Australia should provide long-term and consistent support for both institutional and community-level good governance efforts in poor countries.

Improved governance is essential if we are to achieve the MDGs. For the MDGsto be achieved we need to focus on bottom-up accountability as well as  “top-down” governance. However it is also important that these programs are not at the expense of poverty reduction.

The importance of civil society

Currently, very little of Australia’s aid program is directed towards equipping poor citizens to demand competent, responsive and accountable government service provision.

If local communities and civil society are not engaged and empowered in this way, “top-down” governance approaches may prove ineffective and unsustainable.

Australia must also commit substantial resources to support the efforts, and build the capacity, of local communities seeking to hold their own governments to account for the protection of human rights and delivery of services.

As recent scandals involving companies such as AWB in Australia, and Enron and Arthur Anderson in the US have made clear, corruption is not only a problem in poor countries. To ensure that Australia does not contribute to corruption overseas, Australia should work to ensure that sufficient resources are devoted to investigating and prosecuting Australian companies or individuals, or multinational enterprises headquartered in Australia, guilty of bribing foreign public officials.

Australia must work to improve the legitimacy and competence of multilateral institutions, particularly the International Monetary Fund and to a lesser extent the World Bank, with regard to more democratic governance, and greater transparency and accountability.

What should Australia do?

• Play a lead role in the development of a comprehensive action plan and a timetable to lift support for the MDGs at the UN MDG review meeting in September including active involvement in the development of a UN Global Action Plan on Maternal and Child Health and a strategy to end hunger.
• Play a lead role in establishing an effective international response to climate change, especially through the UNFCCC process, and work to ensure that special needs of developing countries are addressed. Also promote early, significant action to assist developing countries to deal with the effects of climate change especially through UN multilateral grant funding mechanisms which meet their adaptation needs.
• Encourage rigorous consideration by the G20 of an international financial transactions tax (FTT) to help fund key international priorities (MDGs and climate adaptation finance) and dampen speculation.
• Promote the adoption of a clear development focus for the G20 including action on international tax havens, transparency in extractive industry contracts, and greater integration of low income countries into the global economy in ways that support their overall development objectives. Also ensure that the G20 considers the recommendations of the UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis at its summit meetings this year.
• Promote an overall doubling of funding by donors at the three-year replenishment meetings of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.
• Encourage the acceleration of the Doha trade round negotiations and advocate pro-poor conditions in this agreement.