Ireland’s Contribution

Irish Aid is the Government of Ireland’s programme of assistance to developing countries. Ireland has had an official development assistance(ODA) programme since 1974. It has grown steadily over the years from modest beginnings to its current size (total ODA in 2006 is €734 million).

The Irish Aid programme is underscored by a number of key principles including a commitment to working partnerships with developing countries, a geographic focus on sub-Saharan Africa, aid that is not tied to Irish business, and accountability of resources. Above all, Irish Aid retains a strong poverty focus which guides decisions about which countries to support.

The poverty focus of the Irish Aid programme has been recognised by the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and by the international NGO Action Aid.

NEW: Irish Aid publishes Annual Report (30/08/07)
The central theme of the Irish Aid 2006 Annual Report (press release) is Irish Aid’s commitment to tackling HIV/AIDS. Many of Irish Aid’s programme countries are among the worst affected by the pandemic. Total Overseas Aid in 2006 was €814 million = 0.54% of GNP.

Last year the aid programme achieved its target of spending €100 million on HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases. Ireland now allocates a greater proportion of its overseas development aid to tackling HIV/AIDS than any other EU country.  (Irish Times report.)

The table below compares development indicators among Ireland and its key partner countries.

Ireland and Irish Aid Programme Countries: a Comparative Snapshot
Countries	UNDP HDI Rank	Population (2005 est.)	GDP $ Billions (2005 est.)	Life Expectancy from Birth	Number of Doctors per 100,000 people	% of people in primary, secondary pr third-level education	% HIV + Prevalance Adults
Ireland	8th	4 million	137	78	237	93	0.1
Ethiopia	170th	73 million	60	48	3	36	4.4
Lesotho	149th	1.8 million	6.1	36	5	66	28.9
Mozambique	168th	19.5 million	25.5	42	2	43	12.2
Tanzania	164th	37.7 million	26.6	46	2	41	8.8
Uganda	144th	27 million	46	47	5	74	4.1
Zambia	166th	11 million	10.3	38	7	48	16.5
Timor-Leste	140th	1 million	0.37 (2004)	56	No info	75	No info
Vietnam	108th	84.5 million	253	70	53	64	0.4

A major step in firmly articulating Ireland’s commitments to overseas development was taken on September 18th 2006 with the publication of Ireland’s first White Paper on Irish Aid.

The White Paper lays out key decisions on the future of Irish Aid’s work to combat poverty in the developing world. Ireland will spend €1.5 billion in aid (0.7% of GNP) by 2012 and will remain committed to working in close partnership with developing countries to reduce poverty.

Dóchas, the Irish NGO umbrella body representing 38 organisations, welcomed the White Paper but said that now the task is to work out in detail how Ireland’s commitments to the developing world and Irish people will be met.

Irish Aid at a glance

Comparative data

According the 2005 Development Co-operation Report the largest OECD donor in 2005 in terms of volume were the United States, followed by Japan, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The only countries to exceed the United Nations target for ODA of 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) were, as for some years now, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden (see the attached OECD Table  and Chart ). Irish Aid contributes 0.39 percent of its GNI to development aid. This data is sourced from the annexes of OECD Development Co-operation Report 2005. See the following links from the OECD website.

Figure 1: Net Overseas Development Assistance 2004- Amounts

Figure 2: Net ODA in 2004- as a percentage of GNI

A more valuable indicator in terms of comparison of the Irish contribution to development aid is to compare the per capita burden in countries. In Ireland the per capita burden was $130 in 2003-2004 which compares favorably with countries such as the United States($ 61), the UK ($110), Spain ($48), Canada($68) and Australia($62) who have a much lower per capita contribution to aid.   See Table 7 of the OECD Statistical Annexes of the DAC Report to see what the burden of debt is for all ODA countries.

The focus of Irish Aid is poverty reduction and this is proven in its contribution to least developed countries with over 0.21 percent of its GNI going to these countries in 2003-2004 compared with 0.04 percent from the US, 0.13 percent for the UK, 0.16 percent from France and 0.09 percent from Germany. This data is available in Table 7 of the annexes of OECD Development Co-operation Report 2005.

DAC list of recipient countries –provides a list of countries in different income categories who receive aid from the OECD member countries. As mentioned Ireland has one of the largest contributions to least developed countries including Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Timor Leste which are the priority countries for the Irish Aid programme.

Irish Aid contributes a significant amount of its budget to non-governmental organizations (NGOs)/civil society organizations such as Trocaire, Concern, Christian Aid, Goal etc. A total of 0.18 percent of GNI in Ireland is given to these organizations compared to 0.06 percent in the US, 0.02 percent in the UK and 0.04 percent in Germany(See Table 7 of the OECD annexes). The following links provide an overview of the partnership and programmes between Irish Aid has with different NGOs.

DAC’s recommendations as Ireland prepares for a USD 1 billion development co-operation programme In a major review of Ireland’s development co-operation programme, the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) noted that Ireland’s official development assistance (ODA) rose dramatically over the past decade, to $398 million or 0.40% of its gross national income (GNI) in 2002 compared to $70 million or 0.16% of GNI in 1992. Demonstrating its commitment to poverty reduction, Ireland channels half of its ODA to least-developed countries. This is the largest share among the 22 member countries in the DAC.

September 2006 saw the publication of the Government's first White Paper on Irish Aid. This document sets out a number of key principles and commitments of the Irish government to combating poverty. In this document, the Government pledged to meet the DAC recommendation. By 2012, the Irish Aid budget is expected to be over €1.5 billion per year.

Ireland’s official aid programme when it was established in 1974 was Irish Aid. This changed to Ireland Aid in 1999 and to Development Cooperation Ireland (DCI) in 2003. However, during the public meetings on the White Paper it emerged that DCI as a name had gained very little recognition. On 27 February 2006, the programme was renamed Irish Aid.