Connect: It's sometimes said that development aid is taking money from poor people in rich countries to give to rich people in poor countries. There's undeniable sarcasm in such a neat formulation. Nonetheless, despite last month's White Paper announcing a doubling of Irish overseas aid to €1.5 billion by 2012, there's an incontestable truth in the contention too.
For most people, though almost all have heard of it, "development aid" remains complex and mysterious. There's little public awareness about its workings and it remains shrouded in a belief that it's essentially for experts and policy boffins. The business of living, of making money, of concerning oneself with issues much closer to home, guarantees the maintenance of this attitude. So too do the facts that aid is managed by the secretive Department of Foreign Affairs and that a dumbed-down Irish media concentrates - arguably excessively - on Irish news. "African history should be part of the curriculum of the history syllabus in all our schools, all our third-level institutions," wrote Eoin Dillon of University College Dublin recently. It should but it won't.
Still, now that aid is to double over the next six years, might the outlook change? Welcoming the increase, an editorial in this newspaper said: "Ways must be found for the public to engage more fully with Irish Aid's new role." Certainly, ways ought to be found for the public to engage more fully. It's unlikely though. Expect, by 2012, at least as much complexity and mystery as ever.
Because this state is a member of the European Union (EU) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), it has all but forsaken independent economic and foreign policies. Certainly, the record of the WTO, which has stated its aim as being to promote free trade and stimulate economic growth, has resulted in the rich - both people and countries - getting richer.
In a sense, then, it's immaterial whether Ireland doubles, trebles or even quadruples its aid budget. Poor people in poor countries will, of course, benefit marginally from such increases but not by nearly as much as they might. Indeed, it's arguable that a plane dropping the equivalent of €1.5 billion in, say, $20 bills over a few African townships would have greater effects in relieving poverty.
There would be a demented scramble for such money, of course. Death and injury would probably be unavoidable, but poor people in Africa and around the globe tend to know - better at least than the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs - what to do with sudden windfalls. Indeed, it might stimulate their entrepreneurial talent - always a western aim - to have money literally showered on them.
There has been much triumphalism surrounding the doubling of Irish aid contributions within six years. Indeed, the home reception for the increase was largely a jamboree of political PR. Perhaps that is to be expected, but presenting the hike as an act of unmitigated generosity begs questions. Among them is the dubious implication of simple foreign policy largesse.
When Michael D Higgins says, "Development discourse was better in the 1970s; aid donors now prefer to talk to elites," he echoes the notion that development aid is increasingly taking money from poor people in rich countries to give to rich people in poor countries. There is an escalating democratic deficit in the ways that aid money is distributed.
At present, few people in wealthy Ireland care how aid money is spent. It emits a redeeming glow to know that, by 2012, 70 cent in every €100 will allegedly go to the world's poor. The 0.7 per cent of GDP is a UN figure, of course, but really, is it not mere crumbs from the tables of the rich - and getting richer - to try to salve a dreadful history of white thuggery in Africa? Language invariably stresses particular messages. Back in February, the Government changed the name of its official aid programme from Development Co-operation Ireland (DCI) to Irish Aid.
Announcing the name-change, Conor Lenihan, Minister of State for Development Co-operation and Human Rights, said: "There was a general acknowledgement that the name Development Co-operation Ireland had gained little recognition. Irish Aid is simple and straightforward; it explains what we do and is much easier to understand." He has a point, but there's an embarrassing bluntness to the term. Like US Aid, Irish Aid suggests charity. That might be all right for political consumption at home. In Africa though, as in other poor parts of the world, Irish Aid sounds rather high-handed. It really is not all that far away from, for instance, "Irish Hand-Outs". When - until quite recently - this country was relatively poor, would we have preferred "Development Co-operation Germany", say, to "German Aid"? Surely, if we have any self-respect, we would.
Anyway, as rampant privatisation has always meant the transfer of public funds to private people, it should not surprise us that development aid is increasingly taking money from (relatively) poor people in rich countries to give to rich people in poor countries. Rich people in rich countries have excessive influence on the distribution of development monies. As ever . . .