Connect: Last month the Government announced a doubling of its overseas aid to €1.5 billion a year by 2012. Although Ireland reneged on the Taoiseach's commitment in 2000 (when the Government was seeking a place on the United Nations Security Council) to achieve the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GDP by 2007, this latest initiative has been broadly welcomed.
The expanded aid budget will continue to focus on Africa. Education and health will remain its priorities. There are, of course, complex debates regarding the effectiveness and distribution of development monies. Whenever politics, economics and culture are mixed, some reactions are primarily ideological and others mainly practical. Most, however, are amalgams of both.
The doubling of aid money to poor countries was presented as an act of unmitigated generosity by the government of this state. PR outfit Drury Communications has been employed by the Department of Foreign Affairs to orchestrate presentation. Thus, an ideal spin, stressing foreign policy largesse, albeit belated, was the dominant impression created.
Yet the truth behind the hype appears to lie between the hagiographic largesse of doubling aid within six years and the grossly exploitative Lords of Poverty position, outlined 17 years ago in his eponymous book by Graham Hancock. It's an unwritten rule of interaction between foreign governments that each considers "what's in it for us?". So, what might be in it for this State? There is the PR opportunity to make both the Government and governed feel better. Given Ireland's anti-colonial past - even though throughout the 19th century when colonisation of Africa was most intense, Ireland was a member of the colonising United Kingdom - the State has less baggage. There's also the prospect of future markets in countries expected to favour Irish products.
"The Irish Government's White Paper on Aid was a missed opportunity for dialogue with the developing world," said Labour Party foreign affairs spokesman Michael D Higgins. "Development discourse was better in the 1970s. Aid donors now prefer to talk to elites," he added. "If, for instance, you want to take the issue of corruption seriously, you must realise it's a double-edged sword."
Few people would disagree that it's a positive move to increase foreign aid. Some might feel that the manner of announcing the increase implied charity and, as such, was patronising. Nonetheless, increases can almost always be defended, except for those cases when a hike in the aid budget risks destabilising a recipient country's economy through demotivation or corruption.
But Michael D Higgins is undoubtedly right: corruption is double-edged. In Washington, London, other European capitals and indeed Dublin, where tribunals of inquiry flourish, corruption has thrived. In that sense, it is patronising and disingenuous to single out Third World countries and accuse their governments of dishonesty.
"Certainly, there is corruption in Washington and European capitals," said William Pike, managing director of Uganda's largest-selling newspaper group, New Vision. "But the problem is that corruption is more disruptive and damaging in Africa." It's clear that poor countries cannot absorb corruption like wealthier ones. Even the most venal TD is unlikely to condemn people to starvation.
Still, it appears that aid without trade reform simply will not work. "By all means send us the money," says Frederick Masiga, business editor of the Daily Monitor newspaper in Kampala, Uganda, "but there is a need to open markets" for their produce. "After all, during the Marshall Plan, Europe had the opportunity to sell its products."
An Oxfam commentary has observed: "EU (and US) double standards on trade policy are a disgrace. The EU forces Third World countries to open their markets at breakneck speed, while maintaining barriers to Third World exports, particularly farm products and textiles." The international trading system is, it's clear, failing the world's poor.
It's true that Ireland cannot, by itself, relax international trade policy. It's arguable, however, that it's not in Irish political or financial interests to seek to do so. Thus Irish foreign policy can hide behind the apparently more economically aggressive policies of bigger, more powerful states. After all, what can we do other than reach UN targets for aid? Many development workers - whether employed by governments or non-governmental organisations (NGOs) - are splendid people. Then again, as in every other walk of life, the sector accommodates rogues too. For the most part, however, development workers are well-motivated people too often led by politicians, civil servants and NGO bigwigs seeking to control them.
In many respects, the big story in development aid to Africa is now China. The rapidly growing influence of China in the continent is not without debate. The Chinese, for instance, are charged with giving too few jobs to Africans. Nonetheless, China is a new hope for Africa. After all, the US and Europe (including Ireland) have, to date, failed to lift Africa out of poverty.
This column will return to more complex issues surrounding development aid. Is 70 cent in every €100 really all that much?