Aid Securitisation and Recipient Agency: What Vanuatu's pushback tells us about Australian Pacific Island Aid Partnerships
Australia speaks of the Pacific as 'family', but its aid is increasingly tied to security strategy. Vanuatu's renegotiation of the Nakamal agreement shows what recipient agency looks like.
In May, a media release from Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong ensured that the 2026-27 budget, has reprioritised and allocated over 75 cents in every development dollar to the Indo-Pacific region. The government has labelled this as an investment in “resilience, prosperity, and regional stability”. Australian policymakers very often frame development cooperation as evidence of a strong regional partnership. Encouraging us to critically think where does development end and strategy begin?
As aid becomes increasingly concentrated in Australia’s immediate region, events in Vanuatu and other Pacific Island Countries (PICs) reveal heavy aid securitisation. So what is Aid securitisation? It is when donors provide and utilise aid as a soft power tool to achieve security objectives. Australia speaks of the Pacific as ‘family’, but its aid is latently tied to security strategy.
Aid increasingly tied to security
Pacific Islands are the highest aid dependant nations and have begun receiving assistance from non-OECD countries including China, whose bilateral influence is exponentially growing in the region since the USAID cuts. This has caused Canberra concerns about security and strategy in relation to the area loosely referred to as its ‘backyard’.
Vanuatu has become focal in this contest for power. Last month, after seeking significant amendments to the original proposal, Vanuatu finally approved the new version of the Australian Nakamal agreement. The deal promises hundreds of millions of dollars in development aid to Vanuatu and closer security partnership. Yet commitments have also been questioned. Whilst waiting for the Nakamal finalisation from Canberra, criticism has emerged over Vanuatu’s exclusion from Australia’s Pacific Engagement Visa ballot (a flagship initiative aimed to provide many PIC citizens permanent residency in Australia). For many this exclusion acted as a disconnect from Australia’s rhetoric of regional partnership.
Yet unlike the narratives portrayed by Canberra and Beijing, Vanuatu has maintained its non-aligned stance. Alongside accepting the revised Nakamal agreement, they have also signed the Namele Pact with China. This dedication to non-alignment contributes to the explanation of why previous iterations of the Nakamal Agreement were controversial. PM Napat disclosed Vanuatu would have needed to consult Australia or obtain its consent for important infrastructure projects under the terms of the original agreement to possibly counter Chinas’ presence. He told parliament, “This already undermined our sovereignty,” outlining the government’s push for renegotiation.
Rather than rejecting partnership, Vanuatu’s renegotiation of the agreement can be understood as an assertion of recipient agency in a development landscape increasingly shaped by donor interests. As PhD ni-Vanuatu candidate Anna Naupa has explained, “Australia’s preference for securitising relations risks… disregarding other aspects of the partnership that matter deeply to Vanuatu”. In this sense, Vanuatu revisions are aiming to challenge aid securitisation.
What Vanuatu is telling Australia and its meaning for Pacific Aid relations
Vanuatu’s response showcases active agency as an aid recipient, protecting itself from becoming a mere pawn in a geopolitical contest. It is asking Australia to pay greater attention to the pressing concerns experienced by ni-Vanuatu communities on matters of climate change, economic stability, labour mobility and recognition of blackbirding histories which draws parallels to modern day PALM scheme. However, if the Pacific is seen solely through the lens of strategic competition, the embodied contextual realities of its people become overshadowed.
Recent commentary argues that Australia remains the Pacific’s most significant partner because of its deep institutional presence, aid commitments, and longstanding regional relationships. This is undoubtedly true. However, the latest polls have reported China as more influential in the Pacific. Bringing us to the revelation that focusing solely on the scale of Australia’s engagement risks obscuring an important question, what kind of relationships are being built?
The current Australian foreign aid tactics runs the risk of perpetuating the very power disparities and remnants of coloniality that multiplicity of aid reforms have attempted to address. Additionally, majority of AusAID, delivered independently in the past, is now controlled by private firms via large facility style programs which have largely bureaucratised aid delivery and obfuscated development.
A way for the future?
Scholars have noted, despite decades of criticism, even from seniors within the sector the aid system remains remarkably resistant to change and it is unlikely to do so in the face of geopolitical pressures. Rather a way could be paved by critical voices from the outside to build back better. It is essential to reiterate importance of recipient ownership in how development priorities are negotiated and who ultimately gets to set the agenda, it cannot just be a buzzword employed on paper.
An obvious lesson surfaces for Australia. It is unrelated to how or whether they can outcompete China. It is time Pacific countries are being given genuine power to shape the partnerships that are supposedly being built for their benefit.
If Australia wants to remain the Pacific’s partner of choice, it should spend less time pondering on the state of permanent contest and invest time in projects where Pacific countries are heard and consulted. Vanuatu’s message asserts partnership cannot be built through monetary security agreements alone; possibly China’s presence in the region could be helpful to leverage these interests.