Support was provided to whole-of-government partners for development activities that address East Asia Summit priority areas relevant to their portfolio, including by broadening the ASEAN Public Sector Linkages Program to encompass East Asia Summit priorities: work was undertaken with whole-of-government partners and Indonesia to develop a new East Asia Summit initiative to coordinate responses to natural disasters across the region more effectively. East Asia Summit leaders endorsed this new joint initiative in November 2011. Various actions to assess and improve the capacity of the ASEAN-Australia Development Cooperation Program Phase II to fully expend the $57 million allocation were undertaken: progress was made towards improving the scale of activities through collaborating with international financial institutions to develop and implement joint project proposals initial steps were made towards closer cooperation between Jakarta Post and the ASEAN Secretariat. The program is due to be fully devolved to the Post by July 2012. The program director will report to the regional counsellor an – upgraded position the second annual review report was delivered in January 2012. The independent progress report is planned for April to June 2012. The full complement of staff are now employed in the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement Support Unit within the ASEAN Secretariat, and as familiarity and experience have increased confidence, AusAID staff have been able to gradually disengage from day-to-day management of the Economic Cooperation Support Program. Canberra retains strategic and financial management and continues to provide guidance where required. In addition, the decision-making and governance arrangements relating to operational matters under the mandate of the ad hoc budget review committee have been clarified. A foundation has been laid for improvements in the effectiveness and efficiency of the APEC program: a review of the Asia Public Sector Linkages Program was undertaken, which included both the APEC and ASEAN/East Asia Summit Public Sector Linkages Program. It recommended merging the Pacific and Asia programs into a single secretariat and re-designing the program with an increased emphasis on monitoring and evaluation and activity design. Implementation of this work is being undertaken in 2012 multi-year projects have been approved within the APEC Public Sector Linkages Program and the APEC Support Fund that have the potential to improve project effectiveness and the sustainability of benefits a large-scale evaluation of APEC project effectiveness was approved in 2011, which will be undertaken by the APEC Secretariat in the second half of 2012 support was provided to the APEC Secretariat to progress these issues and to embed project management reforms, including project prioritisation, in APEC processes.
Support was provided to whole-of-government partners for development activities that address East Asia Summit priority areas relevant to their portfolio, including by broadening the ASEAN Public Sector Linkages Program to encompass East Asia Summit priorities: work was undertaken with whole-of-government partners and Indonesia to develop a new East Asia Summit initiative to coordinate responses to natural disasters across the region more effectively. East Asia Summit leaders endorsed this new joint initiative in November 2011. Various actions to assess and improve the capacity of the ASEAN-Australia Development Cooperation Program Phase II to fully expend the $57 million allocation were undertaken: progress was made towards improving the scale of activities through collaborating with international financial institutions to develop and implement joint project proposals initial steps were made towards closer cooperation between Jakarta Post and the ASEAN Secretariat. The program is due to be fully devolved to the Post by July 2012. The program director will report to the regional counsellor – an upgraded position the second annual review report was delivered in January 2012. The independent progress report is planned for April to June 2012. The full complement of staff are now employed in the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement Support Unit within the ASEAN Secretariat, and as familiarity and experience have increased confidence, AusAID staff have been able to gradually disengage from day-to-day management of the Economic Cooperation Support Program. Canberra retains strategic and financial management and continues to provide guidance where required. In addition, the decision-making and governance arrangements relating to operational matters under the mandate of the ad hoc budget review committee have been clarified. A foundation has been laid for improvements in the effectiveness and efficiency of the APEC program: a review of the Asia Public Sector Linkages Program was undertaken, which included both the APEC and ASEAN/East Asia Summit Public Sector Linkages Program. It recommended merging the Pacific and Asia programs into a single secretariat and re-designing the program with an increased emphasis on monitoring and evaluation and activity design. Implementation of this work is being undertaken in 2012 multi-year projects have been approved within the APEC Public Sector Linkages Program and the APEC Support Fund that have the potential to improve project effectiveness and the sustainability of benefits a large-scale evaluation of APEC project effectiveness was approved in 2011, which will be undertaken by the APEC Secretariat in the second half of 2012 support was provided to the APEC Secretariat to progress these issues and to embed project management reforms, including project prioritisation, in APEC processes.
east-Asia-appr-2011.docx