Mr. Brendan Rogers:

In 1990, I counted what I regarded as three democratic countries in Africa and there are now more than 35. A revolution is under way on the Continent. There is more economic growth and more children are attending school than ever before. Most of the information on corruption which is discussed at this committee and other committees comes from African themselves. The institutions of governance are slowly and surely maturing. However, it is a long journey. In my view, development co-operation means we need to have an exit strategy. We do not want to be discussing charity to developing countries in 25 years' time. We need to be able to end development aid in our lifetime. I think this is under way. As the Secretary General has said, the only way to do this is to empower populations, to ensure democracy, to protect human rights and to ensure those universal values are institutionalised across the Continent. That is beginning to happen. Although we hear all the bad news, there is an equal amount of good news. The Deputy has seen the good news. However, there is a long journey yet to travel. We must focus on building the institutions of governance. If we do that, I believe that in 20 or 25 years, Africa will be transformed.

It has enormous untapped resources. There are more tarmacked roads in Switzerland than in sub-Saharan Africa in its entirety. One can imagine what will happen during the next 40 to 50 years - there will be a real revolution about which I would be very positive. Ireland has played a role in that regard.