Ms Jane-Ann McKenna:

One of the real strengths of Irish Aid and the development programme is the engagement and partnerships with civil society organisations. As Mr. Crowley detailed earlier, whether in Afghanistan or in other contexts, civil society organisations, just like many of our members, are working directly with communities. They are the ones that are able to have direct interaction with people on the ground to enable the impact we want to see, not only in saving lives but in transforming lives. They work in and through communities for that level of sustainability. That is something that Ireland is also very strong on and we want to see more of it in the context of EU funding as well. We want to see more of a focus on working with and partnering through civil society for delivery, implementation and engagement with communities. If we do not have engagement at ground level with communities, we can only go so far, but through civil society and local organisations that are entrusted to support the overseas development aid programme, we can see real delivery and impact on the ground and on people's lives. Such engagement enables us to navigate extremely difficult circumstances to work in. I worked in Afghanistan for a year and there are parts that UN bodies just could not touch. It was only civil society organisations on the ground that were able to deliver the assistance where it needed to be. We cannot overstate the importance and value of civil society organisations. The Irish Government does support them but we would encourage it to do so even more.