Overseas aid: death by a thousand cuts

Last night I attended a lecture in Trinity College on Ireland’s role in achieving the Millennium Development Goals given by the Minister of State for Overseas Development, Peter Power. The topic was unfortunate given the recent savaging of the overseas aid budget, which means that Ireland will be spending 22% less than in 2008. These cuts, which are an obvious consequence of the general tumbleweed feel around the national coffers of late, have the NGOs foaming at the mouth, and won’t do much for the moods of those millions of people whose lives the MDGs are designed to make a little less wretched.

The umbrella body that represents Irish NGOs, Dochas, held its AGM yesterday morning, so the Minister had his line well worked by the time he gave his Trinity lecture. The basic premise was that the stronger the economy, the more aid Ireland will be able to give – a thrilling piece of insight – so given that the best way to repair the economy is to restore confidence in the stability of the public finances, cuts now allow for longer aid flows in the long run.

By way of background, it’s worth noting that as far back as 2000 Bertie Ahern committed the country to meeting a UN-encouraged goal of spending 0.7% of GDP on foreign aid so as to assist developing countries in achieving the MDGs. The suspicion is that this was as much about basking in a bit of international kudos as anything else, given that this target was originally supposed to be met by 2007, and needless to say it wasn’t. The new target date, 2012, now looks equally unattainable. Taking into account this latest reduction in aid – the fourth in less than year – we’re looking at 0.48% of a rapidly shrinking GDP going on aid this year.

Now, of course everyone has to take the hit when the country has to do such major surgery on the accounts, and it’s not like going back on your word is unheard of in international affairs. The manner and sheer scale of these cuts do, however, do give rise to a couple of observations.

First, even if one accepts the idea that sorting the public finances ought to be the priority in returning the economy to good health over the next few years, where the cuts come from is a separate issue. The UK, in producing its own hairshirt budget a couple of weeks back, didn’t touch a penny of its £9 billion or so in overseas aid. Indeed, the opposition Conservatives have placed international development alongside the likes of domestic healthcare as an area of spending that would be “ringfenced” until 2011 under a Tory administration.

In Ireland, the story is different because the government simply doesn’t care as much about development. The aid budget took four hits in under a year not despite it being a difficult decision, as the Junior Minister argued last night, but because it was a soft target. There is no significant constituency that will be outraged enough by this decision to make an issue of it. Secure in the knowledge that nobody’s going to march on the Dail in support of a higher aid spend, and reckoning that letting down the poor isn’t a big vote-loser, the government went for the easy option. This will come at a very high cost to those recipient countries, principally in sub-Saharan Africa, which will already be in trouble due to the recession.

A final thought: given that development is pretty low on the Irish political agenda, and doesn’t get the public as riled up as do many other issues, surely an increased onus lies with Mr. Power to fight his corner? As a Minister of State for Overseas Development watching the overseas development budget took such a beating, you’d have to feel like a bit of a spanner. If the aid budget is cut still further over the year, which Mr. Power has refused to rule out, it will certainly show how little weight are given to his representations by the government. Assuming, of course, he is even making them.

A letter to The Irish Times by Peter Power giving his account of all this can be read here.