Ireland can help poor states not because of who we are but because of what we can do and at the moment we are not doing much. It's time for a rethink, writes Tom Wright.
'Ireland's foreign policy is about much more than self-interest. For many of us it is a statement of the kind of people we are' - White Paper on Foreign Policy, 1996
We like to think of ourselves as a friend of the developing world but a recent report by Foreign Policy magazine and the Centre for Global Development (www.cgdev.org) paints a very different, and less pleasing, portrait of contemporary Ireland.
Their Commitment to Development Index (CDI) assesses the richest states in the world in terms of how their policies help the economic and social development of poor countries.
Ireland is in the bottom 25 per cent, a disappointing joint 15th overall out of a total of 21. The index, the first of its kind, ranks states in six separate areas: foreign aid, trade, investment, migration, peacekeeping, and the environment.
The foreign aid score considers both the level of aid as a percentage of GDP and the quality of the assistance provided. We rank joint eighth but with a score a third that of Denmark's and less than half that of Austria, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
The peacekeeping score measures personnel and financial contributions to international peacekeeping as a percentage of GDP. Although we are rightfully proud of our record, we only rank in ninth place, scoring less than half that of Greece. A reluctance to take part in non-UN run operations and to invest in our Defence Forces undoubtedly hurts us in this regard.
The trade score assesses the barriers to goods from developing countries. We rank joint 17th, ahead only of Japan, Switzerland, and Norway none of whom are a part of a major trading bloc.
Our strong support for unfair tariffs and subsidies that prevent African farmers from accessing European markets is a central reason for our poor performance. This is particularly ironic given that we traded our way out of poverty and now export well over 80 per cent of what we produce. However, it is the environmental area that we reach our nadir. The CDI ranks each country's commitment to the environment in terms of the damage it causes to the global commons and its commitment to international environmental initiatives. Ireland comes second last, next only to the United States.
The Netherlands tops the index followed by Denmark, Portugal, New Zealand, and Switzerland. Of our EU partners only Finland (16th) performs worse.
The US (20th) and Japan (21st) make up the rear largely as a result of their poor record on peacekeeping and foreign aid. It is interesting to note both how well many small countries perform and how large states, such as Germany and the UK, who we might assume to be hostile to the interests of smaller, poorer states, actually are more in tune with their needs than we are.
Ours is not a good position with room for improvement; it is a bad position. On this evidence, we are at best indifferent to the plight of the developing world and probably worse. Unfortunately the Government appears to be doing all it can to deepen the crisis. In the past 12 months it has cut overseas development aid despite a promise to raise it, supported the tightening of migration laws by linking the repatriation of immigrants to foreign aid, opposed free and fair trade for Africa, and shrugged off the announcement that we are the EU's worst violator of the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming. Defence expenditure remains dangerously low, thus undermining our ability to partake in peacekeeping operations, while our diplomats remain under-resourced and over-stretched.
We are good at saying the right things when we have nothing at stake. Our support for the abolition of Third World debt when we have no debt to forgive is a case in point. We are less good at doing anything meaningful that involves sacrifice on our part.
However, shaping our policies to help developing countries is both the right thing to do and prudent statecraft that advances our interests. Right because the desperate plight of poor states, particularly those in Africa, ought to be a blot on our collective conscience. Prudent because the instability that results from poverty does not respect borders. Terrorism, disease, and economic instability are its effects.
A few years ago, in the election campaign for the UN Security Council, the Government used our colonial and poverty stricken past to demonstrate our natural empathy with the developing world.
However, Ireland can help poor states not because of who we are but because of what we can do and at the moment we are not doing very much. It's time for a rethink.
Tom Wright is a doctoral fellow in international relations at Georgetown University, Washington DC.