JOINT COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sub-Committee on Development Co-Operation) debate -
Thursday, 4 Nov 2004

Advisory Board for Development Co-operation Ireland: Presentation.

Chairman

I welcome members to the meeting. The minutes of the last meeting were circulated with the agenda. Are the minutes agreed? Agreed. We move to item two, the presentation by the Advisory Board for Development Co-operation Ireland.

I welcome representatives from the Advisory Board for Development Co-operation Ireland, including Mr. Chris Flood, chairman, Mr. David Begg, board member, Mr. Howard Dalzell, board member, Ms Mary Sutton, principal development specialist to the advisory board secretariat, and Ms Fiona Quinn, development specialist to the advisory board secretariat. The delegation from the advisory board has been invited today following the publication of the board's first annual report this summer. Members will be aware that the advisory board was established in August 2002 following a recommendation of the Ireland Aid review committee. This very comprehensive review of the development co-operation programme recommended the creation of "a broadly-based advisory board which would oversee the programme and provide strategic direction".

The remit of the new board is extensive, covering areas such as general oversight and advice, enhancing the independence of the audit and evaluation function and the convening of a development forum. The board's annual report, which has been circulated to members, details how the advisory board has gone about its work in these areas since its establishment.

Following the presentation, we will have an opportunity to have a question and answer session with the delegation. Before we commence, I remind those present that while members are covered by privilege, others appearing before the sub-committee are not. I invite Mr. Chris Flood to make the presentation.

Mr. Chris Flood

On behalf of the Advisory Board for Development Co-operation Ireland, I welcome the opportunity to meet the sub-committee on development co-operation. Together with my colleagues on the board, Mr. David Begg and Mr. Howard Dalzell, I look forward to an interesting dialogue and exchange of views with the members.

Members will have received a copy of the advisory board's first annual report which illustrates the extent and depth of the board's work. The scope of the remit and the human and financial resources committed to it have expanded considerably since the days of the Ireland Aid advisory committee. I would like to summarise for members the work of the advisory board to date and some of its priorities for the future.

The advisory board was established consequent on a recommendation of the Ireland Aid review committee which reported in 2002. This very comprehensive review of the development co-operation programme of the Government contained numerous recommendations in relation to all aspects of the programme. Among them was the creation of "a broadly-based advisory board which would oversee the programme and provide strategic direction". The advisory board was established in August 2002 and held its first meeting on 30 September of that year. Since then the full board has met on 13 occasions, initially under the chairmanship of Mr. Desmond O'Malley whom I replaced in September 2003.

The remit of the board is extensive. Its overall mission is to oversee the expanding development co-operation programme, provide strategic direction, and to work closely with Development Co-operation Ireland to maximise the quality, effectiveness and accountability of the expanding programme. More specifically, the board has responsibilities in five areas. It is charged with providing general oversight and advice to the Minister and senior management on the strategic direction of the programme; enhancing the independence of the evaluation and audit arrangements; commissioning research of the highest international standards; keeping the overall staffing needs of the programme under review; and organising the development forum to take place once or twice a year to bring together NGOs and missionary organisations with the Minister of State and senior officials for dialogue on strategic issues.

In terms of general oversight and advice, the board has had the opportunity to discuss a wide range of issues with the Minister of State with responsibility for development co-operation and human rights in the course of its meetings. These have included the ODA target, public attitudes to official development co-operation activities, new programme countries, the role of the private sector, voluntarism, as well as specific country related issues as they have arisen. On foot of visits to four of the programme countries, Zambia, Uganda, Ethiopia and Mozambique, as well as to several multilateral organisations supported by Development Co-operation Ireland, the board has offered observations and recommendations to the Minister and senior management of Development Co-operation Ireland.

The advisory board also engaged actively with the peer review process of the development assistance committee of the OECD during 2003. Also, having received an initial report on the implementation of the Ireland Aid review recommendations, the advisory board keeps this on the agenda via reports at each board meeting from the director general of Development Co-operation Ireland on key strategic issues and decisions.

The audit committee of the Department of Foreign Affairs is chaired by Fr. Gerry O'Connor, a member of the advisory board with a background in accountancy. Fr. O'Connor reports to each meeting of the advisory board on the work of the audit committee. The advisory board and the audit committee are due to meet each other in November for a discussion of their respective roles and responsibilities. In addition, the advisory board meets twice a year with staff of the evaluation and audit unit for an update on the unit's work and the strategic issues facing it.

In regard to the research remit of the advisory board, following consultations between the board and the senior management group of Development Co-operation Ireland, priority areas for research were identified as follows: policy coherence, engagement with civil society, and global health. Following a tendering process, a contract was awarded in December 2003 to the Institute for International Integration Studies at Trinity College, Dublin for a two year programme of research on coherence between Ireland's official development co-operation activities and other policy areas, in particular agricultural trade and support policies.

A contract was awarded in March 2004 to the Centre for International Studies at Dublin City University for a two year programme of research on engagement with civil society for poverty reduction. In each case, the projects will involve a team of researchers based in Ireland collaborating with institutes based in other OECD countries and in developing countries. Each project will include case studies carried out in two of Development Co-operation Ireland's programme countries.

In regard to global health the commissioning process is under way. As the research proceeds, there will be consultations, workshops and seminars. Consistent with its status as an independent advisory body, the advisory board will publish the research findings for the benefit of a wide range of stakeholders engaged in development co-operation.

In regard to staffing and resources, the Ireland Aid review argued:

It is of the utmost importance that the staff numbers at Ireland Aid keep pace with the expanding budget and that, by the time the 0.7% target is achieved in 2007, the full complement required to administer a programme of this size is in place. The Committee recommends that this issue be kept under continuing review by the new advisory board for the programme.

De facto, in the period since the publication of the review, the programme has not grown at the pace anticipated. The board, therefore, amended this task to encompass also keeping the commitment to 0.7% by 2007 under review. I will revert to the issue of the ODA target.

In regard to the specific issue of the staffing needs of the programme, the board noted that when the Ireland Aid review was written the staff complement was 75. The review argued: "A comparative analysis of the staffing levels in donor countries which have already reached the UN target indicates that, with the managerial burden of a 0.7% budget, current staff levels will need to be increased to 300-350 between home and abroad over the period between now and 2007." By the time of the 2003 peer review by the development assistance committee, DAC, of the OECD, staff numbers had grown to 143, of which 106 were at headquarters and 37 in the field.

The board requested from Development Co-operation Ireland a review of the staffing situation and received this in March 2003. The board is keeping this issue under review, particularly in the light of the announcement in December 2003 of the planned decentralisation of Development Co-operation Ireland, an issue to which I will return.

The advisory board was charged with the organisation of the development forum to bring together NGOs and missionary organisations on the one hand with the Minister and senior DCI officials on the other for strategic dialogue. The forum has met on three occasions to date. The inaugural meeting held in March 2003 was attended by the Minister of State with responsibility for development co-operation and human rights, the director general of Development Co-operation Ireland and ten other senior officials, 13 representatives from Dochas, the Irish Missionary Union and the Church Missionary Society of Ireland, as well as by seven members of the advisory board.

For the second meeting of the forum, given that the topic under discussion was policy coherence and, in particular, the impact of EU and US agricultural subsidies on developing countries, in addition to those present at the first meeting of the forum this second session was attended by officials from the Department of Agriculture and Food as well as representatives of the Irish Farmers' Association.

The third meeting of the forum focused on the DAC peer review of Ireland and on the role of civil society in development co-operation. The fourth meeting of the forum takes place on 3 December 2004 and further meetings will take place at approximately six monthly intervals.

The advisory board has three immediate priorities. These are the ODA target, the proposed decentralisation of Development Co-operation Ireland and the need to deepen public ownership of the official development co-operation programme.

The position of the advisory board is that the 0.7% target for ODA must be met. Ireland has the resources to meet its international commitments in regard to official development assistance and it has a moral responsibility to do so. After its first meeting in September 2002, the advisory board issued a statement expressing its concern at the failure to meet the interim target in 2002. The advisory board expressed the following view:

Ireland has a deep moral obligation to honour its undertaking to the poorest people in the world ... There is an ethical imperative on Ireland to honour in full its commitment. It is critical for Ireland's credibility in the international community that we are seen to be realistically achieving the target set by the Government.

That was from a press statement issued by the then chairman, Mr. Desmond O'Malley.

In a pre-budget submission in October 2003, the advisory board again expressed concern at the lack of progress. It argued that in order for Ireland to discharge its responsibility to meet commitments entered into regarding the 0.7% target, while at the same time ensuring that the resources made available were expended in an effective manner, it was essential that there be a credible step toward the 0.7% target in the budget for 2004; the remaining steps be set out for 2005, 2006 and 2007; and the principles of multi-annual planning and of insulating the aid programme from the vagaries of the annual budgetary process until the target is met be re-adopted. However, none of these things happened.

The advisory board, in light of its role and responsibilities, considered the outcomes in 2003 and 2004 and the realistic prospects for achieving the target by 2007. Clearly, it is highly desirable that the target should be met by 2007 but this is practically unattainable without a major injection of resources for 2005. The advisory board hopes that such an injection will result from the Estimates process. However, looking at progress to date and the failure to reach even the interim target, the advisory board takes the view that Ireland's ODA target of reaching 0.7% of GNP by 2007 lacks credibility. When the target was set it was envisaged that the ODA/GNI allocation would increase by 0.05% or 0.06% of GNP each year from 2003 to 2007. Increases of this dimension have materialised in only one year, namely 2002, since the target announcement.

In the view of the advisory board it would be preferable for the long-term strength of the development co-operation programme to revisit the target and reframe the commitment. Ireland should reaffirm its commitment to the target, set a realistic deadline for reaching it and specify clearly the year-on-year increases that will follow.

The Estimates for 2005 should provide for a significant increase as a proportion of GNP. With growth forecast to be in the region of 5% next year, even to stand still in terms of the ODA/GNP ratio would require a sizeable increase in the financial allocation. However, it is absolutely essential that the interim target of 0.45% of gross national income, or GNI, be surpassed in 2005. This would imply an allocation of the order of €570 million, or an increase of €95 million simply to arrive at the point that should have been reached in 2002. This would have to be coupled with an announcement of forward commitments of similar magnitude for succeeding years until the target was achieved.

The advisory board believes that it is crucial to provide the certainty needed for planning the future growth of the programme. Having undertaken visits to a number of the programme countries, the advisory board is keenly aware of the difficulties created for programme management by the inability to plan ahead on the basis of assured allocations. There is also a danger of loss of credibility and trust with partner countries if anticipated levels of funding are not forthcoming. Predictable levels of funding will allow for proper programme planning and greater impact.

As regards the decentralisation of the development co-operation directorate, the advisory board wrote to the Minister of State with responsibility for development co-operation and human rights in February 2004 expressing concerns about the possible negative impact of the proposed decentralisation on programme quality. The board noted that it had taken tremendous commitment by successive Governments, as well as considerable management effort, to bring the programme to the level it has reached in terms both of quantity and quality. The advisory board would be gravely concerned if there were to be any regression.

The advisory board is concerned that relocation of the development co-operation directorate, or DCD, outside Dublin undermines a key conclusion of the Ireland Aid review as regards the optimal organisational model for the programme. It favoured a development co-operation directorate or division within the Department of Foreign Affairs on the grounds that "it offers the best reassurance of coherence between aid policy and other aspects of foreign policy", as well as facilitating "coherence with other Government policies". The model was seen as likely to "promote a cross-cutting approach to human rights, democracy building and good governance both in aid policy and more broadly in Irish foreign policy". While the proposed decentralisation of the development co-operation directorate to Limerick does not alter the structural relationship between it and the Department of Foreign Affairs, the board perceives a danger that the geographical division may dilute some of the benefits.

Similarly, the DAC peer reviews of 1999 and 2003 dealt extensively with the challenges involved in managing Ireland's growing development co-operation programme. The DAC peer review 2003 noted the mix of diplomatic staff and specialist development staff involved in programme management and warned that "... DCI's human resource capacity remains barely adequate."

The board is fearful on two counts. First, that the relocation of the development co-operation directorate will make it a less attractive option for diplomats who might otherwise have had an interest in development co-operation. If over time the result was that fewer and fewer diplomatic staff were gaining experience of the programme, then many of the benefits of location within the Department of Foreign Affairs in terms of linkage between the political and development agendas, so valued in the Ireland Aid review, would be lost. This is a particularly important issue at this point in the evolution of the development co-operation programme with the move towards aid modalities, such as budget support, rendering this linkage between political issues of governance and more technical aid issues absolutely critical.

Second, the potential loss of specialist development expertise to the programme is a cause of serious concern. The technical experts working within the programme are crucial to the continued development of a world class development co-operation programme as envisaged in the Ireland Aid review. If these development specialists are not willing to relocate and cannot be readily replaced, the programme will regress.

A third issue of concern to the advisory board is public ownership of the development co-operation programme. With the sums involved in the programme now being substantial, the advisory board is conscious of the need to project the programme and consolidate public support for it. Ireland shares with most OECD countries a public attitude to official development co-operation that has been well-described as broad but shallow. Most Irish people are unaware of the official programme. Those who are aware of it believe it to be much less substantial than it is. There is much greater awareness of the work of non-governmental organisations. This is particularly true in Ireland where the non-governmental development organisations tend to have a high profile. The advisory board believes that greater resources will have to be allocated to project the programme to the public and build ownership of it if the support is to be there for continued progress towards the 0.7% target.

The millennium development goals provide a useful framework for a strategic communications strategy and many other donors have utilised this to good effect. The millennium development goals and targets come from the millennium declaration signed by 189 countries in September 2000. They represent a partnership between developed and developing countries "to create an environment — at the national and global levels alike — which is conducive to development and the elimination of poverty". The eight goals relate to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality and empowering women; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a global partnership for development.

The first seven goals require primarily actions by developing countries. The eighth goal of developing a global partnership for development calls on rich countries to take action to develop further an open trading and financial system, to increase official development assistance and to deal with the debt problem.

A review of progress towards the millennium development goals will take place in September 2005 and will assess the performance of the rich countries towards the achievement of goal 8. A key element of this assessment will be progress towards the United Nations target for ODA. The goals are clearly articulated and easily understood and they convey the scale of the challenges. Goal 1, for example, seeks to see halved between 1990 and 2015 the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day and to halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

Each of the goals is a stark statement on the state of the world today and the depth of the divisions between rich and poor globally. In terms of progress towards the goals, while the rapid progress of India and China bring several of the goals within reach, it is clear that sub-Saharan Africa, where Ireland's ODA is concentrated, is unlikely to meet many of the goals. The advisory board will discuss the issue of public awareness at its next meeting and consider how it can contribute to strengthening public ownership of the programme.

I hope that this account of the activities of the advisory board is of assistance to the committee. My colleagues and I would be happy to elaborate on any of the topics addressed and we look forward to an interesting exchange of views on these and other issues.

Chairman

I was interested in your comments about visits to programme countries. You mentioned the observations and recommendations you made to the Minister. Perhaps you would expand on those and how the board was working with other governments and NGOs.

Deputy M. Higgins

I welcome the delegation from the advisory board. This is a good advisory board in terms of background, experience and competence. I am familiar with its work.

I hope I do not embarrass him in saying it, but the current chairman brings to the advisory board a reputation for forthrightness and courage. I wish him well.

However, I have a problem with this board, both with the presentation and with the annual report, which has nothing to do with individual members of the board. When the board was established I asked questions which remain unanswered. Is it possible for this sub-committee or for the full committee on foreign affairs to have any influence on designing policy? When one looks at the five terms of reference of the advisory board in its annual report, the answer is "No". The advisory board has five strategic areas of responsibility, including the provision of general oversight and advice to the Minister and "senior Development Co-operation Ireland management". I have a real problem with that. The point with regard to the annual report and how matters are presented in it is that the report is closer to the report of the governors of the Bank of Ireland than to one of a development co-operation organisation.

When I read, for example, the reports of Concern, Trócaire, Oxfam and others, the engagement with the reality to which the millennium goals are addressed leaps out. At this stage of my life I am entitled to require language that somehow or other directly engages with what we are at. It is interesting to have a good discussion on decentralisation but I was not sure, frankly, of from where it was being decentralised with regard to the work of this sub-committee. I have often asked questions about what is happening. I wish this advisory board well. People cannot doubt my good wishes towards the development project. However, I have a real problem about the fact that we on the sub-committee and the general committee do not make policy. We are advised on it. From where is the policy to come?

The advisory board will advise the Minister. It has courage. It is to the credit of the members of the board that when they reach a crucial area such as overseas development aid and decentralisation, they speak frankly. The board's existence is worth it for that alone. However, there is a problem about the five terms of reference. It is interesting that of the five terms of reference the one that is nearest the top and features strongly in the annual report is enhancing the evaluation and audit arrangements. The original instinct in establishing a committee such as this was to try to put everyone's mind at rest about the huge sums of money involved. That was not my worry. People were anxious to keep an eye on it but keeping an eye on it is not worth a tráinín. I will explain what I mean in a moment.

Several references are made in the report to the OECD. The OECD is not an international research organisation. It gathers other people's indicators, combines them and provides reports to governments and responds to commissioned projects and so forth. However, it does not conduct original research. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, located in Geneva, do first rate direct research that is externally audited and published.

Let me be clear about my argument about the OECD. I am interested in research. I will refer in a moment to the research that is being commissioned. The research programme on civil society has been put out to tender and will cost approximately €400,000. I wish people well with it but would it not have been interesting if the development sub-committee had a view on it? I have many views on how one would conduct research on building civil society. There are two strong views on it with regard to the structure of research. One is the projection of aspects of the civil society from a western model on to other areas. The other is the identification of the distribution of power in the indigenous setting and its generation. One of the members of the delegation knows much more than I do about this and has written about it. There are different approaches. The committee has had no opportunity, and it will never have an opportunity, to offer advice on that or on specifics that arise.

Reference is made to the eight millennium development goals. It is the opinion of all members of the committee who were in the delegation to the parliamentary assembly to the World Bank that we wanted to be a parliamentary assembly to the world millennium development goals. We felt our role was useless. We heard an inspirational speech from Jim Wolfensohn, one he has become accustomed to giving over a number of years. Then we heard a long and insulting speech from the current German president who more or less told us to cop ourselves on, let the market proceed and stop getting in his way. He said the IMF knew what it was doing and who were we to question it and so forth. The general opinion, not just among our members but also of the chairman of the general committee and of the delegations of a number of countries, was that we would like to have taken the eight millennium development goals and be a parliamentary assembly that would deal with them and such issues as, for example, creating a public momentum for the achievement of the goals and looking at how they would be met.

I do not wish to speak for too long but I wish to mention a few matters in this area in which I have an interest. One is the goal relating to HIV/AIDS. The committed figure for that is just under 50% of what was pledged. I could be wrong but I believe there is a huge shortfall with regard to that goal. I could deal with the figures at the other end, which I will not do now, but it would be useful for us to have a campaign on this. The presentation by the chairman was good in that respect. I am glad he linked our position in regard to our commitment to ODA to his concluding point on the millennium development goals.

This is the sub-committee on development co-operation and if I were to ask what has been the state of international aid over the past ten years, we would not have that figure. I would like that figure to be available. When I examined this matter previously from the 1990s through to 2000 and later, I noted that the figure has been dropping. I would like a comment on that.

I would like the advisory board to be radical. We had a large meeting here where a former colleague more or less told me that I was living in the dark ages on the left because I questioned NEPAD, a development programme for Africa. I was simply making some elementary points. With regard to South Africa developing, it will send more abroad by way of investment this year than it will receive in foreign direct investment. Yet in the NEPAD report it is stated that a proportion of its gross domestic product must be a resource for development.

Nigeria had €20 billion dollars worth of oil exports, yet it sinks in the UNDP statistics. Nigeria is described as having a resource problem in regard to the proportion of GDP that it needs for its transition to the new age of the market economy. I want to discuss these matters.

The advisory committee advises the Minister and senior officials and good luck to it on its advice. May all its advice be fruitful, and I say that as we approach Christmas. However, there is no integration between that advice and the views elected representatives may have on the development area. How can they be put into the system? The chairman could say that is my problem not his, but it is a problem for all of us. When this is the case more and more of the literature in the development area is descending into corporate-speak. That will lose support for the area. There is a question posed in the report as to why the visibility of some NGOs is higher and why the reaction to them is better. That is down to the way they talk, so to speak. There is a problem in regard to what is happening in development.

I have other basic questions. For example, how does a person get into this area of work? Who in the Department of Foreign Affairs will answer a question on that? If I telephone Iveagh House, I am told the person concerned is still there and is around somewhere. If one asks where is APSO, one will be told that it is still based in the building but it is not called APSO anymore and that it is now dealing with missionaries. If one asks about people who want to volunteer, one cannot get a straight answer.

If we are getting revenue of €1.5 million from tax evasion and crime as well as series of different anticipant revenues, the chairman said in respect of the report that we should still try to achieve the goal in the target time if we can. I also agree with him that we should not try to con people by saying we will do it but then not allocating the necessary resources. That is an Estimates question and one of basic honesty. I am sure the chairman would have my support on that. I do not see a reason the goal could not still be achieved by 2007. I feel I need to make these points.

I see huge dissonance in this entire area. I once examined the United Nations agencies and I worked my way back through some of them and asked how they are staffed and people recruited to them. I asked how their work was evaluated. The evaluation of their work at the end of the day is not about oddity. We have a skelp of stuff in the annual report about the audit. I do not believe people are defrauding anyone, but the problem is how we will able to discuss it. The forum is not good enough. There are answers we need to know. It would be worthwhile if someone asked a question as to how the participation of people in UN agencies in Denmark is handled and to compare that with the position here. One would find there are two different recruitment systems.

If one reflects on an issue in respect of which we have gone off the boil, when the European Commissioner on this area was here he said we were making progress on the elimination of the huge backlog of unspent and committed money at the level of the European Union. There is not a word on that in this report. We then move on to the other question of the way in which development issues fit within the Department. I agree with the point made about this. As they would say in Trollope, those hoping for preferment feel that if they have to take the train down to Limerick and are isolated, as in this case, that a time spent in the gulag will not enable one to become an ambassador.

APSO used to have a register of people who volunteered for election monitoring, a minor task. Where is that now? How do people volunteer to do that work? A Deputy from Wexford on this side of the room has regularly raised a question about young engineers wanting to volunteer to do work. How would they do that now? They are not missionaries; they are engineers. If there are many missionaries who are engineers, they are good at that job. However, the point is there are a series of ways in which there is no transparency in regard to our project.

I am supportive of this advisory board. I would like these five terms of reference to be changed to ensure that criticism such as mine will not be encountered in respect of them. Such criticism perhaps is more properly directed at the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the day. I accept that. I do not want to get huge slabs of paper that are closer in size to a Central Bank report when what I would prefer is a series of maps included.

I was speaking about development in another place yesterday. The figures that move people are statistics on, for example, taking a country like Zambia and examining how many countries pay more in relation to debt than on the combined health education budget. Information on, say, the consequences of taking 1% of GDP off the debt repayment and spending it on health education, and the consequences of that for child mortality, child health and primary school participation is what appeals to the best instincts of people.

I would like the advisory board to be free to tell the Minister that all the speeches being written for him and being put into the system are giving people a headache. Given that members of the public support the commitment given, what kind of communication should we be involved in? I point out that there is a big communication problem.

Senator Ryan

Iapologise to Mr. Flood for having to leave the meeting, but I had to make sure that the Order of Business in the Seanad was covered by somebody else. I read his presentation and listened to most of it.

My view is that the advisory board is a necessary entity made up of people who are extremely good at what they do. However, I have a few questions about it. One of the roles of the board is to give advice to Government. Is that advice ever made public? Is the board covered by the Freedom of Information Act? As a matter of record, can I have access to what advice it has given to the Minister? I would like to know if the advice of the board is listened to. This country is awash with advisory boards, a product of various forms of partnership. However, increasingly the energies of many good people are being used up in generating advice that goes to various Ministers. The consequence of that is that most of the body politic and civic society lacks the collective energy for the political struggle to achieve those objectives because they are all worn out giving advice.

I would like some evaluation of how the board believes it is being heeded by Ministers in general. If the board has a meeting with the Minister, is that meeting minuted and, if so, are these records available on an informal basis? I would hate to invoke the Freedom of Information Act to obtain such information, but I would like to know about that.

I understand the problems associated with the ODA target but I am a little taken aback at what I believe is a slightly defeatist tone. A number of questions arise about ODA. One I know the board would be concerned about, as would this committee — I do not usually speak for this committee — is that as well as reaching the target we must ensure the aid is used well. One of the functions of the board is to ensure that. If we did not have the capacity to use the resources, we could still accumulate those resources over the next few years, even if we were to spread expenditure into the future. I see no insurmountable obstacle to moving the trajectory of the funds that are made available for ODA and reaching the 0.7% by 2007. I can understand realistic problems about ensuring those funds are used efficiently, which might delay their expenditure, but there is nothing to prevent the funds being accumulated, reserved and even managed, God forbid, by the National Treasury Management Agency. There is no major obstacle to doing that.

I do not like the word "realistic". I spent half my political career being told that the idea that the ANC would ever be in government in South Africa was about as "idealistic" an idea one could have and that other people were being "realistic". I do not want to push that analogy too far but there is nothing unrealistic about insisting that, at least in terms of resource allocation, we can reach the target by 2007. In terms of the need to recruit staff and develop programmes, it may be impractical now to get all that money spent but it will still be useful in 2008 and 2009 if it is available. There is nothing unrealistic about that.

Nobody will argue about the millennium goals but I read in a number of journals, including The Economist, what I would regard as a misuse of the tyranny of averages. Because there has been spectacular economic growth in India and China, many indicators are changing but they are changing on the back, as evidenced in the Indian general election, of spectacularly increasing inequality in those two countries. Making 10% of the people of China as rich as Americans is not changing the fundamentals of world development if it leaves the other 90% living in the same conditions as they lived in 30 years ago, and similarly in India. The Indian general election was fought for the distribution of resources. If a country has 2.5 billion people, 150 million of whom are becoming extremely rich, the average figures for China and India will look great but the development of China and India will not be great. That issue is as relevant here as it is abroad. Does the board have any ideas about how we can ensure that, in terms of development globally, we do not simply deal with averages and that we examine medians and income distribution?

I compliment the board because its analysis of the limitations and problems of decentralisation is impeccable. I go back to my original question. Do its representatives believe they will be listened to in that regard?

Chairman

Before proceeding further, I want to welcome Deputy Allen who is substituting for Deputy Noonan. I congratulate Deputy Allen on his appointment as spokesperson for foreign affairs. Do you wish to contribute now?

Deputy Allen

Thank you for your good wishes, Chairman. I apologise to the committee and members of the delegation for my absence. I was chairing a sub-committee on European Union scrutiny, and bi-location is not yet my gift. I intend just to listen to the presentation.

Chairman

I call on the representatives to respond.

Mr. Flood

It goes without saying that all the members of the delegation from the board have listened carefully to the two major contributions. I am convinced we will learn greatly from some of the suggestions put forward.

I understand this is the first occasion on which the board has had an opportunity to meet with the committee. We welcome that and we are available at any time to meet with the committee on any issue, be it normal policy issues or any particular difficulty that may arise in our area of responsibility at any time. We will come here at short notice and engage with the members of the committee.

I listened carefully to the contributions by Deputy Higgins and Senator Ryan. A number of suggestions have been put forward which we will attempt to work through. Perhaps I could ask my colleagues, Mr. Begg and Mr. Dalzell, to respond to the different issues raised by the two speakers.

Mr. David Begg

I agree with what Mr. Flood said in terms of welcoming the forthright nature of the contributions made by Deputy Higgins and Senator Ryan. In general, I am extremely sympathetic to the points made. Deputy Higgins's point about transparency and having an open debate on issues is important. Having just gone through a process, wearing another hat, of three weeks of being abused by Mr. Murdoch's media, the Sunday Independent and so on, for raising the question of paying for public services here, I agree with putting items on the agenda. There is a perceived wisdom about too many issues arising in the country and it is proper and appropriate that they should be discussed. That is the approach I welcome.

I, too, made careful notes of what was said and I will deal with some of the points made by both Deputy Higgins and Senator Ryan on the influence we might or might not have in terms of designing policy. In a sense, the jury is still out on that matter. As the chairman said in his presentation, we have made strong points to the Government on ODA, decentralisation and so on and we simply do not know yet what will be the outcome of that.

In terms of sub-reports we have presented on country programmes and so on, the committee has been forthright and direct in giving its opinions on what it has found, making recommendations and putting in place road maps or monitoring provisions to determine if the advice is taken on board. The problem is that this is a fairly inexact science, as members know. There are no definite or right answers about matters but we have been forthright, although I am not sure that our views were always welcome. Perhaps they might have gone against conventional wisdom but nevertheless they were put forward.

Clearly, there is a slight problem in regard to transparency in that when we visit programme countries we get an incredible amount of access to people in those countries and a good deal of information is given to us on a privileged basis. We base our recommendations on that and make our report to the Minister. It is then a matter for him whether he makes that report public. The committee has no problems with maximum transparency but it is a matter for the Minister whether he makes that available.

On the points made about the millennium development goals, Deputy Higgins referred to the difficulty dealing with the World Bank and some of the insulting views expressed. The World Bank and the IMF are the bastions of neo-liberal economics.

Deputy M. Higgins

To clarify that, I said the World Bank was Jim Wolfensohn type one. The IMF one — I do not know his name — told us all to get real and get out of the way of the machine, so to speak.

Mr. Begg

Fair enough. If we think of Stigletz's view, the point is still reasonably valid but I can understand the point the Deputy made about the insulting speech. I have had that experience in another capacity coming from that quarter.

An interesting issue arises about the integration of views of people who are elected, which deserves further consideration. The Deputy used the word "dissonance". If there is a number of fora that can deliberate on issues, there should be some better way to integrate those. As Mr. Flood said, we are interested in having a constant dialogue with the committee about that because it has access to places we do not have; that is the interesting point. We do not go to the World Bank and so on and interesting issues will arise in that regard.

On the question of volunteering, the development community went through a period when they were totally against volunteering. There was a view that we had too much of the well-meaning amateur, that they do not contribute anything and that we had to professionalise the process, and everybody gained major qualifications, including master's degrees in this, that and the other. During my time in Concern I experienced a resistance to recruiting people who had no basic experience of development, even if they were highly qualified in other disciplines. I have a sense that that attitude is shifting somewhat. There was some merit in it but the pendulum swung too far and there is more openness now to the idea, even since my time in the sector, than there was in the past.

Mr. Dalzell would probably have more direct experience of that in terms of his knowledge of the sector and recruiting people. It is not even a question of applying their skills; it is as much to do with building ownership of the whole project among the community at large. If people know that Mary Murphy down the road spent three years in Ethiopia, there is an identification with that person beyond whatever contribution Mary Murphy may have made in the field. That is perhaps not always appreciated.

Deputy M. Higgins

Can we stay with that point for a moment because it is the one about which I get many calls? The calls are very simple, mainly asking what has happened to APSO. I say that I understand that as part of the review, APSO now deals with the missionaries or whatever. There are people dealing with these general issues; that is what one is told. If I am asked how to contact them I give the number of the Department of Foreign Affairs. They telephone the Department and someone might say that this is being dealt with in a particular section but he or she is not in a position to tell them what that section is called, nor to answer the question as to whether volunteering is taking place. I am not talking about volunteering only but the people, for example, who have professional skills, including highly qualified people in the development area who want to do some work in different places for two or three years. It was possible to answer the question a few years ago but it is not possible to answer it now. That is my problem.

We have discussed this issue in the committee previously and it is only a matter of saying which system has replaced what was there before. People are entitled to change the system and call it something different but we are asked that question. I apologise for interrupting Mr. Begg.

Mr. Begg

That is fine. We will take careful note of that and reflect on it back at the ranch. I wish to respond to a few of the points made by Deputy Higgins, some of which I have covered. I can understand the defeatist tone being used in respect of the ODA. It is our desire that this project be accomplished within the period to 2007. Part of the difficulty, which the Deputy identified, is the uncertainty surrounding the current position. First, there is much uncertainty about decentralisation and the impact that would have on the capacity of the division. Second, there is the question of the staffing provision, which currently is about 200 short of what the ultimate figures might be if we used up the available budget. The third——

Deputy M. Higgins

On that aspect, as a practical response to what we are hearing, the sub-committee should propose that the staffing levels in the section be expanded in anticipation and preparation for achieving the target. I formally propose that this sub-committee should recommend to the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs that it should recommend to the Minister, in advance of the Estimates process, that the staffing levels be dealt with in anticipation of Ireland reaching its commitment. That will show that we are for real.

Senator Ryan

I am trying not to interrupt but on one aspect some of the lobby groups have told me they accept the practicality Mr. Begg spoke about but they say there is nothing to stop us being generous to, say, the world AIDS fund if we decide to allocate extra resources and we have confidence in the way that project is developing. On a once-off basis we could make a contribution out of proportion to our size in the world if we decide to allocate the resources and believe we do not have the organisational and managerial structures to integrate that funding into our own ODA programme. There are many places in the world to which we can allocate resources on a once-off basis if we want to. I accept fully the complications of structure but I am not convinced that those complications are the reason there is foot-dragging about the target. It is an excuse but it is not the reason.

Chairman

We can agree on Deputy Higgins's proposal but next Tuesday, Development Co-operation Ireland and some of the major NGOs will appear before the full meeting of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Deputy M. Higgins

We can deal with it then.

Chairman

Hopefully, we can resume this discussion on Tuesday.

Deputy M. Higgins

We can send the proposal from this sub-committee to the joint committee in advance of that meeting.

Chairman

We will do that.

Mr. Begg

What the Senator said is right. Under the multilateral programme money could be put in but one of the concerns about that is the possibility of creating an understanding or an expectation that that will continue for the future, which might cause some difficulty.

In regard to where we stand on the issue, we are 150% committed to the objective of ensuring that the 0.7% target is reached. We want that to be achieved in a structured way and our advice to the Government is to make a significant move on it in this budget because we have failed to meet the interim target of 0.45%. The first test is that the interim target should be achieved, taking into account that GNP will probably grow by approximately 5%. It is a significant amount of money.

We are concerned that we should not get into a situation where, if the process was too rushed, we would be open to accusations of not having properly used the money. The key aspect for us was to say definitively when that target was to be achieved, the first step in that regard, the further steps that are needed to ensure that in every budget between now and the time it is to be achieved we could be sure that we would get extra funding and that the planning could be done in a way which would accommodate that. We are not too dogmatic about whether that happens in 2007 or 2008, as long as it happens.

Senator Ryan

Does the organisation not have to be very careful that its well thought out advice and concerns, which I share fully, do not become a cover for what is, essentially, a political decision in that what the organisation raises as a legitimate concern becomes the excuse for something that is not motivated by that concern but by the competing needs of the areas in which Government wants to spend money? Does it have to be careful not to allow it to be walked into a position where it becomes a type of sanitary corridor around what is, essentially, a political decision?

Mr. Begg

That perfectly reflects the debate which took place in the committee between the group of people who felt we have to be strong in terms of the 2007 target and people who took the other view. We felt it might be a better and a more sustainable position for us to say that if there are practical problems to achieving it within the timeframe, there is an alternative way of doing it whereby the Government would be locked into the alternative way by virtue of the amount it would have to commit every year.

What has happened since the time the Government said it would achieve its target by 2007 is that it made no provision for what that would mean in each year apart from the declaration of the interim target which was not met. In a sense it a question of judgment. The matter was fairly debated within the committee. I confess to being an advocate for the pragmatic view and spending too long trying to negotiate issues with people. It probably has its disadvantages.

Senator Ryan

Leinster House has nothing to it.

Mr. Begg

That is the way it came down at the end. Senator Ryan asked about the possibility of accumulating the money. The difficulty would be that one would fall into the same trap as the problem with the EDF in Europe. The critics would say that this accumulated amount of money has not been spent and public confidence in the programme might be undermined on foot of that. It is a presentation issue rather than a substantive issue. It would be no bad thing to have the money there generally.

In regard to the achievement of the millennium development goals, the chairman has mentioned the problem of India and China and progress there being deemed to have achieved more than it really has. The growing problem of inequality in the developed world and in the developing world is a huge political question. An interesting consideration in this area is what Gordon Browne has been trying to do with the financial initiative. As I understand it, he said we need a huge push of money and it would be better to have the capital money available to allow infrastructure to be developed and to use the annual payments to pay off the interest. I would go further and say that, while it has never received serious consideration politically, the Tobin tax idea to support funding in the longer term should not be dropped. It makes perfect sense to keep talking about that.

Deputy M. Higgins

Is it Mr. Begg's understanding that Gordon Browne is talking about recycling money or is there new additional money?

Mr. Begg

What he is saying, as I understand it, is that we are not making progress and we are not achieving the millennium development goals and need to make an onslaught on this. To make an onslaught we need to have a good deal of money up front. As a member of the committee pointed out, part of the problem in many countries is that a certain of money is going in by way of foreign direct investment and probably more is coming out by way of debt repayments. Gordon Browne is trying to restructure the programme and say there is real cash upfront and to go ahead.

The infrastructure of many developing countries is so debilitated that one wonders how these people can make any progress. It is appallingly bad, to the point where teachers do not have chalk to use on the blackboards. His idea is to make an assault on that, to get the real money to do something with the infrastructure and to finance that money in the longer term by not allowing debt to accumulate. The overseas development aid from each country would constitute the paying off of the debt.

Conceptually the idea is good but obviously one can run into many practical problems in trying to get huge infrastructural development. We are aware from our own experience of the amount of inflation that comes into infrastructure if one tries to do it too quickly. Conceptually it is not a bad idea and it is worth following up.

Mr. Howard Dalzell

I will follow up on some of the points raised. In regard to ODA, I like the concept of allocating the money and keeping it in reserve. I worked as a volunteer for 17 years with the church group in south India. We asked the donor group in Ireland and England if it could give us advance grants in order that we could invest and then we would build up the capital to become independent of the donor group. That concept makes good sense to me. However, it would be unpopular to have money lying around unused. I would much rather see a different approach being taken.

There is a danger when the 0.7% target is reached, that will be a plateau. I would much rather see the same amount of money being invested by reaching the 0.7% target at a sensible pace but going beyond it. For example, the Swedes made a decision this year to go from 0.84% to 1% and they will do that in two years, but they have already got the infrastructure to use it. There is a danger that the 0.7% target by itself is seen as a Holy Grail. I would much rather see us reaching 0.7% by 2009 and reaching 1% by 2112. That would be much better for the poor of the developing world than saying, come hell or high water, we have got to hit the 0.7% by a particular time. We should reach the target as quickly as is practically possible.

On the issue of the millennium development goals, I share the committee's concern about the averages. If one looks at the literature behind the millennium development goals, the UN made it clear that a big swing in India and China would not be regarded as a successful achievement. Hence, the whole process of getting all countries to sign up to them and all countries to set their own individual targets, through their PRSPs and their national development plans and the careful monitoring of that. The best contribution the Irish programme can make to the millennium development goals, apart from the work with the multilateral system, is to make sure that in the programme countries we give the assistance which will enable those countries to make significant progress towards the millennium development goals. Hence, the advice of the board to the Minister has been that, as the programme expands, expansion should be focused on sub-Saharan Africa which is where the real problem is and where the shortfall in reaching the millennium development goals would actually occur.

Turning to the OECD, we take the point that it is not a research institute. However, it is a group of peers who sets standards for themselves and measures the achievement of the peer group against those standards so that the OECD review is a peer group review. It is encouraging that the Irish programme meets the standards and, in fact, it is a standard setter in many of the areas it sets for good quality programming. It is interesting to note that in the recent review of the Irish programme the advisory board was very much involved. We met the OECD peer review group when it came to Dublin and had a substantial meeting. We feel we were listened to and we were invited to participate in the actual formal review in Paris. That was the first time any advisory committee had been invited to participate in that review process. We have invited them to assist us in an interim review of the programme. While it is not a research institute, it has enormous value. To get peer recognition and to come out at the top of the peer tree is very good.

I shall move on to the comments about research. In establishing our principles for research, the board agreed that research would be based on programme needs, that it would be research which would be policy relevant. We are not doing ivory tower type academic research. We have identified, with the knowledge of the board members and consultation with the programme management, key issues for relevant policy research and those are the subjects which are being proceeded with. The research being done must meet the highest academic standards and must stand up to scrutiny. Our test is that the research will be published in peer journals. I know Deputy Michael Higgins will say that is all gobbledygook and academic language, but we have also insisted that the research be condensed into policy briefs which will be short and, without wishing to cast aspersions on anybody, will be in language that will be understood by policymakers. It will be short enough for them to read and sufficiently clear and concise to be easily understood.

We have also made it clear to the agencies to whom the research grants have been awarded that we do not want to send them off with the terms of reference and get a report in two or three years' time. We are insisting that they produce interim reports, action-type research, so that when we see them we can then suggest that, perhaps, the terms of reference need to be tweaked or that there needs to be an alternative process. Our intention is that when the research institutes do their presentations, those presentations will be open to a wide audience. We envisage that the NGOs would be invited to the development forum and that an invitation would be extended to this committee to meet with the researchers, to examine the research carried out to date and to make suggestions for appropriate changes in the research process.

Chairman

Are there any other questions?

Senator Ryan

I do not wish to start an argument with Mr. Begg. I know he advised the Minister but you do not advise him because he asked you. You advise him because you have a particular function and you are the owner of your advice. I do not accept it is a matter for the Minister whether he publishes the advice you give him. I believe it is a matter for you to decide as a group whether you should publish advice you give to the Minister. I accept that sometimes there is a timeframe where advice is sensitive and, therefore, confidential. I do not accept that the advice of a body such as yours, which is by definition independent or otherwise it serves no purpose, should be the property of the Minister.

Chairman

I thank the representatives of the advisory board for coming here today and for a very informative presentation.

Senator Ryan

Yes, indeed, it was very forthcoming.

Chairman

Ireland's ODA programme is making a real impact on the lives of the poorest people in the developing world. We wish the board well as it oversees the expansion of the programme.

The sub-committee adjourned at 11.24 a.m. Sine die.