New Zealand is a valued development partner for its small island neighbours, delivering aid effectively and using its experience of natural disasters to help manage risks in the region. It complements its development assistance by using liberal trade and employment systems to support poor countries, according to the OECD’s latest Peer Review of New Zealand.
However in terms of the amount of aid provided, New Zealand lags other donors in the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC). The Review recommends the country use its economic recovery as an opportunity to raise its ambitions and set a time frame for lifting its aid budget towards an internationally agreed target for donor countries of 0.7% of gross national income.