Mr. Brendan Rogers:

On parliaments in Africa, I recall that in 1990 I worked out that of the 50 African countries, three were democratic. Since then, there has been a revolution on the continent, both a democratic one and in terms of conflict. While conflict in Africa continues to receive much publicity, it has declined significantly. In 1990, there were wars in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Angola and apartheid was still in place in South Africa. Part of the revolution in Africa over the past 20 years has been the growth of multi-party democracy, imperfect as it is in the African context. In the past ten years in particular, parliamentarians have become emboldened and empowered across the continent. This process has been stronger in some countries than others. For example, I note from my visits to Uganda that the country's media is freer than in Europe as it does not appear to be subject to any libel or slander laws.

A revolution is taking place and its trajectory is the correct one. We want to ensure that in ten or 15 years development co-operation will have been eliminated and replaced solely by trade. To achieve this we must work with governments and parliaments and establish sustainable institutions.

However, there will be setbacks. I worked in Zambia for many years, both with the Department and outside the Department, when we did much direct implementation. When I first worked at the embassy in Zambia in 1991, we did not really work through government systems; rather, we used direct implementation. Some of it worked well and some did not. I told the committee that on a number of occasions when I spoke to missionaries, having visited them all over northern and southern Zambia, they said that what we were doing was helping them but that they were working in schools without teachers, curriculums or books and asked that we work with the system to change the situation. That was what shaped my thinking. I decided there was a requirement to work with the missionaries and to continue with direct implementation, but we had to create a system so that eventually there would be no more need for development assistance. There must be a balance and there must be systems of accountability. We need to take the risks and we must have some appetite for risks, but we also have risk mitigation. Sometimes we have to make judgment calls and say "Let us not go in that direction."

Direct implementation, particularly in emergency situations, is still on the table and we do a little of it. However, our system is that we work with NGOs, with missionaries on the ground, who are getting all the intelligence, and with government systems. We now have a powerful auditor general with a staff of 400 in Uganda, a country which in 1986 was affected by conflict and was basically a failed state. Ireland has played a role. There is bad news here today with regard to the €4 million that was misappropriated, but there is a lot of good news in terms of the money invested over 20 years.