9 Jun 2010

Academic challenges New Zealand Govt view of CID after funding cut

8:55 pm on 9 June 2010

The New Zealand Foreign Minister, Murray McCully, is promising more money for NGOs working in developing countries in the next financial year.

This comes after the government slashed funding to New Zealand's Council for International Development, the umbrella group for NGOs.

It will now have a limited role, with just one staffer, focussing on emergency and disaster relief.

Mr McCully says the cuts were because the funding was going towards administration costs in Wellington when he wants to see results on the ground.

But a professor of development studies at the University of the South Pacific, Vijay Naidu, says CID is much more than a bureaucracy and the funding cut is a great shame.

"It had a very important role as an entity that networked, provided resources and information. So it was much much more than a bureaucracy."

Aprofessor of development studies at the University of the South Pacific, Vijay Naidu