EFFORTS TO tackle poverty in the developing world must not be undermined by the global financial crisis, Minister of State with responsibility for Irish Overseas Development Peter Power told a conference in Qatar yesterday.
The Minister called for renewed international efforts in the battle against hunger, and told the conference Ireland aims to take a leadership role on the issue. Ireland remains on course, he said, to achieve the UN target of allocating 0.7 per cent of GNP to overseas aid by 2012. The UN weekend conference in Doha focused on financing for development.
Regarding Ireland's role, the Minister outlined recommendations from the Hunger Task Force, set up last year by the Government, which launched its report at UN headquarters in New York in September. The report recommended that the Government make tackling food insecurity a central theme of the State's overseas development programme.