Channelling money through profoundly corrupt and repressive governments is not the only thing wrong with how Irish foreign aid is managed. Set that aside, and you still wonder if photo opportunities and being able to brag about donations mean more to the Government than ensuring that aid delivers the maximum possible benefit, writes David Adams
Take the recent visit by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to the Niall Mellon Township Trust, which plans to build 7,000 homes in South Africa, one of the richest and most developed countries on the continent. Ahern was gushing in his praise, announcing that the Government intended to donate €5 million to the project. That these homes would have been of infinitely more benefit to people living in one of the many poorer African nations obviously did not matter. Neither did the issue of whether or not local construction workers had been hired to do the work, as his tribute to "3,000 Irish builders, tradespeople and others" made clear.
He and his Ministers and officials were too busy back-slapping for the cameras to be bothered about petty incidentals like possible non-adherence to Irish Aid guidelines, which talk about employing ("empowering") local citizens wherever possible. While in Africa, and of much more significance, the Taoiseach was at pains to stress that, "unlike many other western countries", Irish aid is not linked to trade. It was noticeable, nonetheless, that for every mention of Irish largesse there was an accompanying announcement of new agreements on trade. Everything from Irish meat, butter and "deep-dug" peat to IT and communications systems was sold by the Irish delegation, yet they bought nothing. There may be no formal linkage, but there is something distinctly exploitative about a one-way traffic in trade between Ireland and aid-recipient countries.
If the Government cares as much about the plight of Africa as it claims, then instead of dutifully following the closed-market, protectionist policies of the EU, it should be fighting tooth and nail to have them lifted. While trade barriers remain in place, EU members donating aid to Africa is the equivalent of them throwing conscience-salving scraps from the top table of an exclusive club to those they keep locked outside the door.
The EU is not the only international body that brings heavy influence to bear on Irish foreign policy, including aid distribution and humanitarian intervention. In a recent article for this newspaper ("Why Ireland has got it largely right on foreign aid", Opinion and Analysis, January 12th), Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern claimed Ireland was now a "global leader in the fight against poverty".
Elaborating, he wrote of how the Government intends "opening a volunteering and information centre in O'Connell Street, which will be followed by centres in Cork and Galway".
What he didn't care to mention, however, is that these centres will effectively be a recruitment arm of three UN agencies (the Office for the Co-Ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the UN Refugee Agency and the World Food Programme), with Irish Aid simply acting as the conduit. Maybe Ahern hasn't considered how big a threat to the longer-term survival of the two locally based NGO implementing agencies, Goal and Concern, that a Government-sponsored, perpetual UN recruitment drive poses.
It is already difficult enough for these organisations to find enough committed, specialist workers in the relatively small pool that exists in Ireland, without having to compete with UN agencies able to offer far larger salaries and better conditions.
Then again, perhaps the Government has considered all of the implications, and the much-trumpeted recent allocation of multi-annual programme scheme grants is intended to be the last.
In the same article, Ahern talked of Ireland being a "global centre for conflict resolution". Such a magnificent claim can hardly be based solely on work in Northern Ireland alongside the UK and the US. There is no evidence to suggest that the current method of Irish aid distribution has helped resolve conflict; in fact, the reverse could more easily be argued.
It is likely, then, that Ahern was again referring obliquely to Ireland's increasing role in this sphere as a subsidiary of the UN. To describe the UN's record on both "peacekeeping" and "conflict resolution" as extremely dubious would be complimentary. It has on different occasions been highly selective, criminally neglectful and abysmal, but seldom effective, as I'm certain the surviving peoples of Ethiopia, Liberia, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, southern Sudan, Darfur, Zimbabwe, Kenya and many other places would readily testify.
Yet, despite this record, not only does the Government happily recruit volunteers for the UN, but it does so to the disadvantage of two highly reputable, locally based agencies. Never mind the pretence of autonomy and emotive, nonsensical statements about the shared history of Ireland and Africa: the Government plays strictly by the rules as laid down by the elites, of which they are proud to be one.