SEA regional development and New Zealand’s shifting role
So last week from Sunday to Wednesday I was at the invite-only 49th annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Frankfurt as the youth representative of Plan International Germany.
Plan International is an international organization as the name suggests. It’s a development organization with a clear focus on child rights and a strong belief in empowering children and young people to become the so called Champions of Change. During my time at this event I had amazing opportunities such as briefly meeting our chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel or talking to investors and although I was mainly at our organizations booth I did also get some time to visit seminars and panel discussions, one of which was partly about New Zealands role in the ongoing transformation of the SEA region (Southeast Asia). And this particular part of the panel discussion changed the way I look at New Zealand.
While New Zealand had been a beneficiary of ADB projects for some time, its role is shifting more towards a supporter for projects in other countries (mostly island nations) nowadays. New Zealand has been working together with the ADB since 1966 and over that time the country benefited from several hundred billions of $ being invested in infrastructure, education, technical assistance and also the consulting that was offered. Nowadays New Zealand is cofinancing projects in Vanuatu, Samoa, Tuvalu, Tonga and many more countries with upwards of 35 million $ a year. The projected contribution for the coming years is growing steadily. New Zealand can become a regional big player by supporting the regions overall development. What emphasizes this is other data. While in other countries in this region the percentage of children attending a secondary school as well as finishing it is anywhere between 15 and 80%, New Zealand sports 95%. While that is still not 100% it is a lot more than for example the Indonesian numbers. There is also a direct correlation between the rapid economic growth and increased numbers of secondary school graduations. As we can see: education is the key to a better life in regards to finances, infrastructure and to some degree content.
If you are interested in reading more about the ADB meeting you can find another two short blog posts on planaction.de (Beware though as they are written in German).
