Four aid agencies to share €400m in State support

Four Irish aid agencies are to share €400 million in Government support in the largest funding deal agreed by Irish Aid.

The amounts to be paid to Concern, Trócaire, Goal and Christian Aid up to 2011 will dwarf the sums the agencies raise from the public, and will allow them to offer significantly expanded programmes in the developing world.

Concern will get €148 million, Trócaire €116 million, Goal €100 million and Christian Aid €17 million over the five years of the multi-annual programme scheme (Maps) operated by Irish Aid.

In addition, the four charities receive State funding for emergency and humanitarian relief work, which amounted to €12 million last year.

The total allocation in the current Maps programme is almost three times the amount provided under the first such programme introduced in 2002. This reflects the greatly-increased funding available to Irish Aid as a result of the Government's decision to raise Irish overseas aid to the UN target level of 0.7 per cent of gross national product (GNP).

The aim of the Maps scheme is to provide predictable funding over a number of years to support long-term development projects in poor countries.

Most of the money will be spent on reducing poverty by providing education, health, water, sanitation and human rights support to people in the developing world.

Irish Aid reached agreement with Concern, Trócaire and Christian Aid some time ago, but the agreement with Goal followed a long period of discussions.

During the last Maps programme Irish Aid originally declined to commit multi-annual funding to Goal because of disagreements over its strategic plans and concern over high staff turnover at head office and in the field. Instead, it was funded in three discrete decisions by Irish Aid.

A consultant's report on Goal's performance in the first programme raised issues about the agency's preparedness for such a large injection of funding.

The report found that the relationship between Goal and Irish Aid had never been problem-free and was unlikely to become so, but noted an encouraging improvement in the partnership.

The report said Goal was unique in that its chief executive, John O'Shea, was also its founder, and found that the objective and priorities of the agency were influenced by Mr O'Shea's values to a greater extent than in other aid agencies.

Irish Aid has yet to conclude a Maps agreement with a fifth aid agency, Self Help Development International, but says it hopes to do so this year. This follows the resolution of internal difficulties within Self Help last year which led to a threatened suspension of funding for a period.

Self Help's allocation under Maps this year is €3.5 million.