4 March 2002 New direction in development aid gives rise to Lincoln workshop on poverty

An opportunity created by a new government poverty-focused approach to overseas development aid was grasped by Lincoln International recently when it mounted the first ever university-based national professional development workshop for practitioners working in the area of poverty.

Organised by Jacqui Benter-Lynch, the two-day workshop entitled Poverty was designed primarily for development practitioners who work with bi- and multi-lateral aid agencies and non-government organisations.

The participatory, self-learning approach was aimed at ensuring the participants left the workshop with a clear understanding of the issues surrounding poverty; the way aid agencies responded to these issues; and some of the action initiatives that can be undertaken.

The workshop drew 40 participants from around the country and two from Australia. There were people from Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, non-Government organisations, commercial consultancies and the universities present.

"Following a ministerial review of New Zealand's official development assistance programme, commissioned in September 2000, poverty reduction has been identified as the guiding principle for New Zealand's foreign aid in the future," says Lincoln International Senior Consultant Stewart Pittaway.

"While New Zealand's Development Assistance Programme – which has been the vehicle for much of Lincoln International's work in the Pacific and elsewhere – has always been aimed at helping people, the alleviation of poverty was formerly an implicit objective rather than an explicitly stated one. Poverty reduction was a product of development aid rather than a target.

"That has now changed and it has become very important for aid agencies and practitioners to take a new look at their activities. Poverty is a far wider issue than a monetary one and our workshop invited the participants to explore such fundamental topics as the identification of poverty indicators and what constitutes a poverty analysis.

"Poverty indicators are many and varied – far wider and deeper than just measures of GDP. Indicators are to be found in the areas of population and household composition, education levels, health and nutrition, gender issues (such as maternal mortality rates and female literacy rates) and governance matters (such as opportunities to participate in local and national administrations and universal suffrage).

The facilitator for the two days was Brian Hedley, a Lincoln alumnus (Dip.VFM 1960) who has had 35 years' experience as a consultant in developing countries.

Brian has been a consultant for all the major multi-lateral funding agencies and has spent 13 years on long-term contracts in the field. He is an acknowledged participatory development specialist with the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations Development Programme.

"It is difficult to make contact with those afflicted by poverty," says Brian. "It is not easy to help them. Some of the difficulties are of their own making, some are attributable to their social, cultural, geographic, administrative or legislative environment.

"We, as outsiders, lack essential knowledge and abilities to deal with these and we carry mindsets and baggage that doesn't help.

"Poverty is a complex condition for which there are no easy answers and where a lot more understanding needs to be brought to bear."

Among those attending was the Director of the Development Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Dr Peter Adams.

Lincoln International hopes that its workshop was a helpful first step towards this understanding as New Zealand embarks on its new approach to overseas development aid.