Ms Lorna Gold:

Senator Mullins asked how we address the real issues and the failures of the MDGs. All reports show it is a mixed picture in terms of delivery with MDGs. Part of the issue around that has been the time lag it takes for a global agenda to percolate down to become a national and regional agenda. The MDGs, it is said, took the best part of a decade to percolate down to the realignment of national policy processes. It is quite ironic that just as the MDGs seem to have built up a head of steam and a new kind of traction to deliver them in the national context, we seem to be moving towards the SDGs, sustainable development goals. We need to learn from the time lag process when dealing with the SDGs.

Members highlighted conflict, fragile states, human rights abuses, corruption and armaments. These are real issues in many of the African countries in which Trócaire and other Dóchas members are present. We cannot resolve all of these through a global process like financing through development or SDGs because there are context issues specific to those countries. However, the financing for development process and the scope of the issues in terms of systemic drivers of conflict and inequality that are contained within that agenda could go far to addressing the underlying burning issues that result in conflicts, for example, resource grabs, the tax injustice that Mr. Sorley McCaughey spoke about, as well as the drivers of extreme poverty and inequality. They are there within the financing for development agenda.

Senator Walsh raised a point about aid and good governance. Aid is not the whole answer to international development. What I sought to underline is that we do not want to move towards a new fad or trend that absolves developed countries of their existing responsibilities. Basically, we want to avoid moving the goalposts for development finance and development aid when there is a strong need for aid to remain as a cornerstone, especially in the least developed countries. Aid can be used carefully and very well to good effect to bolster good governance. Some of the programme work that Irish Aid has been doing has gone far in this respect in using aid to support State credibility and using State institutions such as Comptroller and Auditor General and other institutions that enable receiving states to be accountable and increase the possibility of good democratic accountability.

On the question of whether the sustainable development goals are too broad, the reality is that at this stage, there is simply very little scope to change them. As they are more or less agreed, whether they might be too broad or too narrow remains to be seen. What is good about them is that they incorporate governance issues as part of the framework. This means that those who are most concerned about issues of governance can now point to the SDGs as an additional method for holding governments to account.

In terms of the obstacles to implementation, when I consider the whole context of international development today, the main obstacle I see is the significant shift in global partnership towards the substantial use of unaccountable private entities to deliver on new global agendas. There needs to be a shift back towards democratically elected governments and the role of public finance, in terms both of aid but also other public finance flows in terms of tax and so on, as the cornerstone of the delivery of the sustainable development goals. What is on the table at present is very weak in this regard, and it shifts too much responsibility onto private, unelected and unaccountable multilateral institutions. There must be a shift that would see the international agenda being put back into the hands of democratically elected governments.