ANU book set to launch maps 50 years of Australia’s peak body for international aid and development

The idea of Australia’s peak council for international aid and development organisations germinated following lunches in Canberra and meetings at University House 52 years ago this year.
 
Now an Australian National University lecturer in anthropology and participatory development has written a history of the body to mark the creation of the Australia Council for International Development in 1965.
 
“I thought about writing it way back during the 25th anniversary in 1990, and got more serious by delving into the archives in the early 2000s and writing an article for a journal,” Dr Patrick Kilby from the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, recalls.
 
“In 2010 I became determined because the 50th anniversary was looming, and then I created a timetable and worked it out.”
 
The result is NGOs and Political Change: A History of the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID), published by ANU Press and due to be launched in University House on Tuesday by current council president, Sam Mostyn.
 
Former ANU Vice Chancellor, Sir John Crawford, conceived the idea of the council while on campus, and its initial meetings in 1964-65 with various non-governmental organisations (NGOs) all occurred in University House, Patrick explains.
 
“It was the coming together of this unique set of global and local changes for NGOs in the early 1960s that set the scene for the establishment of a coordinating body for NGOs in Australia,” he writes.
 
“However, despite these international factors, the push for coordination did not come from the Australian NGOs, but rather from the persistent drive of a former leading public servant with strong links to government.”
 
Enter John Crawford, who left government to join the ANU in 1960 and was concerned about agricultural development. He believed it was important for NGOs to have a body with which to consult government and themselves.
 
Patrick became involved in ACFID in 1983 when he was part of the Freedom from Hunger Campaign. He was fascinated by the process in 1985 to re-admit the Returned Services League (RSL) which had left in 1975 amid the fall-out of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam war.
 
“It was the political dynamism that got me interested,” Patrick says.
 
“NGOs were actually political animals,” the Senior Lecturer in the university’s Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development Program reflects.
 
Patrick says he has enjoyed the researching process and interviewing former council members, some of whom corrected his “faulty memory” of what he thought happened.
 
“I checked the archive and not only was my friend correct on occasions, I was on that committee for when it happened.
 
“It was embarrassing, but we couldn’t have met very often or I would have recollected it,” he says, with a laugh.