Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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133. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the measures Irish aid funds to specifically assist and support women in developing countries; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39268/16]

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
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Ireland’s strong commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment is reflected both in the Government’s policy on international development, One World, One Future and in the review of Ireland’s foreign policy, The Global Island.

This is recognised internationally. In 2014, a comprehensive review by the OECD Development Assistance Committee of Ireland’s development cooperation noted that Ireland had “consistently played an important agenda-setting role on gender equality and women's empowerment”.

Ireland played a leadership role in the process of agreeing the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, adopted at the UN in September 2015, ensuring that specific targets on gender equality, including violence against women and girls, were included both under a standalone goal, and mainstreamed across the framework.

Irish Aid’s work on gender equality and women’s empowerment focuses on the provision of direct funding to gender equality programmes as well as ensuring the systematic integration of the needs and interests of women and girls into all aspects of the aid programme. It is estimated that 46% of Ireland’s bilateral ODA has gender equality and women’s empowerment as a key objective, significantly higher than the OECD average.

Funding in our key partner countries supports specific projects focused on addressing gender based violence, improving women’s political participation, increasing access to quality education and health care, and providing greater economic opportunities for women and girls. The importance of high quality secondary education for girls was impressed on me by the girls themselves when I visited secondary schools receiving Irish Aid funding in Moroto in Karamoja, during my visit to Uganda in July, and in Tuum in Samburu County in Kenya during my visit last week.

In addition, Ireland prioritises the strengthening of the capacity of the multi-lateral system to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. Irish Aid provides core funding to UN Women, UNICEF and UNFPA, as well as direct support to a range of multilateral initiatives such the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and the UN Programme on Gender Statistics.

The Government considers gender-based violence to be a fundamental abuse of human rights and a priority for the aid programme. We have prioritised policy development, funding and research to address the issue. The OECD concluded that Ireland has been a ‘powerful force behind the stronger donor focus on tackling violence against women’.

Most recently Ireland argued strongly for a clearer focus on gender and on gender based violence in humanitarian programming at the World Humanitarian Summit which I attended in Istanbul in May.