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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
78 February 2016
people now own the same wealth
as the poorest 3.6 billion people.1%
owns more than 99%. The gaps are
widening.
Talk of overseas aid may seem like trying to
use a sticking plaster to plug a haemorrhage.
In a world of trickle up economies with ever
growing needs driven by conflict and climate,
aid remains critical. Despite the critiques of aid
in the past decade, without it, many of the Least
Developed Countries, would collapse.
This Government is not without achievements
in Official Development Assistance (ODA). Fol-
lowing the financial crash in 2009, the aid
budget was an easy target and was slashed by
30% in the 2010 budget. Those affected by cuts
in the aid budget are not visible and certainly
won’t arrive at Leinster House on their tractors.
Several Irish NGOs were also downsized and
their aid programmes closed as a result.
Following that significant cut, however, the
aid budget was stabilised at around €600m.
This was made possible by cross-party support
and opinion polls which showed the tacit sup-
port of the public.
Over 80% of people in Ireland regularly state
they are in favour of aid. They may not raise it
on the doorsteps, but they see it as the right
thing to do.
On the other hand, all OECD countries are
committed to giving 0.7% of Gross National
Income (GNI) in ODA and we have failed to reach
this target. The commitment is a long-standing
gold standard in international development and
one which many countries had been close to
achieving before the financial crash. In 2009,
Ireland was giving 0.59% of GNI in ODA.
The target, as a percentage, is set up to be
cyclical. Countries will give according to their
means as their economy expands and
contracts.
The commitment to reach the 0.7% target
was in the Programme for Government of the
current Government, with a target date of 2015.
However, there has been no real commitment.
The economy is now growing yet the aid budget
has remained flat. We increasingly and signifi-
cantly lag behind the OECD target.
Our aid provision now stands at 0.38% of GNI,
the same as in the early 2000s.
A new commitment to reaching the target
within the life time of the next government is
essential.
Significant improvements have been made in
the quality of Ireland’s aid programme over the
lifespan of the current Government. Interna-
tional trends reflect shifts towards concessional
lending and private-sector engagement. How-
ever, Ireland’s aid programme has become
more poverty-focused. This is both in country
focus, with one of the highest rates of funds
going to Least Developed Countries, and in the
types of programmes it funds. The aid pro-
gramme has bucked the international trend of
skewing aid to serve the needs of the donor
country and has remained highly
poverty-focused.
‘One World, One Future’, the Irish Aid policy,
was launched in 2013 following a public consul-
tation. It sets out Ireland’s priorities in overseas
development. The commitment to addressing
hunger is clear.
The current Government spearheaded the
drive to address hunger globally and led on
international initiatives such as ‘Zero Hunger’
at the UN. It has become a leader in this area
and ensured that this initiative was central to
the new Sustainable Development Goals signed
in New York last September.
Questions have been asked, however, about
the involvement of Irish Aid in the corporate-
backed Global Alliance for Climate Smart
Agriculture, which has received much criticism
from global civil society, and attempts to link
this to the hunger agenda. The biggest gap,
however, is the failure to embed the priorities
for development in all government depart-
ments. While both the Irish Aid Policy, and the
‘Global Island’ policy, the core foreign policy
statement, boast commitments to development
and human rights as a “whole of government
effort”, little has been done to implement it.
This incoherence is stark. As Ban Ki Moon,
the UN Secretary General said during his visit
to Ireland last May: “One cannot be a leader on
hunger, without also being a leader on climate
change”. Coherence demands that our commit-
ment on global hunger is matched by a
commitment to funding programmes for climate
adaptation and resilience matched with equal
effort to reduce our own emissions.
Aid remains essential. However, if aid is to be
effective it requires commitment as well as
joined-up thinking across all policy areas.
This challenge must be addressed by the next
Government.
Lorna Gold is Head of Policy and Advocacy
with Trócaire
Band Aid
Ireland’s aid provision is 0.38% of GNI,
the same as in the early 2000s
by Lorna Gold
INTERNATIONAL
11
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
0.55
0.6
0.65
0.7
0.75
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
from Budget Choices 2016 June 2015 Report by Social Justice Ireland
Official Development Assistance as % GNP
Ireland 2008-2015 (2015-2020 an indicative pathway)
2008-2014
Projected
2008 0.59
2009 0.54
2010 0.52
2011 0.51
2012 0.47
2013 0.46
2014 0.38
2015 0.35
2016 0.42
2017 0.49
2018 0.56
2019 0.63
2020 0.7
Ireland cannot be a
leader on hunger, without
also being a leader on
climate change
