OPINION:Developing countries must provide leadership if they are to break their dependence on aid, writes Peter Power
WITH AN increased commitment to overseas aid in recent years and during a period of slower economic growth at home, we need to continually assess the value for money and effectiveness of Ireland's aid programme.
Next week, donor and partner countries will meet in Accra in Ghana to address development issues and to ask the vital question: How can we make aid work better? I will report to the conference that I am confident Ireland is squaring up to this question and is seeking the best value possible for the aid we deliver.
Donor states have assisted the world's most underdeveloped countries to tackle poverty and exclusion for years. Yet the results have been mixed. Low agricultural yields, disease, poor levels of education and rapid population growth combine with weak administrative and judicial systems, and in some cases corruption, continue to hold back development.
A key factor is ownership. Experience and research within the OECD over 40 years supports the conclusion that developing countries must provide leadership and be supported in so doing if they are to tackle these challenges and break their dependence on aid.
Externally imposed solutions will not work, but when international donors put their efforts behind credible, national-led plans, the results follow. Only governments can provide equitable access to services to all citizens and effectively channel the scale of investment required.
There are plenty of examples of the effectiveness of this approach from countries in which Irish Aid, the Government's overseas development programme, works.
In Tanzania, thanks in part to Irish support, the ministry of education has boosted primary school enrolment rates to nearly 100 per cent, and the proportion of children transferring to secondary school has almost tripled.
Uganda is another longstanding Irish Aid partner country. Poverty has been reduced from 56 per cent of the population in 2002 to 31 per cent in 2005. In Mozambique, Irish Aid contributes to a partnership with the ministry of health and the Clinton Foundation which has provided 86,000 people with access to anti-retroviral treatment for HIV and Aids.
However, additional reform of aid models is needed if these achievements are to be consolidated. Closer co-ordination between donors is essential as many developing countries are deluged with project monitoring missions. The entry of new actors in the field of development, such as global funds and private foundations, has to be taken into account. And aid flows need to be more predictable to allow the recipient countries to plan effectively. I hope the conference in Accra will chart ways of further improving ownership within partner countries, co-ordination among donors, and ultimately, the quality and impact of aid.
Aid volumes are very important. We are now at the midway stage in the Millennium Development Goal targets set for 2015.
There are some successes to record: since 2000, three million more children survive each year, two million people receive treatment for HIV and Aids and millions more children are in school.
However, with the existence of over one billion of the world's inhabitants under threat due to rising fuel and food prices and the impact of climate change, a re-doubling of efforts will be needed if the goals are to be achieved. This is a key challenge.
Developed countries have a duty to respond. As a small, open trading nation, it is in our interest to see political stability and economic and social progress in the poorest regions of the world.
Ireland is playing its part. We are the sixth largest aid donor in the world per capita and we are committed to the UN target of spending 0.7 per cent of our GNP on overseas development by 2012.
By international standards, the Irish Aid programme is highly respected. With its focus on poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, on investment in the social sectors and on working closely with governments of developing countries but also with non-governmental organisations such as Concern, Trócaire and Goal, it is considered to be at the cutting edge.
Building on 35 years' experience, Irish Aid has the expertise in place to ensure that taxpayers' funding is protected to the highest standards. We are also working with key institutions and civil society groups that hold governments to account. The programme is generous and effective and Irish people can justly take pride in its achievements.
The debate on aid needs to focus on issues of quality, scale and modalities in my view. Ideas mooted of late that donor countries implement all aid projects directly, or that we pull back to one or two "model" states, are dated, unrealistic and are not supported by international research.
What developing countries need most is engagement and partnership from donor countries in what is a difficult and often frustrating path to sustainable economic growth and true independence. With this comes a responsibility to promote good governance, the rule of law and respect for human rights and to ensure that the benefits are widely shared and sustainable.
The obstacles to development are numerous. Simplistic, ready-made solutions do not help. It is all too easy to draw on emotive images of ethnic tension and conflict in Africa as some have done to suggest that this highly diverse and resourceful continent has a chronic and almost innate inability to manage its own affairs. That is short-sighted and disingenuous. There is much more to be done, but generalisations damage the poorest communities we are most trying to help. Let us debate aid effectiveness, but let us do so with respect for our partners and with a desire to help them chart a course towards economic growth, social investment and equity.
Peter Power is Minister of State for Overseas Development