N.Z. could learn from aid groups

Press, 8 May 1978, Page 3

N.Z. could learn from aid groups

New Zealand could benefit from the experience gained by international agencies involved in helping underdeveloped countries, the former Director-General of Agriculture, Dr A. T. Johns, said at the week-end. Speaking at Lincoln College’s centennial seminar, he said the evolution of the Consultative Group on International Research was one of the great successes on the international aid scene. It administers research organisations covering all the major crops and regions of the developing world and organisations working on the development of livestock technology for the tropics. But New Zealand had made only a very small contribution to the international research system, primarily because it preferred bilateral aid as it supposedly resulted in more kudos for New Zealand, he said. Dr Johns said that he believed New Zealand could gain much from a study of how the system worked, not only for its bilateral aid programmes but also for its national research system. International agencies had gained more experience in setting up and assessing aid projects and more integration of aid plans would allow New Zealand to make more use of those skills in which they were experienced or they lacked. A minimum of two years, was required to train highly competent agriculturalists. New Zealanders had done very well in this occupation for international agencies but little use had been made of them in New Zealand’s aid programme. Dr Johns suggested that Lincoln College or Massey University provided a training course based on the vast amount of accumulated ex{..rience. It was just as important, too, that recipient countries should develop their ability to formulate and evaluate their own agricultural development plans, and to manage and administer their agricultural industries when they were developed.