Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is a very good question and I would like to hear the answer. In Malawi, we were quite surprised because, even though we work in partnership with the Government, those parliamentarians I spoke to knew nothing of Irish Aid, so they certainly were not following Irish Aid or in any way assessing its effectiveness.

I have a question that follows on from Deputy Byrne's question on best practice. It probably comes under the Development Assistance Committee's heading of "Delivery Modalities and Partnerships help deliver Quality Aid". When the witnesses go to Malawi, they will see that Irish aid is delivered through NGOs primarily, with supervision. A number of Irish NGOs are being funded and possibly some international NGOs also. On the face of it, one would think this is duplication of effort but, in fact, they are all dealing with different aspects of what is our really excellent programme there - in my view, it is a very impressive food nutrition programme. It seems there is potential for drawing on the different expertise of the different NGOs but also for automatic peer review and peer learning. From the perspective of the Development Assistance Committee, is there an international best practice model of how aid should be delivered in that way through NGOs or through a multiplicity of NGOs? Perhaps it is a difficult question.