The Government is committed over the next four years to achieving the United Nations target of donating 0.7 per cent of Gross National Product to the Third World in Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said in Dublin yesterday.
Speaking at the global launch of this year's Human Development Report of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), he said "one of the most important steps taken by the Government over the past four years" had been the decision to make a significant increase in ODA.
"Since we committed in 2000 to reaching the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNP by 2007, our ODA has increased by €250 million to €450 million in 2003, or 0.41 per cent of GNP," he said.
Pointing out that, in percentage terms, Ireland was seventh among international donors, Mr Ahern said: "Despite the current more difficult economic circumstances, the Government is committed to further increasing Ireland's ODA and achieving the UN target of 0.7 per cent by 2007."
The report focuses on the goals and targets agreed by heads of state and government at the UN millennium summit in September 2000, dealing with the eradication of poverty and hunger, access to primary education, child mortality, HIV/AIDS and other problems.
The document contained "many grim statistics", according to the Taoiseach. "It is a powerful reminder of how unequal our world is, and how for a number of countries, particularly in Africa, the situation is worsening. Fifty-four countries are poorer now than they were in 1990.
"At the current pace of development, countries in sub-Saharan Africa will not reach the goals for poverty eradication until 2147, and for child mortality until 2167. The figures for AIDS and hunger are heading up, not down, across the continent. In seven countries in Africa, one in five children will not live to see their fifth birthday," Mr Ahern said.
The administrator of the UNDP, Mr Mark Malloch Brown, said the depth of the world's development crisis was unveiled in the report, "more than a billion people languishing in absolute poverty, most of them without clean water to drink or enough food to eat, beset by diseases from HIV/AIDS to tuberculosis, lacking access to schools and healthcare, and living in an environment that by nearly every measure is rapidly degrading".
He added: "Ireland has blazed a trail for other donors by growing its foreign aid at over 30 per cent a year and pledging future increases on a similar scale, all with a clear focus on the neediest countries, especially in Africa."
Bono, of the rock band U2, deplored the fact that many of the UN targets would not be reached for a long time, especially in Africa.
"I want to set people on notice," he said. Activists and interested musicians would "take a very, very different tack" if this trend continued. "I for one am taking off my suit. I am ready to march." He would encourage campaigns of civil disobedience.
Speaking via satellite link, President Chissano of Mozambique described the efforts of his country's government to eradicate poverty by promoting rural development, especially agriculture, and starting a drive to eliminate illiteracy.
"Despite all our efforts we face great challenges," he said, particularly the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and cholera."
Mr David Donoghue from the development section of the Department of Foreign Affairs said it was a great honour that Dublin had been chosen as one of the two venues, along with Maputo, to launch the report.
"This decision by the UNDP recognises, perhaps, the scale of commitment made by the Irish Government in recent years in terms of expanding its ODA contribution," Mr Donoghue said.