Child sponsorship, development and aid: PLAN and UNICEF in Australia, 1945–1975

Abstract

During the post-war period, Australia became actively involved with two aid organisations – the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and Foster Parents Plan (PLAN) – which focused on assistance to children in countries in Asia impacted by war and impoverishment. The history of PLAN and UNICEF in Australia has attracted very little, if any, scholarly attention. This article seeks to begin to fill this gap as a contribution to the history of Australian development and aid in the Asian region by considering how Australia became engaged in Southeast Asia through these two organisations. An examination of the significance of aid programmes focused on children offers an opportunity to pursue new lines of inquiry about the construction of the child in Australian aid programmes reflecting a Western imaginary based on paternalism. A study of these groups points to different cultural methods used to draw on constructions of the child through fundraising in the case of UNICEF and letter writing between donors and children in the PLAN scheme. This focus can glean new insights into the diversity of Australia’s role in promoting development in the region and its multiple layers of purpose and engagement when examined through UNICEF and PLAN.