Ms Maria Paula Marques Faria de Barro:

I thank the committee for inviting us. I am from Portuguese Development Cooperation and for us, as a body for bilateral co-operation, it is important to be here and, as a peer, to understand best practices and experience and to have the possibility of sharing knowledge on the way forward. I will outline our relationship with the parliament.

Portuguese Development Cooperation has a very good ongoing relationship with parliament on accountability to the house and in advocacy on the principal means and objectives of our co-operation policy and also on relations with the parliaments of our partner countries and multilateral organisations. It is very relevant to be here and to see how involved and interested the committee is in this context and in being accountable regarding Irish co-operation.

With regard to the collaboration of bilateral co-operation institutions in the field, we have systematic EU meetings which are led by the Presidency, so it changes every six months, where we share the projects, constraints and good practice in the field and identify co-ordination processes. In Mozambique, for example, we have a joint programming process in the field. It is led by the European Union and the final objective is to have a unique European Union programme co-ordinated in the field in respect of European co-operation to Mozambique. Every member state is very much involved in this process, so each one of us can have a specific intervention that is co-ordinated and harmonised.

I also wish to stress the work we are all, as members, doing in DAC regarding the quality and accountability of our processes and projects, as well as the process as European member states. We have specific expert meetings where we prepare all the European policies regarding development policy on health, education, gender and so forth. This working process and mutual accountability and experience learning is also very important for the co-ordination process.