Johannesburg - Australia, a vocal critic of President Robert Mugabe's government, has announced a commitment of up to US$6m to co-operate with South Africa in supporting the recovery of the Zimbabwean economy and basic services.
The move is widely seen as signaling a softened approach to the Harare saga.
Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith told reporters in South Africa on Tuesday that his government had agreed on projects to help Zimbabwe with taxation laws as well as water and sanitation technical expertise.
He said Zimbabwe needed technical expertise to reform its tax laws and build the economy.
He The funding would support collaboration between the SA and Zimbabwean tax authorities to build Zimbabwe's tax administration and mobilise South African technical expertise to support recovery efforts in water, agriculture and economic governance.
Smith said political developments in the country were encouraging.
He said Australia was keen to step up trilateral co-operation in support of recovery efforts in Zimbabwe. Since the establishment of the all-party government, Australia had provided more than US$33m in assistance to Zimbabwe, including US$5m in funding through the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund.
Smith was speaking after his South African counterpart, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, this week during a meeting in which he mentioned the country would pump in US$12.5 million in additional aid to Africa to enhance ties as well as drum up support for a seat on the United Nations Security Council.
The two ministers also canvassed promising areas for multilateral co-operation.
"I strongly believe it is in both our own long-term national interests to be doing more together, regionally and internationally," Mr Smith was quoted saying during a speech to the South African Institute for International Affairs.
According to reports, Australia would contribute US$6 million during the next two years towards UN peace building on the continent, with us$4 million going to the UN Peacebuilding Fund and the other US$2 million going specifically towards support efforts in Burundi and Sierra Leone.
Mr Smith is the first Australian foreign minister to visit South Africa in more than seven years. He promised that Australia would increase African scholarships, especially in the agricultural and minerals resources sectors.
On the other hand, Australia would also provide US$500 000 to support South Africa in developing the Southern African Development Community (SADC) climate change plan of action.
Reaffirming the need to strengthen existing relations and further expand co-operation, Ms Nkoana Mashabane said South Africa was looking forward to working with Australian businesses to further open up trade opportunities and allow investment to grow between SA and Australia.
"We are seeing some of Australia's successful businesses partnering with their South African counterparts. We would like to see more of such partnerships and more of Australia's businesses coming into South Africa," she said.
South Africa and Australia share common interests and could still do more on issues of defence, peace and security, agriculture as well as human development, said the minister.
SA is Australia's largest trading partner on the continent, with trade estimated at US$4bn in 2008-09, growing at an average of seven percent over the past five years. Australia is an important export market for SA, with most of its exports to Australia being motor vehicles.
SA exports more to Australia than it does to any country in the Middle East or southeast Asia, or Brazil and Canada.
There is also a strong two-way relationship in investment, particularly in the minerals resources sector.
SA is lobbying Africa and friendly countries such as Australia to support its second bite at nonpermanent membership of the United Nations Security Council for 2011-12, while Australia is the candidate for the same seat for 2014-15.
