Deputy Durkan also asked about debt relief and HIV/AIDS. The figure for debt relief is US$153 million. In identifying direct consequences we are working closely with the Government of Mozambique. Our country strategy is in line with its poverty reduction strategy. Debt relief will free the Government to devote resources to other essential areas of poverty reduction, including, in particular, education, health, HIV/AIDS and agriculture measures. We have had constructive engagement with the Government and provide assistance through a series of modalities because that is the most effective approach. We also co-operate closely at provincial level. Our sense is that the Government is constructively engaged and increasingly has the space within which to act, although it clearly needs a lot of help.
The millennium development goals are a good reference point for gauging the progress the Government has made towards reaching its targets. The picture is mixed. Progress has been made in education enrolments and finishing rates, as Ms Crawford noted. It is quite clear it is insufficient and more must be done.
Hovering above this is the HIV/AIDS issue. In having a joined-up approach to what we are trying to deliver in Mozambique, be it through direct support to the exchequer, sectoral support to education and health or support to the provinces, we must hit the key areas of HIV/AIDS, health, education, etc. The ultimate result will not be satisfactory unless we do so, as all these issues are connected.
I will speak on AIDS because Deputy Durkan mentioned it. Significant sums of money are going into Mozambique. I am not an expert in the area and we have people dealing solely with HIV/AIDS. Our sense of the issue, both here and in general across the Mozambique programme, is that the challenge is always one of resources. There is always the capacity to use more resources if they are available. Equally important is the deployment of those resources in the most effective possible way. Ms Crawford and the Chairman, who is familiar with the area, would agree on that.
The Clinton partnership is innovative and we are constantly looking for this kind of new, interesting and useful partnership. The results are good. I mentioned ARVs, which is access to anti-retroviral treatments, generally used as a good indication of where we are going on the HIV/AIDS issue. At the end of 2005, over 20,000 people are on anti-retroviral treatment, which is on target. Of that figure, 58% are women.
There are 38 sites currently offering anti-retroviral drugs. I will not burden the committee with too many statistics but they are relevant. Some 83 health facilities offer services to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child during delivery and 75,000 women have accessed HIV counselling and testing services. There are 158 sites offering voluntary HIV counselling, with 35,000 people receiving home-based care through health units and organisations.
Nevertheless, the challenges are still there. Less than 10% of those in need of HIV treatment are accessing it, and only approximately 50% of mothers testing positive for HIV are receiving the necessary treatment to prevent transmission to the unborn child. Fewer than 3% of those currently accessing treatment are children.
I could go on citing statistics but the committee can see the balance. It is moving in the direction we would want and we are very happy with the partnership, which is the reason Ireland signed up to it a second time. There is hope for it. We have also engaged with the Clinton Foundation in Lesotho, where we have a similar programme. It has been broadly acceptable. It is important to mention that the statistics date from 2005.
With regard to the flow to the district level, we still have a very close engagement with Niassa, which is the poorest of the provinces, and Inhambane, with a view to trying to gauge the extent to which the support we are providing through the central avenue is impacting on the ground. It also allows us to learn lessons from what is happening on the ground and bring that knowledge back for use in the dialogue we have with Government and other donors at the central level.
It is important for us to keep this balance. Another way of putting it is that the engagement in Niassa and Inhambane keeps us grounded in the realities of what people are doing. We are constantly trying to engage in the area of service delivery in these key sectors. I have mentioned infrastructure but service delivery is what we measure this by.
There is progress but we could always make more. There has been movement on the issue of decentralisation with the passage of legislation for provincial elections in 2007 and municipal elections in 2008. The general elections will follow in 2009. We feel the provincial elections will have a fundamental impact on the management of the provinces and in trying to devise our new country strategy, we are looking to ensure we will be ready to react and give the aid where it is required. In Niassa we work with other donors, particularly Sweden, to target and harmonise the project so that too many donors do not impact on the local administration. We work closely with the administration and have small offices in both Niassa and Inhambane.
The Chairman correctly asked about agriculture. Due to time constraints I passed over education and rural development during the opening presentation. Agriculture and rural development are important aspects of the programme. In 2007 we foresee a budget of approximately €2.9 million which will support the Government-led sector approach known as PROAGRI. A pooled mechanism is available at national level. We have direct input to the agriculture Ministry to ensure the formulation of policy responds to the needs of the people.
We also work in the provinces of Inhambane and Niassa to ensure as far as possible that the impact of our input at the centre is felt in agribusiness at provincial level. We are examining increasing our private sector engagement throughout the programme. The agribusiness sector will be a key element. In Inhambane we have an extremely successful engagement with a US NGO, Technoserve, in the production of cashew nuts. This had a real, solid and tangible impact on agribusiness in Inhambane. We hope to take the positive gains from the model and apply them elsewhere in the programme.
Our approach is to enhance our engagement with the private sector throughout the programme. We have a tradition of engagement in the social sectors. We have private sector engagement in all our programme countries and we want to increase the support and be a catalyst to create the conditions which will allow the local private sector to flourish and become an engine of indigenous economic growth.
The possibility of exchanges of business skills was mentioned. Last July, the Minister announced the establishment of Traidlinks, a not-for-profit organisation which deals specifically with private sector engagement. It has two or three key objectives and is supported by Irish Aid. Traidlinks manages an umbrella brand of products, Heart of Africa, which was developed with farmers in Uganda, Mozambique and elsewhere. Some of these products are available in Irish supermarkets.
Our objective is to engage the Irish private sector in support of the development agenda. A good skills match exists and the business community is extremely willing to become involved and help out. We seek the mechanism through which we can support this and make it happen and Traidlinks is extremely useful. Its objectives include mentoring and skills exchange with private sector operators. In many cases, these will be involved in agribusiness and food processing and production in developing countries.
We work closely with Traidlinks and provide support so that what we do and what it does complement each other. It must be moved to a different level and we must tap into the expertise which exists here. Such a skills exchange could take the form of exchanges, fellowships or scholarships. We are currently considering what is feasible and manageable.
Reference was made to engaging with other Departments on the issue of education. A sum of approximately €100 million, which represents a significant proportion of the overall programme budget of €830 million, is managed by other Departments, especially the Departments of Agriculture and Food and Health and Children. I am not clear on the role the Department of Education and Science plays, but it may also have access to funding. The fundamental point is that there is engagement with other Departments. The White Paper foresees the establishment of an interdepartmental committee to provide a forum in which the skills and knowledge bases across Departments could be brought to bear on the programme. The visit of the Minister for Education and Science last week was very helpful in that context. It makes a point about what we have and what it is possible to deliver. We will see closer engagement with other Departments in the coming years in the implementation of the White Paper.
The distribution of funds to missionaries is organised through the IMRS. I am open to correction but there appears to be a relatively small number of Irish missionaries active on the ground in Mozambique. My sense is that these are the key factors which explain the figure set out.
The availability of resources is always an issue, which is why one tries to match ambitions with what is available to ensure they can be fulfilled realistically and in a way that adds value to what we are doing. The White Paper foresees a management review process which will be under way shortly to consider the spread of resources across an expanded programme. We are always driven to achieve the objective of delivering a quality product, which is facilitated by the excellent expertise available on the ground in our own development specialists and locally recruited management and other experts. Through this combination we set out to provide the quality product required of us.
Mozambique has lost the dubious title of being, per capita, the most mined country in the world. Laos in South-East Asia, where we are also active, may now hold it. Interestingly, the HALO Trust, with which we have worked in Mozambique and continue to work in South-East Asia, has been a very good partner in this context. Work is under way on a strategy to have Mozambique declared mine-impact free by 2009. This is the kind of issue which requires a joined-up approach. We try to link work on mines with that on agriculture to ensure that when land is declared mine-free, it becomes equitably available to those who need it and that they have the capacity to exploit it properly.
