Tonga-Australia Partnership for Development

Prime Minister Rudd and Prime Minister Sevele signed the Tonga-Australia Partnership for Development at the Pacific Islands Forum in Cairns on 7 August 2009. The Partnership establishes our shared vision to work together in close cooperation to meet our common challenges and to raise the standard of living and quality of life for the people of Tonga.

In particular, the Partnership seeks to advance Tonga’s development vision as articulated in the National Strategic Planning Framework (NSPF) and make further progress towards attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.

The Partnership for Development commits Australia and Tonga to four initial Priority Outcomes aiming to:

• improve infrastructure, particularly maintenance, to increase the proportion of Tonga’s population with reliable and affordable links to markets and services
• reduce the prevalence of non-communicable disease risk factors such as smoking and obesity and strengthening Tonga’s focus on primary health care
• build a more highly skilled workforce linked to industry demand.
• develop a more efficient public sector, including in procurement and financial management.

Annual Partnership Talks between senior officials of the two Governments, reporting to Ministers, will ensure joint, regular and evidence-based review of progress against the objectives of the Partnership for Development. The Annual Partnership Talks will be convened alongside the existing High Level Consultations between Tonga, Australia and other donors. In addition to the joint review of progress, the performance of Australia’s contribution through the development cooperation program to our joint commitments will be reported and reviewed through the production of an Annual Program Performance Report (APPR).

AusAID Australian Development Scholarship (ADS)

The most recent round of ADS has concluded.

Please contact us for information on when the next round with take place.

The Direct Aid Program

The Direct Aid Program (DAP) is a flexible, small grants scheme for development activities managed by Heads of Australian Missions in approximately 45 countries. The emphasis of the program is on alleviating basic humanitarian hardships. See \'About us\' for more the application form and further details.