Concern reports record €100m income

Ireland's largest overseas development agency, Concern, has reported a record year for 2003, with income approaching €100 million.

The agency described the public's response to its Africa appeals as "extraordinary, given the absence of any sustained media attention in 2003 towards the food crisis in Africa".

Total income of €98.83 million was up 32 per cent on 2002, according to the organisation's annual report and accounts for last year.

The increase is largely explained by a rise in donations-in-kind given by UN agencies for food relief and distribution in Africa, particularly for crises in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. Total income has increased to its present level from €32 million in 1998.

Last year, Concern raised €42.22 million from public donations in Ireland and the UK, an increase of €5.89 million over 2002. Much of this increase is attributed to a growth in "regular giving" such as by standing order.

The agency also grew through its acquisition of a smaller UK agency, Children's Aid Direct.

Public appeals for Africa raised €6.7 million, more than half of which was collected for Ethiopia.

Concern also got €13.69 million from the Government, €6.73 million from the EU and over €2 million from the UK government.

The money raised was spent on a variety of emergency, food, health, basic-education and HIV/AIDS programmes in 27 countries worldwide.

Over €81 million was spent on relief and development activities and €1.5 million on development education. The cost of raising funds is put at €12.5 million (12.5 per cent of expenditure), while administration expenses were €900,000 (0.9 per cent).

Concern employs 175 staff in Ireland and the UK, and 18 of these earn €50,000 per annum or more. One person, presumed to be chief executive Mr Tom Arnold, is listed as earning between €90,000 and €110,000.

Mr Arnold is currently in Darfur in western Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by a campaign of ethnic cleansing carried out by a mounted Arab militia known as the Janjaweed. The Sudanese government in Khartoum denies claims that it is backing the militia.

Over the weekend, a Concern assessment of conditions in displaced camps in western Darfur found thousands of "very vulnerable people" without proper food, shelter or water. The assessment was carried out in a series of camps for displaced people in Kolbus, north of El Geneina, where access was previously difficult due to conflict. Some 50,000 people are housed in the camps.

The assessment team found many were surviving on berries and other wild foods. Health problems were particularly evident among children, with deaths reported to be high in some camps. People had no access to health care or medicines.

Time for Ireland to lead fight against hunger: page 14