Australia’s Overseas Aid Program1945-2009

Foreign aid in the modern sense commenced with the launch of the Marshall Plan by the United States in1948to revive the economies in Western Europe. Though Australia made donations to Papua New Guinea before the World War Ⅱ, its formal overseas aid program was heralded by the Colombo Plan introduced in1950. From the middle1940s to the early2010s, Australia’s overseas aid program has undergone more than six decades’development.Since the Millennium Summit held in September2000, eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), agreed by member states of the United Nations to be achieved by2015, have become the overarching principle of foreign aid activities. Australia therefore has turned into an important stakeholder of international development because the Asia Pacific region poses great challenges to the achievement of the grand development objectives. Australia’s role in the Asia Pacific region is internationally recognized and its aid to PNG in particular, which, reputed as the most concentrated overseas aid program, is second to none.The paper is an attempt to trace the evolution of Australia’s overseas aid program in the post-1945era. With an overview of Australia’s overseas aid program,the development will be delineated in four phases with features of each phase summarized based on adequate materials and reasonable deduction as follows: prelude (1945-1949), taking shape (1950-1969), maturity (1970-1989) and realignment (1990-2009). As the comprehensive picture of Australia’s overseas aid program is formed, its aid program to a particular country, China in this case, will be detailed and the outcome produced will be analyzed.