Successive governments have enjoyed a good relationship with the country’s overseas aid NGOs: groups like World Vision, Oxfam, Tear Fund, Save the Children, Volunteer Service Abroad.

They have seen the aid groups as part of an NZ Inc approach: raising private donations from the public, building awareness of development issues, and often working together with the government to deliver aid in the field. As in many OECD countries this partnership between government and aid NGOs has been ramped up over the last decade, with NZAID funding the NGOs’ aid programmes to the tune of about $32 m per year.

But the partnership has just taken a hit. Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has personally intervened to cut the funding of the NGOs’ peak body by 40%.  Last year NZAID funded the Council for International Development $900,000 to do a range of work including coordination of disaster relief efforts, capacity building and training of NGO staff, and public awareness work. That is being cut to $650,000 this year and $500,000 the next.

McCully is unlikely to admit it, and on past form he won’t leave a paper trail, but you can bet the cut is a response to the NGO community’s public criticism of his move to restructure NZAID back into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and change its mandate earlier this year. The NGOs were trenchant in their criticism and it wasn’t just the usual campaigners. Rotary, the Salvation Army and agencies like World Vision and Tear Fund who have traditionally been more circumspect in their public advocacy, made it clear to the Government they thought McCully’s plans ill-judged. Most of the NGOs backed a campaign called Don’t Corrupt Aid.

Mr McCully has never been a fan of NGOs. In his speech announcing the restructuring of NZAID he referred to

self-interested individuals from within the aid community [who think] that New Zealand’s aid budget is some kind of sacred cow that should be placed above and beyond the stewardship of the government of the day, and subject only to the attentions of so- called “development experts” who might bring their superior intellects and sensibilities to this task.

And it was hard to know if he was referring to the NGOs or NZAID when he referred to “faceless, unelected, unaccountable, aid bureaucrats”.

It is worrying Mr McCully is willing to cut funding in such a vengeful way. It is bullying from a Government that can’t take public criticism.

It is even more disturbing he is willing to to cut funding that is an investment in building the capacity of NGOs to be accountable and effective partners in the delivery of taxpayer funded overseas aid. But then this is the same Minister who ignored Treasury advice that his restructuring of NZAID would make it less accountable for the spending of taxpayer dollars.