Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein)
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Question 177: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the amounts of funding Irish Aid has made available, as part of its finding for NGO programmes, for the strengthening of those organisations' internal capacity; if he will provide, in tabular form, an overview of the areas of capacity development those NGOs have focused on in using those funds; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29402/12]

Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)
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The Government's aid programme, which is managed by Irish Aid in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, is sharply focused on the fight against global poverty and hunger. It is recognised internationally for its effectiveness, and for its concentration on some of the poorest countries and communities in sub-Saharan Africa.

Cooperation with development Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) represents a very important element of the Government's aid programme, administered by Irish Aid. The programme channels a higher proportion of overall assistance through the non-governmental sector than most other international donors, reflecting the strong support of the Irish people for the work of NGOs and missionaries. Funding for NGOs is provided through a range of funding schemes covering long term development, emergency and recovery assistance and development education.

Nineteen NGOs were recently approved for four-year programme grants for their long term development work. For 2012, this represents a cumulative budget of €65 million. This NGO funding is strongly focused on the achievement of development results through high quality programmes that make a real and sustainable impact on the reduction of poverty and hunger. In order to achieve quality programmes, Irish Aid allows each NGO to spend up to 6% of the grant on strengthening organisational capacity, monitoring the success of interventions and documenting good practice.

In general, NGOs use this capacity development support to strengthen their governance, management, quality and technical oversight capacity as well as improving their financial management and systems for tracking results. Irish Aid monitors progress in the strengthening of internal organisational capacity closely during the programme cycle through regular field monitoring visits to programme partners, annual narrative and financial reporting against agreed objectives and budgets, end of programme evaluations and ongoing reviews of compliance.

The Government is firmly committed to targeting our aid on the fight against extreme poverty and hunger among the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our NGO partners will continue to play a crucial role as we work to achieve the maximum benefit from Ireland's development co-operation programme and its contribution to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.