The 9th Annual Australasian Aid Conference was held at The Crawford School, Australian National University from Tuesday 5th December to Thursday 7th December. The conference brings together practitioners, researchers and policy makers from the Aid and International Development (AID) sector. Our Director of International Business Development attended the conference to talk to delegates and share her practical experience working with local communities, governments and aid organisations on the provision of water treatment systems.
The Hon. Professor Bisman Prasad, Deputy Prime Minster and Minister for Finance, Republic of Fiji, delivered some excellent opening remarks which included a statement very much in line with the Moerk Water approach “If it’s not locally led, it’s not development”.
Another thought-provoking statement came from Julienne Leka-Maliaki of Tetra Tech, Inc. (PNG) in response to Barbara’s question: What does it mean to you “Locally Led Development”? Julienne’s response was “It’s no better time than now. The geopolitics is pushing Australia and any other partner to think differently about the Indo-Pacific region, I speak closer to the Pacific region, I echo his words. It’s about the Pacific region interest, Australia and New Zealand are in the Pacific, we can’t separate that, we should be seen as a group, we need to be seen together. Trust is important. In the context of locally led you have to start to trust the locals to lead. To me, trust is fundamental. And this speaks to culture. What is the culture of an organization? I liked what Andrew Egan said from DFAT “There needs a paradigm shift…” I think it’s a great opportunity now, it comes down to trust. It’s a matter of trust.”
Another empowerment champion is Doreen Iga, Team leader at Building Community Engagement in PNG at DT Global who said “In PNG we have the “Big man mentality” Here today you see the first time a female leader in this leading position!”. The final keynote speaker was Dr Esperanza Martinez, who summarized in her speech the important aspects of future locally led development. This is a topic of great importance to Barbara as she is part of the International Development Contractors Community (IDCC) working group on locally led development.
