Mr. Jamie Drummond:

Aid reviews are absolutely essential. The OECD development assistant committee peer review process is very helpful and Ireland often does quite well out of that. Specific programmes are evaluated and Ireland is among the best in class at doing that. There is a body of work to which we should all pay more attention. It is about specific aid programmes of countries but also about African countries' own programmes. That is empowering young people to track and monitor results and to collect data to fill in missing data feedback loops. One of the great problems in development spending is that, unlike a market mechanism which tells one whether people are buying a product, we do not get great feedback from the clients, who are the poorest people. That is because they are marginalised and disempowered, but also because we have very bad data on them. Through modern technology, we are more able than in the past to get their direct feedback on what they need and what they think about what we are doing. We can even provide them with the opportunity to collect data on the quality of the services provided to them. There are some pilot programmes doing this which have demonstrated very good results and improved the quality of aid spending in those cases.

We argue strongly that this is a process which needs to be scaled up not only by Irish Aid but also by all global aid programmes. For example, we are trying to encourage the World Bank in this regard through its concessional lending arm, the International Development Association, IDA, which will be spending an amazing $45 billion in Africa in the next three years. That figure is on foot of an unusually large replenishment. However, at this moment in time, the bank lacks particularly innovative ideas on how to track and monitor the outcome of that enormous spend. They are just doing the same stuff they did a few years ago. The are opportunities to scale up far more innovative ways to track that money. I put it to the committee that if Ireland is going back to 0.7% and leans on some of the committee's Dublin neighbours, who include some of the most advanced data, technology and financial inclusion companies in the world, it might be possible to step into a breach, innovate and lead, not just through going from 0.3% to 0.7%, but by leading the expenditure of that $45 billion. While that sounds like I might be overstating the case, I can see an opportunity for Ireland. I strongly encourage stepping into the breach to leverage that $45 billion. People would know that Ireland did it.