DSAI White Paper Review Submission, Draft 1, for review by 11th April - all members invited to comment

Submitted by sglavey(42)

16 March, 2012 - 18:50

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white paper

Dear Colleagues

DSAI intends to make a submission to the Irish Aid White Paper Review. The Steering Committee of DSAI proposes to manage a consultation process and submit a response on behalf of the membership. The Steering Committee has compiled a first draft response and now would like to request the input of all interested members. Please review the attached document and post your response on this page or submit by email to sglavey@tcd.ie (acting on behalf of the committee) by Wednesday 11^th April.

We hope you will join us in engaging with this important process.

Many thanks,

DSAI Steering Committee

Neil Alldred, University of Ulster
Joseph Assan, Trinity College Dublin
Tara Bedi, Trocaire
Elaine Byrne, RCSI
Kate Coleman, Right to Sight
Dug Cubie, Postgraduate Representative
Ger Downes, Mary Immaculate College, UL
Connell Foley, Concern
Sarah Glavey, Trinity College Dublin
Rosarii Griffin, University College Cork
Deirdre Healy, Kimmage Development Studies Centre
Su-Ming Khoo, NUIG
Edward Lahiff, University College Cork
Tom Lodge, University of Limerick
Chandana Mathur, National University of Ireland Maynooth
Roisin McEvoy, University of Ulster
Ronnie Munck, Dublin City University

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Draft 1 Submission to Irish Aid White Paper Review Process

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White Paper Review

Comments

PatrickHolden1 year 10 weeks ago

comment on draft sub

My initial thoughts on this are that it contains lots of good ideas, which are convincingly expressed, but it may be too focused on research (as opposed to the many other substantial policy issues the Review Paper mentions). Is there a a danger that this will read like an academic wish list?

I note that others have made some policy recommendations in other fields. I will offer one in regard to the role of the private sector:

I would say that cooperation with the private sector should be encouraged but steered in a pro-poor direction. Also I think DSAI should argue strongly against any kind of 'tying' of aid, or direct use of aid to assist the Irish private sector. Any move in this direction on GOI’s part would damage its credibility and be self-defeating. (Of course Ireland may well benefit from its development presence but this has to be indirect/ entirely separate from the aid policy).

Patrick Davey1 year 10 weeks ago

White Paper review

Just to agree wholeheartedly that being untied is one of the things which gives Irish Aid and Ireland such a high standing in recipient countries, we are seen as being entirely altruistic and thus to be trusted, the entire relationship is changed for the good. This easily spills over into other areas such as peace negotiations and friendly advice which may be of great value to whoever is being supported. Overall Ireland has a substantially higher influence than would be expected for a Country of our size.

I suspect that should Ireland ever decide to follow the tied aid route there would be an immediate drop in the public support for Aid which has held up remarkable well during the present financial crisis. This would of course not only be to the detriment of those we are helping but long term to Ireland itself. Do not under-estimate the value of networking and our recent Presidents.