President Mary McAleese's visits to Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania, which concluded this week, have raised awareness of Ireland's aid programme in these countries and promoted a more rounded understanding of their problems and achievements at home. This was a valuable exercise. It bears out Ireland's substantial commitment to Africa, yet helps to educate us about its great diversity and huge potential.
Several major themes recurred over the two-week trip, which was briefly interrupted by Mrs McAleese's attendance at the funeral of Charles Haughey. She continually emphasised the necessity of good governance in both public and private domains. Without that it will be difficult to sustain a long-term commitment to aid, she insisted. Nor will it be possible to ensure that aid encourages economic development and growth. Mrs McAleese did not explicitly intervene in the arguments going on in the Irish development community about whether aid to corrupt governments is self-defeating, or is better given directly to non-governmental organisations. But the clear drift of her comments was towards improving public and private accountability and democratic procedures.
This matters because of the variety of Irish aid projects in the countries concerned. The prospect that the volume of public funding will increase sharply over the next six years, as Irish aid steadily reaches the United Nations agreed target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product by 2012, reinforces the point. If this extended commitment cannot be shown to produce tangible results in the mainly African countries concerned it will be difficult to sustain public engagement in Ireland.
Mrs McAleese sought to broaden our understanding of these relationships, in a welcome accentuation of the positive. She emphasised how different is each of the three countries she visited and stressed their achievements as well as the public and private tragedies associated with the HIV/Aids pandemic afflicting the region. Although one quarter of Lesotho's population is infected with HIV, one in seven is now getting treatment for it and the proportion is increasing. She saw landmine clearance and cashew nut projects in Mozambique, which make a real difference to villagers. In Tanzania her address to the country's new parliament underlined the good governance theme, bearing in mind that €10.4 million of Ireland's €26 million aid to that state goes into direct budget funding.
In coming years direct human contact between Ireland and these states and peoples can help ensure this aid is put to best use.