Aid is not development: The true character of Pacific aid

Motivation You need not look far to read stories extolling the virtues, promises, and achievements of aid to the Pacific, but such stories are far from lived experience or empirical reality. There are other often silenced stories, stories that need to be heard. They speak of broken promises and obfuscation, oppressive bureaucratic conditions, and private contractors competing for profit off the back of the Pacific's poor and vulnerable people. Purpose This article seeks to uncover something of the true character of aid, how it has changed (over the past decade) and how donors, their intermediaries, and Pacific recipients have responded. Methods and approach We use our ethnographic and auto‐ethnographic insights to explore repressed stories; insights drawn from seven decades of collective experiences and observations of Australian aid, Australia being the region's largest and most significant donor. Findings We see three clear shifts in Australian aid over the last decade: (1) aid has become more politicized, deployed to support Australian interests; (2) aid has been increasingly privatized as much of the aid has been spent through four large Australian and international corporations—with local Pacific companies marginalized; and (3) aid has been increasingly contested by the peoples of the Pacific. Such changes have encouraged donors to tighten their grip on power. They have encouraged intermediaries to act as their agents, performing high levels of “interpretive labour.” They compete for donor custom and favour. Recipients of aid have been left with few options: they can comply with donors, thanking them for their generosity. They may resent the way they have been stripped of agency, perhaps looking to China for a different relationship. Aid of this character is not development. Rather, it is an unchecked donor‐driven system, beset by excessive power and control to benefit the system and its agents. Such aid may result in some success, but it systematically fails to empower Pacific agency and to reduce aid dependency. Policy implications A magnitude of change is required. We recommend more space for reflection on the lived experience of aid and on those generative, transformative initiatives occurring outside the aid system. We urge recipients of aid to take responsibility for development; to demand reform to see platitudes around listening, respect, and partnership become something more than words on a page; to ensure aid invests in long‐term development aligned to Pacific plans and priorities on Pacific terms—or to reject aid outright.