OECD peer review - Not all good news

Peter Power, Ireland's Minister of State for Overseas Development, has warmly welcomed the review of Irish Aid and the Government's overseas aid programme by the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC). He noted that in the review, the DAC praised Ireland for its long history of helping the world's poorest people and he thanked the Irish public for continuing to "save thousands of lives each year".

The review does indeed bestow a lot of praise upon Ireland with regard to its ability to make aid more effective, its policy cohesion and its concentration of spending. However, the review took place two weeks before the Irish Government decided to cut the overseas aid budget by a massive €100 million. Furthermore, the praise was accompanied by a warning from the DAC with regard to the €95 million cut made in February of this year, that Ireland should refrain from any further budgetary action that would undermine its commitment to meeting the United Nations ODA target of 0.7% GNI by 2012.

I hope that Minister Power and the Irish Government will in future not only accept the applause of bodies such as the DAC but also take heed of the committee's warnings rather than showing a continued willingness to cut the overseas aid budget.