AIDAN McQUADE,
Madam, - During the past decade Irish governmental response to the challenges of world poverty has begun to match the commitment shown by thousands of ordinary Irish people over the years, many of whom continue to work in poor and war-afflicted countries across the world. This governmental commitment is reflected in Tom Kitt's article in your edition of December 23rd.
He rightly states that the current African famines need an unprecedented humanitarian and political response. However it should also be noted that such a response has been lacking for decades.
One of the things that allows such neglect to continue is the absence of public pressure for proper action and this is partly a consequence of a lack of information. Often media coverage not only reports what is going on but also sets the agenda for public response.
As director of a major non-governmental agency in Angola in the late 1990s I was often frustrated at the lack of funding available to respond to a crisis that was at least as serious as Kosovo and was certainly much more desperate than the floods in Mozambique during the same period. The absence of Angola from the international news media at the time was a major factor in this neglect.
With honourable exceptions the corporate management of humanitarian agencies themselves will often ignore chronic crises because they feel they can obtain better funding for their organisations by responding to the news agenda rather than effectively advocating the rights of those with no voice.
I have no idea if the Irish response to the crisis in Africa that Mr Kitt outlines is appropriate to Ireland's size, its organisational capacity in Africa, both governmental and non-governmental, and the scale of the problem. It was not possible to glean this from the article. Though in absolute terms the amounts of money he mentions are small, it is to be hoped that Ireland Aid is taking steps to ensure that the impact of the funding is maximised.
Are our humanitarian and political responses as a nation enough? This overarching question leads to specific questions to the Irish institutions primarily responsible for responding to crises:
1. To the Irish Government: Can you provide the political leadership to obtain a response from the industrialised world appropriate to the urgency of the crisis in Africa?
And can you provide the strategic leadership to the Irish response to war and poverty in Africa that ensures that operational capacity is optimised and funded where it is most needed?
2. To the Irish humanitarian and development agencies: Are the mandates of your programmes in poor countries and your organisation in Europe sufficient to properly indict international inaction in the face of humanitarian disaster and to precisely detail responses sufficient to the needs of all those affected?
3. To news organisations and the rest of the media: Can you provide sustained, first-hand, journalistic coverage of the humanitarian and political responses to these crises to allow informed public discussion of our institutions' responses?
If we are serious as a society about our response to famine and war in the 21st century questions such as these should prompt a national debate on how our institutions can and should perform.
Given our depth of experience, commitment and professionalism in humanitarian response and development it should not be considered adequate that we merely show up at an emergency. My experience of working with Irish agencies and with Irish professionals in other international organisations is that while they often have the will and ability to ensure appropriate responses to crises, they often are denied the means to do so.
As a result, many others continue to suffer the sort of neglect that we have seen in our own history and which threatens millions in Africa with famine today. - Yours, etc.,
AIDAN McQUADE,
Cloughoge,
Newry,
Co Armagh.