Ireland's overseas aid programme will amount to some €800 million (0.5 per cent of gross national income) this year, and will experience a huge increase to €1.5 billion by 2012, when the United Nations target to spend 0.7 per cent of that income is set to be achieved. Deciding how to spend these extra resources appropriately, effectively and responsibly is a real challenge.
Yesterday's announcement of a taskforce charged with identifying how Ireland can best contribute to reducing international hunger is an important step on the way to meeting it. Making this one of the principal objectives of the overseas aid programme is a worthy goal. The programme has concentrated for years on some of the poorest people in the world, especially in Africa. The task-force's chairman, former minister for agriculture Joe Walsh, said yesterday that Ireland's own history of famine and experience in agriculture and development co-operation will be brought to bear.
The taskforce will include distinguished Irish and international practitioners in these fields. Its brief is broad, allowing it to address how underlying issues such as persistent conflict, climate change, HIV/Aids and endemic poverty contribute to hunger. More than 800 million people, including 300 million children, are malnourished as a result.
The taskforce will report by the end of the year on international best practice and what Ireland can do to match it. It is not sufficient to spell out objectives; effective mechanisms and the development of adequate intellectual and administrative resources to sustain these must also be specified. It will be necessary to create vibrant networks between government, aid agencies, universities and think-tanks in Ireland and between here and target countries if the hugely-expanded aid budget is to function properly. This will require much more expert knowledge and a better circulation of personnel, skilled especially in African affairs and individual target countries there. Spending some of these new resources on creating this expertise will repay itself over the longer term.
Inevitably, a greatly-expanded programme like this one will have teething problems. Some of these were highlighted by the audit committee of the Department of Foreign Affairs, which pointed to staff shortages and procedural shortcomings in evaluating how taxpayers' money is spent. Others arise from the planned decentralisation of Irish Aid to Limerick, which many specialists are resisting. It will be much easier to overcome these difficulties if there is a common vision to inspire its work on reducing hunger.