 It's my pleasure to welcome Jenny Wells from the New Zealand Aid Programme from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in New Zealand. Welcome to our discussion about the conference. But just before we begin, what sessions have you enjoyed at this conference? Are there one or two sessions that have got you thinking and thought, yes, that's significant? There's been a lot of the sessions, but I guess the ones that I particularly enjoyed was the discussion around women, peace and security and also a lot around the policing and the different types of policing and the effectiveness or not of different policing work around the world. And also because of my personal interest, the Afghanistan following the changes that are happening in Afghanistan and the different reflections that so many speakers brought to the conference. OK, the theme of the conference is lessons learned and focusing particularly on times of transition. What were the key issues you explored in your paper on the New Zealand government providing humanitarian assistance the Pacific way? What were the key questions you were exploring? Well, what we were trying to share was, I guess, a whole body of work that New Zealand government has undertaken from learnings from the response to the Samoa earthquake and the tsunami, sorry, in 2009 and where there was a definite sense within the government that we could have done better. New Zealand prides itself on being a, although a modest size donor, a principled, a strong and an effective donor. And a good neighbour, I think of New Zealand. You try to be a good neighbour, don't you? Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think that's really important in the Pacific. We often say we're not in the Pacific. We're of the Pacific. We're very much, you know, part of that Pacific culture. And the role that we can play, even though we may not be as big, the biggest donor is that partnership approach with those governments and those states in the Pacific. And we've had a very deliberate priority focus on the Pacific. Doesn't mean we don't engage elsewhere, but that's where our niche is, that's where we think we can have a bigger sphere of influence. So can you remind us what happened to Samoa and the scale of the problems? So in 2009, there was a large tsunami that, you know, affected a large area of the island, of the main island. It required a large international response. From New Zealand, we had military involvement. We had civil agencies, government. We also had NGO partners working on the response there. And there's been a significant recovery and reconstruction effort as well. And why were you uneasy? You imply that you felt you could have done better. What was it that concerned New Zealand as you reflected on your experience? But the response on the ground, I think, was there's always chaos. These disaster responses, there's always chaos. But it's managed chaos and, you know, we get there as we go through stages of responding. And I think what New Zealand delivered was good. It was well respected and well received. The learnings we had were more how we worked collectively in country, in New Zealand, across governments, so that civil military police sort of connection or interaction, which is why it was directly relevant to this conference. So what are the three key things you've tried to do better? And what have you been doing? So the lessons that came out of that was the need for us to have much better cross-government planning and systems and procedures and decision-making mechanism, a actual physical site, if you like, for coming together to coordinate a response. And also a lot of clarity around when we would provide assistance and on what basis. OK. Three great topics. Let's come to the first one about cooperation across silos within government. Honest to goodness, I swear to God I've spent 25 years of my life asking people questions about this on panels and in individual sessions at forums and conferences. I'm not being cynical at all. What that tells me is it's what the British sometimes call a wicked problem. It's very hard to do well. Why is that so? Because you're talking about within New Zealand. You're not even talking across international boundaries. And New Zealand isn't that big. And there aren't that many people. So even New Zealand is struggling. So why is it so hard for different agencies to talk to each other? So I think following that sort of lessons learned process and the real desire that there was, and there still is, to do the best we can, we've established what we call our emergency task force. And that brings all the key stakeholders, government and non-government, including the Red Cross and their NGO partners together, as well as France and Australia, because we have the France arrangement in the Pacific for responses. And we sit down now, and it's actually a formalized process of how we communicate, share information, plan, and then go ahead and deliver assistance. While we did it previously, and I think we all did it well, what we were lacking was that sort of coalescing point, if you like, and having the systems or the structures around that now. So last year, we had a water crisis in the country of Tuvalu, and also in Tokalau. And New Zealand government led the response to both of those with the support from Australia and from the US and our civil NGO partners. And it went better. The learnings from that was that forward-leaning approach is what we call it, being prepared, having a task force already stood up, ready to go, and people knowing what their roles and responsibilities just facilitated a much faster, smoother, and coordinated response. So pre-existing relationships, communication systems, and agreed guidelines, plus co-location at the headquarters to monitor and control when the event actually happens. They're the two action points. Yeah, so yeah. But the question I asked you was about why it's so hard. And you went to your actions, which is perfectly OK. But is that because New Zealand decided to lean forward and act better, and you didn't reflect on causation? Because sometimes people would say you need to understand causes of problems to solve them. Maybe that's wrong. You just took action. So I guess the causes were because while we each had our own very good operating systems, what we didn't have was a structure that then provided the leadership, if you like, over those operating structures. So the New Zealand Defence Force had very good operating procedures for how they would respond to disasters. So does New Zealand police. And so does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But actually that sort of joint decision-making and planning where you come together with the initial information was not as smooth as it could have been. So that was, I guess, the gap, if you like. And can I ask you, we've previously spoken to a wing commander from New Zealand who's spoken at the conference. He was talking about the shipping, the ship that went aground, the Christchurch earthquakes. And how lessons they had learnt from managing that. Are they two separate systems? Because you have an outward international focus, whereas the other would be an internal New Zealand focus. Or are they the same systems? There's a different focus or a different objective. So the New Zealand Defence Force learnings, even though they were very similar around interagency coordination and leadership and management and support, was all onshore. It's their role onshore, and we're looking at offshore. But it is, it's the same learnings. It's interesting, isn't it? Because here at this conference, the focus is a lot on the cooperation between civil and military or defence agencies dealing with external nations in trouble, either through humanitarian disasters of some kind or through conflict. And yet, the same challenges do exist in the domestic sphere. Is there, is one goal that we should perhaps talk more of, those two sets of systems should talk more to each other? I guess, I mean, there are different principles at play when you're operating onshore in your own country compared to when you're actually going offshore into another nation. And there's different parameters around that as well and different legal frameworks. I was about to say is that the legal frameworks, there certainly are army personnel here who have worked not only in international interventions, but have also been involved in interventions in our remote Aboriginal communities. And that some of the lessons relevant in the international arena of development and community development are considered relevant within a domestic setting in certain parts of Australia. Is that true in New Zealand as well? I would argue it would be the same across the whole of Australia or the whole of New Zealand really, that community engagement, ensuring that you're building on local capacity, not replacing the consultation phase that people actually know who you are and why you're there and the reasons of what you're doing, just out of respect, if nothing else. They're the same regardless of whether I think you're working within your own country or externally, it's about common humanity. Core values. Core values and core principles. And that was a lot of what we were working on when we were developing the guiding principles for the way that New Zealand government provides assistance offshore, was trying to reflect those core values. The one thing that is different is that whole issue of sovereignty. So we were trying to make it really clear that to our partners in the Pacific and to our own staff that New Zealand will respond to when we get a request, when there's a request for assistance and then work with the affected state to deliver that assistance. It's not about jumping the gun if you like or jumping in to say we're gonna save you. I think there's been a significant shift globally in that attitude probably in the last 10 years. Yeah, a bit more humility. Look, this is my final question. We began with your response to Samoa, wasn't it? How are you going? Because this is about transitions at different phases. What phase are you up to and how is that transition going? So in regards to Samoa and it's no different to Tuvalu and the other responses in the Pacific where they're natural. But the way we, the New Zealand government, I guess the key focus there is working with the state, the affected state to build that threshold of their own capability so that next time around they've got high levels of preparedness and risk reduction that means the threshold that they actually need overseas help, international assistance is higher. So we've transitioned through to our development program. These relationships are actually managed through our development program and the humanitarian program or allocation however you want to call it assistance kicks in when it's needed. And then there's a transition back to development, our bilateral program, very much working with the government on what their objectives are, what their development needs are to take that development trajectory forward. Look, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.