Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

I share the Deputy's concerns about the rate of progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, in many countries. The Millennium Development Goals report, launched this July, gave us a snapshot of the progress achieved at the midpoint of the 2015 MDG target date. It is indeed a mixed picture. On the positive side, it shows that the proportion of people living in extreme poverty fell from nearly a third to less than one fifth between 1990 and 2004. If this trend continues, then the MDG poverty reduction target will be met for the world as a whole.

However, this is not the case for sub-Saharan Africa. Although the poverty rate there has declined by 6% since 2000, the progress is far too slow. The report gives many other examples of this geographical disparity in progress. It also acknowledges that poverty reduction has been accompanied by rising inequalities in some regions, most notably in Eastern Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, CIS.

These disparities are also reflected in this year's edition of the global hunger index. However, despite this, United Nations Secretary General Ban notes in the foreword to the MDG report that the goals are "still achievable if we act now". I believe this to be true.

I share the Deputy's concern that, in some countries, relatively strong overall economic growth is not being accompanied by a corresponding reduction in rates of poverty and hunger. The White Paper committed the Government to establishing a hunger task force to examine the particular contribution Ireland can make to tackling the root causes of food insecurity, particularly in Africa. The role of the hunger task force is "to identify the additional, appropriate and effective contributions that Ireland can make to international efforts to reduce hunger and thus achieve the first Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty and hunger by 2015". The hunger task force will make focused recommendations on how Ireland can give practical leadership internationally on the attainment of the Millennium Development Goal on hunger.

Additionally, in its bilateral programme countries, Irish Aid is actively engaged with governments and other donors in national policy and budget allocation discussions, which are aimed at ensuring that funding of basic services and poverty reduction programmes are protected and increased. In this way, we try to guarantee that a significant proportion of the wealth generated by economic growth is used to directly benefit the poor.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

Of course, the best way to ensure that economic growth benefits the poor is for the poor to participate directly in generating that growth. This means that growth should occur in those sectors of the economy where poor people are economically active and make their livelihoods. The development assistance committee of the OECD has recently published guidelines for donor countries on policies, which are likely to ensure that growth benefits the poor in developing countries. We are supporting this approach by jointly funding training programmes for donor and developing country officials.

I therefore assure the Deputy that Irish Aid has the issue of pro-poor growth at the centre of its development programmes.

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