IRELAND: Africa was still central to the Government's overseas aid programme, according to the Minister of State for Development Co-operation, Mr Conor Lenihan. "The Government's primary focus has always been and will continue to be Africa," he said.
Speaking at the Irish launch of the UN Millennium Project Report, Mr Lenihan said: "Three-quarters of all Government spending on aid is directed to the world's poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa. This year will be no different."
Mr Lenihan was responding to claims that existing funds for Africa were simply being diverted to south-east Asia and that one region was receiving assistance at the expense of another.
He said the Government had made it clear in relation to €20 million pledged for the tsunami disaster that "€10 million is additional to the overall aid budget and the remainder will come from my Department's Emergency Humanitarian Fund, which is deliberately designed to be flexible to respond to disasters wherever they occur".
Commenting on the UN report, which assesses progress towards the achievement of the world body's Millennium Development Goals (MDG) for poverty reduction and disease eradication, Mr Lenihan said:
"While the bottom line is that significantly more needs to be done by both developing and developed countries to achieve the MDG targets, we do now at least have a clearer roadmap.
"The difficult choices for developed countries in 2005 and beyond will be in the area of trade and the barriers that these countries, including Ireland, build that prevent market access for developing nations."
However, a spokesman for Oxfam Ireland, Mr Colin Roche, said: "This report once again highlights the need for rich countries like Ireland to live up to their promises on delivering aid to people living in poverty. The Government should now announce how it will meet the UN target of spending 0.7 per cent of GNP in overseas aid and immediately increase the aid budget accordingly."
The MDGs were agreed at a summit of world leaders held under UN auspices in New York in September 2000. The current Report, entitled Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals, said the targets could be reached if the international community took the appropriate action in 2005, "the breakthrough year".
Speaking last night, Mr Lenihan said: "From my perspective what is most welcome in the report is its practicality and realism. The project's research shows not only that Millennium Development Goals set in 2000 can still be achieved by 2015, but also how it can be done, in rigorous technical detail.
"It is the first time that a comprehensive costing exercise has been done and the project experts conclude that the goals can be achieved with an investment of just one half of one per cent of the incomes of the industrialised countries - well within the international aid targets wealthy countries have already promised to meet.
He added: "During the next few months we will be engaging in a broad consultative process around the country regarding the future direction of the Irish Government's official development programme culminating in a Government White Paper in 2006."
The millennium project report was "a major intellectual achievement", the Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, told reporters at the UN on Monday. He said world leaders would review progress on the MDGs at the UN in September.