing Australian exporters with a range of specialist financial solutions to build their global market. But there are concerns within the development sector that the implementation has been rushed, and that there has been little attempt to address the role Efic will play — its mandate is to advance Australian opportunities, which appears in conflict with the objective of development.
“We have broad concerns about the AIFFP and we really think it shouldn’t be delivered by Efic at all,” Lucy Manne, head of policy and campaigns for ActionAid Australia told Devex. “With Efic, it is going to be ultimately about serving Australia’s national interests, which is not the right message ... It’s just not appropriate, and it’s not what they were designed to do.”