:brothers in arms
Brothers in
arms
On the sport field we are rivals
but on political and governmental
development issues we are one
The relationship that New Zealand has, especially with our
Pacific neighbours runs deep. We take it on board as our responsibility
to help fund and develop projects for Australia, Samoa, Fiji and so on to
enable their prosperity.
Our overall goal for the Pacific is outlined in our Pacific Plan,
identifying the areas we can help improve: economic growth, sustainable
development, good governance and security.
Improving education in the
Pacific
In 2011, one million school-aged children were not attending
school in the Pacific. Our Prime Ministers teamed up to help improve
these statistics by extending their funding for literacy and numeracy.
The goal: To get 500,000 more children in the Pacific enrolled in
schools by 2015 and for 75% of children in the Pacific to be able to
read by 2021.
New Zealand is investing NZ$145 million into ensuring primary
school aged children have access to a minimum of six years of quality
education and Australia are investing AUS$124.5 million.
32 | www.h e rma gaz i n e . c o. n z
Tackling poverty in the Pacific
We care deeply about the welfare of the Pacific region's
people. Australia and New Zealand continually band together
to uncover ways that aid can be delivered more efficiently and
effectively. The Development Co-operation Partnership sets
out a shared vision and grounding of the partnership between
our two countries. We have a commitment to action and to
take opportunities to delegate delivery of aid to each other. It
has been identified that those nations in the pacific face many
challenges both georaphically and economically and so using
each other's combined resources means that aid is channelled in
a more efficient manner. Other countries also offering a helping
hand include North Asia, Europe and America. One program
they are working on is called the Pacific Region Infrastructure
Facility which goal is to improve infrastructure such as roads,
telecommunications and energy services.
