Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank members for their extensive and probing questions. I will address as many of them as I can.

We have been doing our best to stabilise the overseas development aid budget, which decreased more than 30% from its high of 0.5% of GDP in 2008. In 2012 we were at 0.48% and the figures for 2013 will depend on the performance of the economy. We intend to maintain expenditure at close to the 0.5% level and the programme for Government commits us to reaching 0.7% if economic circumstances permit. We have done extraordinarily well considering our economic difficulties. We are encouraging other countries to maintain or increase their expenditure. Some have done so but others have slid backwards due to economic pressures. The United Kingdom, which is under considerable economic pressure, has increased its spending from 0.56% of GDP in 2012 to more than 0.7% this year. That is a most welcome development. The UK is considering a statutory requirement to increase overseas development assistance to 1%, which would be significantly higher than the United Nations target. That is an interesting development given that the UK's governing Conservative Party is under considerable pressure in regard to expenditure.

Our efforts to maintain our ODA levels are seen by many as a good example and have given us valuable credibility during our Presidency. The fact that we are regarded as being serious about our expenditure allows us to exert leadership as a small country even though we cannot draw on a massive amount of resources. Proportionately, we are seen as very generous both in terms of official ODA and individual donations to overseas development initiatives. We are still No. 1 in the world in our generosity to collections for developing countries and global disasters.

Opinions on trade differ. We have come to the firm conclusion that trade must be part of the equation.

Not only that; we are constantly being told by African countries that they want trade. They are extremely enthusiastic about engaging with the developed world on a level playing field. They see trade as that playing field. It is not a donor-to-recipient situation but a one-to-one engagement in investment, business and trade. This is coming through from all the countries we are engaged with very strongly. That is the relationship they want and we must build it up. At the same time, many of the countries to which we have traditionally been giving aid alone have made considerable progress in recent times. Very strong winds of economic change have been blowing across Africa, including sub-Saharan Africa, one of the poorest areas in which seven of our nine programme countries are concentrated. While the distribution is varied and disproportionate, economic growth has progressed enormously. It is only a few years since Zambia's overseas development assistance comprised 30% of its annual budget. The figure is now 4%, and this is reflected in many other countries as well. The proportion of aid in their budgets is only a fraction of what it was. In most countries we are dealing with, it is only approximately 10% of the annual budget. Overseas development aid is decreasing rapidly and trade and business is increasing rapidly. We must take cognisance of that and develop new strategies to ensure that happens. At the same time, however, we must not be seen to be exploitative. We do not want it to be a scramble for the resources of Africa. We do not want to provide overseas development aid only on condition that we get contracts. That is why our overseas development aid remains untied.

We will still present our overseas development aid to the areas of greatest need. That is why our overall policy in this document has two threads. One is that we are focusing on fragile states. We are moving to the states that are in most need. We have always been there but are moving up a notch to conflict or post-conflict areas because those countries have the greatest need and are seldom dealt with in a comprehensive fashion. There is an immediate response when the need is greatest but as soon as those countries stop appearing in the newspapers and on television, they are forgotten about and that means they often revert to a situation of conflict. The second thread is trade. We want to ensure those are the two major prongs of our approach.

We seek to engage our private sector. We have an African-Irish economic forum, the next meeting of which will take place in October. More than 200 Irish firms seeking to engage with Africa have already signed up to attend that forum. The African embassies will send African companies here to that forum and that business engagement is being established. We provide the countries, particularly our partner countries, with the expertise of our State agencies so they can avail, on request, of what Bord Bia, Enterprise Ireland or some of our research agencies might have to offer. Our embassies are a fulcrum of activity, with designated persons who are the first point of contact for anybody who wants to do business in Africa. Where there are Irish business networks established in the various areas, Irish businesses can access the African market and African companies can access the information we might be able to give in an advisory capacity. We want to develop that relationship as effectively as we can. The last thing we want is to have a situation where there is a conflict. We want to have it as a partnership. We want to build up a new approach to ethical engagement with countries to which we have previously only given development aid. Now we are getting to a new stage of also engaging in business and investment. It is a very interesting new development.

We had talks with the development Commissioner, Mr. Andris Piebalgs, a few weeks ago. I was hoping we would be able to manage a forum for the development ministers before the end of the Irish Presidency. Unfortunately, it did not happen, but I think it will happen soon. Countries that are beginning to change their approach need to discuss it and we need to get a common approach across the EU. We are the first country that has clearly put this out and are the only country, apart from the Netherlands, that has a Minister for trade and development. The Netherlands has that Minister because the new Government took on the role we have taken on and sees this as the way forward. It is a major issue and we have yet to tease out fully how we will go about it. Many members will have seen the Africa strategy document prepared in 2011, which spells out much of the relationship, but it has not been integrated in the same way that we have now integrated our One World, One Future policy.

The arms trade treaty to which Senator Walsh referred is extremely important. It was signed on the day in New York by 67 states. Approximately 20 EU states have signed it. The United States did not sign it on the day but was in favour of it and supported it, and it is expected to sign it. We have to get 50 states to ratify it before it becomes a legal convention and then it will apply across the board. It is a valuable treaty because it is the first to focus on small, light arms of the type we come across right across the Sahel, which are related to all the trouble coming into Mali. Such weapons are appearing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and have appeared previously in Sierra Leone, and are widely available. Each country that signs up to this treaty will have to keep a register of all these weapons. This will be open to observation by a centralised body that will be established under the United Nations. Each country that is in the business of producing and selling weapons will have to produce an annual report of how all of its weapons are disposed of. Very strong surveillance and monitoring mechanisms are built into it so it could assist in dealing with some of the endemic conflicts we experience across Africa so often, in countries that return, post-conflict, to another series of conflicts, and in many civil wars.

Land grabbing and bio-fuels are major issues that have come to the fore recently. Part of this is due to the EU itself, which produced an energy directive a few years ago that required that 10% of all fuel for transport uses would have to be bio-fuel.

Since the publication of the directive and under our Presidency, we have been advocating a reduction to 5%. The proportion should be reduced by as much as possible. Land that can be used for the production of food should not be used for the production of fuel. We are nowhere near an agreement on this issue because many countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, are very much in the business of producing bio-fuel and believe a reduction would lead to considerable unemployment.

Bio-fuel production has resulted in the purchasing or leasing of lands in Africa. However, it is very difficult to purchase lands in Africa. We are very anxious to see a considerable reduction in bio-fuel production on these lands. In most cases, the relationship is never clear because land is owned or held communally in Africa. Therefore, leasing and purchasing will always be grey areas.

Recently I was in Mozambique, where there are 35 million ha of arable land, only 4% of which is in use. There is considerable capacity for agricultural production in Africa and we must direct more of our resources in that direction. We have been doing a considerable amount in this regard. Two years ago we put together a joint programme with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to put a pilot scheme in place in Kenya and Tanzania. This will come to fruition shortly and we will be examining how our expertise in agriculture can be transferred, as effectively as possible, to African countries that are not using land or marketing their products effectively and that do not have the necessary skills to do either. We must determine what resources and information we can bring to bear on the matter. We are very anxious to assist in this area.

In 2008, when we examined the issues of nutrition and hunger, we decided that, by 2012, 20% of Irish Aid's resources would be used to deal with hunger and malnutrition. This is achieved in many ways. In Europe I am told constantly that this is the Irish issue because we have been championing it for so long. We have taken some very interesting initiatives. For example, we have combined with USAID and Concern International on what is called Scaling up Nutrition, a programme focusing on the 1,000 days between pregnancy and the age of two years. We marked this programme at the beginning of June in Washington when I was present with the CEO of Irish Aid. The programme has been a major success and over 40 countries are now participating in Scaling up Nutrition. We are devoting some funding to it, while the United States is devoting a lot. During the prelude to the G8 summit in County Fermanagh, the Taoiseach was invited to London to co-host with the UK Prime Minister a new programme on hunger and nutrition. He was not invited by chance but because Ireland was seen as the leading light in championing the targeting of hunger and malnutrition. We spread aid across the entire area of development, including agriculture, health, water and sanitation and rural development. Scaling up Nutrition is now regarded as a major success and has been taken very much into the Council's conclusion. It is in one of our recent Council conclusion documents and will almost certainly be part of the post-2015 agenda. This is a success story, but not only for the Irish Presidency. In recent years we have been leading in this area and it is now regarded as very much the Irish issue.

I was asked why we selected fragile states such as Sierra Leone and not others. Only ten years ago Sierra Leone came out of a civil war in which there was widespread rape, child abuse and use of child soldiers. That is one reason we are focusing on it. Although we are not focusing on East Timor to the same degree, it will be a partner country, but not in the same way as one of the key ones because it has adequate resources. It is now nearly a middle income country and has moved up the chain. If we are to focus on the fragile countries, we must direct resources to where need is greatest. Page 31 of our document lists all of the reasons a country is chosen as a key partner. Criteria include the level of poverty, fertility and equality, the commitment to human rights, the prevention of corruption, partnership, sustainable results and the commitment to exiting from dependency on aid. We want to concentrate on the fragile countries and increase their status to leastdeveloped countries and then to middle income countries. This can be done as part of a continuum involving the focusing of untied resources on fragile countries and the focusing of resources for trade, business and investment on those moving up the chain.

On joint programming, it is a question of how we achieve the best results. This has arisen at so many conferences, including the Busan conference, and in the Commission's work. There is not enough coherence in the activities taking place. Countries are operating in an isolated, discrete fashion and there is not enough collaboration and cohesion. The European Union, a multilateral donor, has a lot of funding going into it. That we have an overseas development aid programme at all is because we needed to have it; it was one of the conditions for joining the European Union. Every country in the Union must have an overseas development programme, including the countries that have just joined, which come in at a different level. In return for meeting our membership obligations we receive so much by way of Cohesion and Structural Funds. The Common Agricultural Policy is part of this. There is a link with the overall budget, the multi-annual financial framework which the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach will be trying to bring to fruition in the coming days in order that we will have a budget to meet the various objectives. We are still very much beneficiaries of the budget. If it were not for the money that other countries have put into a fund from which we have been able to draw, it would have been very difficult for us to have reached our current level of development. In many ways, we have received development aid from the European Union; therefore, I would not want in any way to diminish the multilateral aid the European Union makes available to developing countries. Through this committee and development ministries and by virtue of our position in various working groups in the European Union, we have a supervisory role.

The same is the case in regard to the United Nations. We are on all the relevant committees. Likewise, we have representatives on the World Bank. The €18 million that goes to the World Bank comes from the Department of Finance, not our Department. In any case, the joint programming to which I referred is something which is very desirable because it means we get the best bang for our buck.

I launched an excellent programme today with the Royal College of Surgeons. We are now the 12th member of Esther, a networking programme dealing with health. Countries and institutions will come together. In Ireland the HSE is involved. It is doing a fantastic job in many countries in Africa in the partnerships it has established with hospitals and clinics. We helped to fund it and it is providing skilled people to ensure the programmes are run well. It is all part of a training programme and is bringing expertise at a training and learner level to local areas. It is an example of joint programming which is delivering the goods extremely efficiently.

The issue of maternal and infant mortality was raised by Deputy Mitchell. It is tied into hunger and nutrition. We are very much to the fore in that area. It is the essential part of what we call the scaling of nutrition. There was an article in The Lancet in 2008 which determined that many children and mothers were not getting the right food and there was a relationship between hunger and nutrition. One could have enough food but not necessarily enough nutritious food. It recognised the importance of ensuring there are micro nutrients in food. Ireland is an agricultural country and could determine how best to do that. We led the way on that.

Maternal and infant mortality has been very much to the fore in the work we are doing and is one of the millennium development goals. It has been quite successful in reducing the incidence of death in the under fives and maternal mortality in childbirth. It is an area we brought to the table during our Presidency as one of our priorities. It has been taken on by the Commission. Hunger, nutrition and food security is one of the Council conclusions. Through our conference we have also included climate change which must become a major part of that initiative.

We could talk about economic partnership agreements forever. Economic partnerships were proposed by the EU to the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries in 2000. The idea was that the relationship between developing countries and the EU should not be a preferential relationship in terms of trade. We did not want to go down the road of the WTO, which was a liberalised regime. There has been a lot of debate about it and a number of organisations and NGOs felt developing countries would get a raw deal.

The situation now is quite different from that which pertained in 2000. The EU and European Parliament have decided that by October 2014 an agreement will be negotiated on the economic partnership agreements or we will forget about it because the process has been in place for almost 14 years. If there is no agreement there is not much sense in talking about something which will not achieve anything.

We have taken the view that the circumstances in many countries have changed dramatically. We are a long way away from the situation in 2000. At same time, there is a considerable degree of flexibility. There can be exemptions for individual countries and industries which feel they would be threatened. We remember very well that when we entered the EU in 1973 we were afraid our small and weak industries would be overwhelmed. Instead markets gave us much greater opportunity.

Structures are still in place to provide protections. If it is going to be done now is the time to do it. There is an extra focus at the current time. Our Presidency put an extra focus on coming up with some agreement between different countries. Many countries are now negotiating with the EU on a regional basis, such as ECOWAS for the west African economic community grouping. SADC, the South African community grouping, is also participating. I hope there is a solution because if there is not the preferential treatment provided and the market access regulations which have been put in place are in danger of slipping away. I hope we will not revert to a WTO situation.

We support family planning and have always done so. We feel it is part and parcel of our programme. Normally we are involved through the UNDPA which is where most of our funding goes. It is part and parcel of the good health view we have of dealing with health problems and issues. It is something we feel is an integral part of good health.

What more is there to say about Uganda? Ireland, Denmark and, I understand, Sweden had a special fund for development in Uganda which was misappropriated. All of the funding was returned to us by December 2012. Since that time we have refrained from engaging with the Ugandan Government in regard to any funding. Any funding which has been provided has come through NGOs or projects, but not through the Ugandan budget or any joint approach with the Ugandan Government.

The investigations are ongoing and we are keeping tabs on all of that. One of the key people involved has been convicted in regard to the scam which took place. A number of investigations, court hearings and prosecutions will take place. We will wait until we see what happens before there is any further engagement on the same basis as in the past. It taught a lot of people a lesson.

The international community has, in many cases, refrained from providing funding to Uganda. The UK has withheld its funds because it saw what happened and the action we took. The comptroller and auditor general who was responsible for discovering the misappropriation is someone we trained and is continuing with the work.

We are strengthening and funding that sector. In the not too distant future I intend to invite that gentleman to Ireland so he can explain the process that took place and let people know, including this committee, just how they were able to determine what happened, and the input Ireland put into his training and into the institutions and mechanisms that now allow for a scam of that nature to be detected. It has been a very good and worthwhile learning experience. The fact that all the money that was misappropriated has been returned means that the message has gone out loud and clear to other countries, in case anybody else is engaged in similar activity.

We believe that education is very much a part of what we do. We have two sets of programmes. We have development education here in Ireland, which is quite robust and is done at primary, second, third and adult levels. That involves awareness and information education on what is happening. We are also involved with education in our programmes across the board. We believe our input on an educational basis is quite strong. It is estimated that it is 9% to 10% of the direct amount of ODA, which is more or less the average in the OECD countries. It is always part and parcel of what we do because there is always an educational element in it. As I said with our health and nutrition programme, it goes across the different sectors as well.

One of the millennium development goals, No. 2, is education and Ireland and the global community were very successful in ensuring that this goal, which is to get children attending primary schools, has been extraordinarily successful across the board. The developing countries have responded to that. However, at the same time we have failed to ensure there were enough qualified teachers. Classes were too large, with 100 to 150, and youngsters were learning very little. That part of the equation has not been successful. There will be a great deal of focus on that area in the review period over the next two and a half years before the post-2015 agenda.

In conclusion, we have sought to do a couple of things. We have put together our new policy and established a refocus to get the best results from our funding. There are strong accountability measures put in place. It is a whole-of-government approach and we are seeking to get all the Departments involved, for example, the Department of Health in health areas, the Department of Finance which can provide help on revenue and so forth. We have been endeavouring to do that. We have largely combined that with our EU Presidency. We ensured that our policy for the future as well as much of the input into the vision we have for the 15 years post-2015, the successor to the present millennium development goals, will have a framework that we have put in place and will also have a great deal of the substance of what we are discussing. The vision will be the eradication of poverty through sustainable development and the framework will be a single common set of objectives involving both the development issues and the environment issues. We will bring that to the table in New York in September and share it as the way forward.

In addition to that, we have spoken to the African, Caribbean and Pacific, ACP, countries in the last two weeks. We met the African Ministers and I co-chaired most of the discussions. There are almost 80 countries involved there. They have agreed that they wish to be involved with the European Union in putting forward the final agenda on which we can agree. Between now and June 2014, the ACP countries will engage with the European Union countries so we can agree a common set of priorities, targets and goals that we will then put forward for the United Nations to take on board for the new 2015 agenda. Certainly, it would give great credibility to all the work we have been doing if we have all the developing countries coming together with the 28 developed countries in a single framework and approach to the post-2015 agenda.

I thank the committee for listening to me and for its questions. I hope we have answered them reasonably thoroughly.