In this episode, we’re joined by Jody Lightfoot of the Campaign for Australian Aid
Jody’s work aligns most closely with Goal 17 – Partnerships for the Goals, specifically target #17.2, which is:
Developed countries to implement fully their official development assistance commitments, including the commitment by many developed countries to achieve the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income toward official development assistance to developing countries and 0.15 to 0.20 per cent of gross national income toward official development assistance to least developed countries official development assistance providers are encouraged to consider setting a target to provide at least 0.20 per cent of gross national income toward official development assistance to least developed countries
Campaign for Australian Aid is a movement of people, organisations, communities and businesses who believe Australia can and should do more to help build a better, fairer future for all. The Campaign is made up of fifty of the country’s leading aid and development organisations, including World Vision, Oxfam and Save the Children, to name a couple.
Good news developed not long after Jody and I spoke. The Australian Government announced at the beginning of November an added $500m to assist in the rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine to the Pacific and South East Asia.
The $500 million will be rolled out over three years to ensure full immunisation coverage for the Pacific and will make a significant contribution toward Southeast Asia.
Transcript
Dominic Billings : Thanks very much for joining us, Jody, really appreciate it.
Jody Lightfoot: My pleasure, Dom.
Dominic Billings: Jody, would you be able to tell us a little bit about the Campaign, please?
Jody Lightfoot: The Campaign for Australian Aid is a coalition of about thirty of Australia's aid and development groups. We're coming together because we believe that we can achieve more by working together than we can alone and primarily focus on calling on the Australian Government to increase that international development aid.
Dominic Billings: Is it correct now the focus is a campaign calling End COVID for All, with the focus about the effects on poverty that the coronavirus has had?
Jody Lightfoot: Yeah, that's right. So End COVID for all started as collaboration between Campaign for Australian Aid, the peak body of international development groups known as the Australian Council for International Development, and another coalition of Christian aid agencies known as Micah Australia. So, it kind of came together to develop this campaign in response to the COVID crisis.
Dominic Billings: I've been involved in the Campaign in the past, as you know. I was familiar with the ACFID component of the of the alliance is, could you tell us a little bit about Micah's background?
Jody Lightfoot
Yeah, so Micah Australia formed as a group that were largely taking action on the Millennium Development Goals, uniting through the identity of their Christian faith. They've done a lot of great work in advocating on issues like climate change and poverty. They run a great tactic where they bring hundreds of Christians to Parliament each year, train them up. It's a multi-day thing and then often meet with 100-plus MPs over the course of a couple of days. So, they're seen as a very effective group, and have played a really leading role in the End COVID for All campaign.
Dominic Billings: Was the alliance, both Micah and all those ACFID mentioned organisations that you mentioned, effectively the same alliance that was responsible for Make Poverty History?
Jody Lightfoot: Make Poverty History Alliance re-branded as Campaign for Australian aid. There is crossover, like there are organisations that are members of Campaign for Australian Aid as well as Micah, as well as ACFID. So, there is that crossover.
Dominic Billings: A bit about before you had become involved with Campaign for Australian Aid. You mentioned at the top, about the focus of about campaigning towards the government. Had your focus in your own work, prior to becoming involved with Campaign for Australian Aid been more focused on influencing government.?
Jody Lightfoot: Yeah, I think my journey started with a group called Oaktree as a volunteer. Within that work was primarily advocating for the government to increase our international development assistance. And that's really been the journey that I've been on over the last decade. And whilst I've been advocating on the issue of poverty, I've also been involved in other campaigns. like Love Makes a Way advocating for compassionate treatment of people seeking asylum. And helping to build faith-based justice movements, like Common Grace, and helping to bring a Christian voice to climate action. And so, I've been involved in a number of different issues, but certainly extreme poverty has been at the heart of it.
Dominic Billings: What is the act, or the process of campaigning tend to look like? Is that a lot of emails? Is it trying to get a whole bunch of grassroots people on board? What are the means of campaigning that you feel are most effective, Jody?
Jody Lightfoot: In the End COVID for All campaign, the approach that we took was a twin track, where we kind of integrated a lobbying strategy with a public advocacy strategy. And so, the role of the lobbying strategy was to really make a national interest case to the government. Which is the kind of arguments that they can get on board with to expand our aid program and the public advocacy track was really to demonstrate political cover. So, the government could actually implement that in policy. And so what that actually looks like, there were tactics we ran, a selfie mask activation, where we brought together hundreds of CEOs, influencers, refugees, disability groups, etc., to post a selfie wearing a branded End COVID for All mask, all at the same time. And we created a virtual mask filter to enable thousands of Australians to participate as well. And so that was of one of the tactics, I think, probably the most effective tactic, that we did. Just focus on building an alliance that was beyond the aid and development sector. And so, we had groups like the Nurses and Midwives Association. We had groups from Islamic Relief to Hillsong. We had business groups like Thankyou, and people like the chairman of Woolworths, Gordon Cairns writing op-eds on the importance of international development in the Financial Review. And so, what we're hearing from ministers in this campaign, is that this kind of cross-sector, beyond aid voices, has been the most impressive part of it. So, it's about 230 organisations across different sectors that have joined the campaign and taken action. One of the ways we displayed that was a full-page ad in the Financial Review, to highlight the breadth of the organisations involved. And then regularly trying to feed this into essentially influencing the Expenditure Review Committee, which is the group of decision-makers that decide on budget outcomes.
Dominic Billings: I'm curious, I hadn't given too much thought about this before in the past. You mentioned the involvement, of for instance, Micah. But obviously, I know quite a number of the organisations from that have formed the alliance from the beginning, are NGOs, which might have a faith-based component. Would you say anecdotally, you have a sense of more engagement from those faith-based communities in contrast to more secular organisations - Oxfam and Water Aid, for instance?
Jody Lightfoot: Yeah, that is hard to say. I wouldn't say necessarily. So, I would say there are some secular organisations who really dive into the advocacy space, like Oxfam, for example, are a key player within that. And then you have other secular aid organisations that don't dive into the advocacy space as much. And same with faith, you have faith groups that dive in and other faith groups that hold back a little. And so, I think it's predominantly determined by other factors. But I have seen the power of faith, you know, across Christianity, across Islam, to really drive people towards action. And, you know, part of my journey came from exploring spirituality. And I felt his deep desire to act arising out of that. And so, faith can be very powerful motivator for action. But it's not the only motivator for action.
Dominic Billings: I feel like you might possibly have the statistics somewhere in your head, Jody. Is there quite a disconnect between the amount of aid levels that that the public perceives Australia to give, in contrast to the reality?
Jody Lightfoot: Yeah, there's a huge disconnect there. There's been a number of different polls and research done on this. The public estimate that we give approximately 15% of gross national income. And in reality, you know, as of now, we give 22 cents in every $100. So, yeah, the disconnect is huge.
Dominic Billings: The international aim for any listeners that aren't aware is 0.7% of gross national income. Over the past couple of decades, what's been the rise and fall of that level?
Jody Lightfoot: Australian aid was actually at its highest point in the early 1970s. It was above 45 cents in every $100 at that point. And from the 1970s to 2004, the overall trajectory was one of decline across both Labour and Liberal governments. 2005 was a significant year, because that's when John Howard announced to the UN that he would essentially double aid by 2010. This was really an unprecedented commitment within our nation's history. Then, when the Rudd government got elected in 2007, Rudd then expanded the aid program at an even faster rate than what Howard was advocating for. What we had at that point was a bipartisan consensus to increase the aid programme to 50 cents in every $100. So that was an excellent period for our aid program. But then, 2013 came and under the Abbott/Turnbull Government, aid began to be slashed dramatically, to the point where it reached the lowest level in our nation's history. I think it got down to about 21 cents in every $100 of gross national income. And so, aid's kind of been on the chopping block over the last seven years, I suppose. In the 2019 election, we had a glimmer of hope, as Labour announced if they were elected government, they would increase aid by 1.6 billion over four years. But as we know, they weren't elected. And within the Federal Budget that recently passed, the Coalition actually made the first increase to Australia's international development financing to the tune of $305 million. And that was that was the first increase of a government in eight years,
Dominic Billings: In terms of how the political parties respond to aid levels, whether it's heading into an election, or between elections when they're creating their platform, which I know is has been a central pivot point for Campaign for Australian. Do you notice that the parties tend to follow what they perceive the electorate wants? Or it's more top-down?
Jody Lightfoot: There's a number of considerations. And I think, I think the global financial crisis and the rise of nationalism around the world has created a more difficult environment to have discussions about international development and to gain commitments. So, I think that's been one key driver. But I think when you look at, if you look through the research literature on what really drives governments to increase aid, there are a number of factors, but one of the most important factors is the willingness of the prime minister to either increase or decrease aid. You saw that with Howard, you saw that with Rudd, being personally very committed. You've seen that in other countries, with people like Angela Merkel in Germany and in the UK. And so, I think that's a really important factor. Other factors are things like the presence of aid champions within the party in government, the broad-based party support from MPs within the party, because whilst it's the decision of the Expenditure Review Committee, if they've got support of the broad party room, it's more likely to get through. And so, the public sentiment does fit within that. And so, it's interesting within the recent Federal Budget, the government actually increased our international development financing by $305 million. But it wasn't promoted by government as an increase. It was kind of hidden in a way that they didn't have to say it was an increase, but it was there. One potential reason for that was that they don't want to be seen as increasing aid, during a global pandemic when there's high debt. And so, I think the public mood does matter, but kind of the extent of the level of campaigning, as well as those other political factors. And obviously, economic factors are also important.
Dominic Billings: At the time of that we're recording, we're probably maybe five weeks since the Federal Budget was just announced. On the back of your End COVID for All campaign, were you relatively happy, given what you just said, or was that kind of around about where you were expecting, for the aid levels to be adjusted, in line with a COVID-19 budget?
Jody Lightfoot: I think what we can say is that it could have been a lot worse. And so, we've seen repeated cuts for many, many years. And this was the first increase by a government in eight years. And so, I think you have to celebrate the win when it comes. And so, given the context, that it could have been worse, I do think this is something worthy of celebration. At the same time, you know, it's by no means perfect, and we've got a long way to go. There were cuts to disability programs in the budget, there were cuts to a number of programs, like Afghanistan, for example, Pakistan. And we've got a long way to go before we're actually showing global leadership and stepping up as a good global citizen, and as a leader within our region. And so, I think we can both celebrate the win whilst recognising we've got a way to go.
Dominic Billings: Obviously, the pandemic effects every person individually on some level or another. Have you noticed with End COVID for All campaign, have you noticed people quite engaged about the international repercussions in the developing world? Because I feel like in the news media, we do hear a lot about the Western countries, whether it's Europe, Western Europe particularly, and also the US. Have you felt that the End COVID for All campaign has gained particular traction in contrast to the regular campaign that you've been conducting all the time?
Jody Lightfoot: Yeah, I think we have broken into the media to an extent. The End COVID for All messages have been featured in all major publications, we launched on Sunrise. One of the key messages that were using in the campaign is that this crisis doesn't end for anyone until it ends for everyone. And I think what COVID presents is an opportunity to link the issue of international development. And through an issue that Australians can relate to, in a fairly unprecedented way, I think Australians really do understand that COVID spreading in Myanmar can affect people in Melbourne. There's an interconnection, both with health, with economy, our interconnectedness is more evident than ever before. And I think that's an opportunity to share the importance of global cooperation, because COVID is one example of where we do need global cooperation to solve a global problem. And if we can get it right with COVID, and we can help people to understand the importance of global cooperation. As you know, we're seeing the rise of nationalism around the world, that's going to better prepare us to solve other major crises like climate change and other areas of inequality as well.
Dominic Billings: Taking a more personal tact, Jody, what's been your journey to have become as passionate as you are about the distance between 0.7% of gross national income that Australia has repeatedly committed to giving over the years and what it's actually been? What has been your path to feel so strongly about what you're doing?
Jody Lightfoot: As I mentioned a little earlier in the conversation, some of my passion kind of was born out of an exploration of spirituality. And so, when I was at university, I was studying music. And that was wonderful. And during that time, I decided to attempt to try and follow the teachings of Christ. And one of the central teachings is to love your neighbour. And I was thinking that, well, so many people in the world are living in poverty or oppressed and loving your neighbour has to include seeking to enhance their freedom. So I had this desire to want to do something, but I didn't have any friends who were involved and had no idea what it would look like to be involved. After a little bit of looking, I decided to join Oaktree, an organisation run by young people to end extreme poverty. And I was blown away by the level of creativity, leadership and energy that these young people were showing and doing some really excellent movement building work. And I think my time at Oaktree started to teach me a theory of change that if you can build a movement strong enough to create change that can help to address our systemic issues that is leading to a lot of poverty and oppression. And so, yeah, basically, joining the dots between loving your neighbour, for me, has a lot to do with helping to build people-powered movements to address the injustices of our time. And I think I think that was really kind of where it started. And since then, it's really been reflecting a lot on just the preciousness of life in a way. Thinking about how, you know, I hope this doesn't get too philosophical. But you know, for billions of years, we just haven't existed. And suddenly, out of nowhere, we're here. And we didn't do anything to deserve to be here we just popped up. And not existing as like an ant or a snail but as human beings able to have conversations like this, able to dream and able to experience the beauty and the goodness of life. And for me, that's really where injustice becomes so offensive, because we have the opportunity to live these wonderful lives and experience the goodness of life. And the idea that people would spend that life being exploited sexually, being exploited under forced labour, being oppressed, dying needlessly from diseases, because they can't access something like a vaccination or clean water. That makes it so offensive. And so, I think, yeah, just regularly thinking almost spontaneously about how grateful I am to be alive, to have had the opportunity to experience the goodness of life. I want to do my part to help other people experience
Dominic Billings: How would you say you experience frustrations, whether it's professionally in your role. If you've been working toward an increase in aid for a couple of years, and then an election comes around. Or a budget’s announced and the results, perhaps you don't feel like they fall the way you would want them? How do you reconcile those setbacks? Do you feel like you need some glories along the way? Does that make sense?
Jody Lightfoot: Yeah, it makes sense. And it can be hard. Like I would start with a position of gratitude, just recognising that I'm extremely privileged to be able to do this kind of work. Firstly, just very grateful that I get to do this. Yeah, it does feel like an uphill battle at times, because you're often working in very short timeframes, trying to do a lot within those short times, with limited resources, and run into things that are fairly significant, like get very powerful decision makers to act in particular ways, which is hard to do. And so, most of the time, you don't win the campaigns because of what you're trying to shift. And so I think, like I went through a really difficult mental health period, a couple of years ago, and that was, in large part because I wasn't managing my emotions and managing my mind in a way that could kind of bear the toll of setbacks and the lifestyle of kind of go, go, go activism. And what was interesting was that when I started to share my story with other people, I was just shocked about how many people had the same story. And I had not known it was that bad. Now, I've just got activist friends who are burnt out, suffering from mental health issues. And it's kind of this thing that we don't talk about very often. But we probably need to because it's actually really bad. If activists get burnt out, well, of course for them as people, and then for the movements that they're participating in, because then it can no longer contribute as effectively. I think for me, a few of the things like mindfulness was a game-changer for me, because the first time you know, I developed a greater capacity to not have to identify with thoughts that come up. And that creates space to be able to choose whether you want to follow a thought train, which is sometimes skilful, and sometimes unskilful, you can allow thoughts to just arise and appear without having to feel like you're attached to them or feeling like you have to believe them. Whereas if you don't have a capacity to be mindful, you just identify with every thought, follow every thought train, and there's less of that degree to be able to calm the mind when it's skilful to do so. And it took a couple of consistent Budget cuts for me to start thinking about, which is really an idea from Eastern spirituality, which is non-attachment. I think there's it's really difficult to do but reducing your attachment on outcome whilst going all in on process. And so you bring your full heart and passion to what you're working on and seeking to express the world that you want to see within your life, within the tactics, within how you operate in the world. And then whilst you're doing that, you release yourself from things that you have, like either no or very little control over, like the outcomes, like it's really ultimately to the Expenditure Review Committee if they want to increase international development. And we can do all that we can and seek to learn and become more strategic at how we do that. But ultimately, it's their decision. And the question is 'How much am I willing to allow myself to deteriorate in my mental health because of a decision that someone else is making that I can't control?' So, whilst I think it's normal to be disappointed if that happens, and even angry, but I think we can take steps to reduce our attachment to that. And that can build a greater equanimity and acceptance of what we can change and what we can't change. And that can help with positive mental health amidst kind of the bustle of campaigning.
Dominic Billings: I really love that sentiment so much, Jody. It's fascinating, we want to do in some ways, things that require just so many people, almost superhuman, but there is this very human aspect to it to all of us, because we do have our physical limitations, and particularly our mental and emotional limitations. We’ll leave it there, Jody, because I really like that sentiment that you've expressed so much, and I how effective it is, for all of us to be able to reconcile. So, thank you so much, Jody. Is there anything in particular you want to promote in relation to the Campaign for Australian Aid?
Jody Lightfoot: No, nothing particularly I'm looking to promote, other than I do want to say, really appreciate you having me. I think you're doing is awesome, promoting education around SDGs. And I think that, all of us, in our own little ways, can be doing what we can to be promoting the world that we want to seek, living that out. I think we can get closer to that world. And that's an exciting prospect.
Dominic Billings: It's really great. Thank you so much, Jody and all the best with all the really great work that the Campaign's doing.
Jody Lightfoot: Thanks for having me, Dom.