Crawford School of Public Policy

Terence Wood takes a look at which New Zealanders are most supportive of aid, and whether support for aid is related to beliefs about aid effectiveness.

Last year Camilla Burkot and I reported on our preliminary analysis of a public opinion survey we had conducted to better understand New Zealander’s views about aid. You can read the full blog post here, but in a nutshell, New Zealanders were less enthusiastic aid-cutters than Australians, and — like Australians — most New Zealanders wanted their aid spent on helping people in need, rather than aiding their own country.

In our just-released Development Policy Centre discussion paper, we have built on that initial work. We have looked at which types of New Zealanders are most supportive of aid, and also at the relationship between other views people have about aid and development, and their views about aid increases.

When it came to the types of New Zealanders who are most supportive of increasing aid, our findings are quite similar to those of similar work conducted in Australia. In both countries, people with an academic education and people who support left-leaning political parties are more likely to support increases in aid. Taken together as a group, people who state they are religious are less likely to support increases in aid in both countries too.

This piece was first published on 2 November 2017 by Devpolicy Blog from the Development Policy Centre, to read the full post, please visit: http://devpolicy.org/do-views-about-aid-effectiveness-influence-support-...