Topical Issue Debate on Overseas Development Aid

Deputy Olivia Mitchell: I thank the Ceann Comhairle for providing me with a timely opportunity to raise this issue. I also thank the Minister of State, Deputy Hayes, for attending in the Dáil. I appreciate the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade has much on his hands at present.

As chairperson of the all-party interest group in the Dáil on sexual and reproductive health rights and population and development, I raised this issue last year with some of my colleagues hoping to ensure we would use our EU Presidency to prioritise gender equality and maternal and child health. I raise it again at the start of our Presidency to encourage the Tánaiste to highlight the importance and urgency of these issues at the various opportunities which will arise for us during the Presidency, namely, the EU budget discussions, the post millennium development goals, MDG, framework discussions and at the conference we will host in April on health, nutrition and climate change. Specifically I want this issue fresh in the mind of the Tánaiste next week when we host an informal meeting of EU development aid Ministers and the High Representative. These are talks in advance of the global discussions on the post-2015 development framework. The Minister of State is aware, as are we all, that the EU contributes a staggering 55% of all world aid so what we prioritise and what we want to bring to the fore carries weight. We need to use our position to focus specifically on sexual and reproductive health rights which have been losing focus and support in recent times with absolutely catastrophic results for millions of women throughout the world.

The prime development goal is to end hunger and poverty. Ireland has always had a particular and historic motivation in this regard. Ending hunger crucially depends on a healthy educated female population in the developing world. Reproductive health care and access to family planning allow women to have some say in the number of children they have and when they have them. Without this, they and their children are subject to a cycle of poverty which no amount of food aid can ever alleviate.

The recent report on the mapping of EU development aid and population assistance showed the total population assistance from the EU institutions is less than 2% of overseas development aid. It also shows, and I am very sorry to have to say this, that Ireland’s population assistance as a percentage of overseas development aid is declining. It may be only a marginal decline but it shows that population assistance generally is losing priority even in our aid programmes.

I do not want to suggest that other goals are less important. Rather I contended that achieving all of the MDGs depends on access to contraception by women, who are for the most part the breadwinners, farmers and providers in their societies. Countless millions of lives depend on the good health of these women. This is not just my contention; it is an established fact that access to family planning goes hand in hand with improvements in health and increased prosperity. Giving women control over their fertility and better reproductive health care is the single biggest contribution we can make to sustainable development in the poorest countries and this is what overseas development aid is all about. This is the message I hope will be brought to the informal EU aid Ministers’ meeting next week so it is prioritised in the development of the post-2015 development goals. In fact, it should be more than prioritised; it should be central to the framework because it is fundamental to the achievement of the other goals.

Deputy Brian Hayes: The Tánaiste has asked me to take this matter. He thanks Deputy Mitchell for raising this very important issue and apologises that he cannot be here. He will monitor the debate and the Deputy’s contribution.

The provision of reproductive health services, including family planning services, is essential in tackling the continuing high rates of maternal mortality in the developing world. The position Ireland takes on sexual and reproductive health is based on a firm commitment to the programme of actions agreed at the international conference on population and development, ICPD, in Cairo in 1994. The ICPD set out a number of principles on reproductive health issues including the importance of gender equality and the empowerment of women to reduce poverty and vulnerability; the right of all women to the information and means to make autonomous decisions about their fertility; and the link between women’s control over their own fertility and the wider empowerment of women in economic, social and political life.

Ireland has a strong record of support for the provision of family planning services for women in developing countries, through our funding and our policy work at EU and global levels. We assist access to family planning services in countries where such services are considered inadequate, including in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe and Somalia. In 2011, as Deputy Mitchell is aware, Ireland spent €6.75 million on reproductive health services. At a global level in the past six years, Ireland has contributed more than €34 million to the reproductive, maternal health and family planning programmes of the United Nation’s Population Fund, UNFPA, and is one of its top core funders. In addition to specific support for reproductive health services, we also invest heavily in building up national health systems to ensure the sustainability of all health services.

As the Deputy stated, the EU is also a major supporter of reproductive health services through its geographic support instruments and through thematic funding. For example, since 2007 the EU has allocated €580 million to health programmes including reproductive health programmes under its thematic programme Investing in People. The EU and its member states are the largest providers of development assistance in the world, providing more than 55% of global overseas development aid. This will remain the case under the next multi-annual financial framework, MFF. The Irish Presidency supports President Van Rompuy in his efforts to secure a deal on the MFF and we have sought to ensure that a fair proportion of the EU budget is allocated to development assistance. Ireland’s EU Presidency comes at a crucial period for international development policy as discussions commence on the framework for global development after 2015, the target date for the millennium development goals. A key priority for Ireland’s Presidency will be to ensure the EU adopts a strong coherent position and takes a lead in the discussions on the future of development policy and practice. As the international community opens discussions on the framework for global development after 2015, we will continue to highlight the MDG targets where least progress has been made, including maternal mortality.

On 15 and 16 April, the Government and the Mary Robinson Foundation-Climate Justice will convene in Dublin an international conference on hunger, nutrition and climate justice. The objective is to listen to and learn from the experiences of local people, particularly women, and to inspire innovative thinking and solutions to inform a new approach to addressing hunger, nutrition and climate change. Women are essential drivers of positive change in our fight against hunger, undernutrition and negative effects of climate change. They play a crucial role in tackling these major global challenges, not least because the majority of smallholder farmers in the developing world are women, but also because women have primary responsibility for producing and preparing food for their families and caring for children. Empowering women and strengthening their decision-making role at household level and giving women the same opportunities as men to boost their agricultural productivity to meet the food and nutritional needs of their families and adapt to climate change will be central to the conference discussions. The Government will continue to prioritise women’s reproductive health and family planning and we will work closely with our EU, UN and other partners to ensure improved access to family planning services for women and girls is central to the post-2015 development agenda.

Deputy Olivia Mitchell: I could not be happier to see a restatement of the commitment on behalf of the Tánaiste. Ireland has always had a human rights-based approach to development. If we want to eliminate hunger and poverty, as I have repeatedly stated we do, we must include the rights of the poorest women in the world to equality of opportunity. Without sexual and reproductive rights and access to family planning services these women have absolutely no opportunities, never mind equality of opportunity, and cannot pull themselves and their children out of the cycle of poverty to which they are condemned.
The MDG-5 target is now the furthest from being attained and progress is slowest in sub-Saharan Africa. Over 250,000 people are dying annually in childbirth due to the lack of maternity care. The awful thing is that instead of improving, the rate of progress is slowing down. Failure in this area is at least partly due to the fact that the target 5b, which was to ensure universal access to reproductive health, was initially omitted from the millennium development goals. This time it is essential that, far from being a tag-on, it is central to the new post-2015 development framework.

Deputy Brian Hayes: The Deputy has expressed the Government’s view that if we are to deliver the desired progress, it is essential that the post-2015 goals have that as a condition for development aid. We are already in discussions on the multiannual financial framework, or MFF, negotiations which is the financial envelope for the EU over the next seven years. Within those discussions it is crucially important that we continue to have the overseas development aid budget enhanced and supported in circumstances where there is real pressure on that expenditure.

As the Deputy has rightly articulated, there is precious little use in having that money unless one can tie it to the reproductive and maternal rights of women, in such countries and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Deputy Mitchell has articulated the Government’s view and that is the position we will be advancing during the EU Presidency. It is something the Government holds dear, that with funding and support, rights must come for women in their own countries. In order to make the kind of progress we all want to see, those rights must be enforced by those countries that are giving the money in the first instance. It is something we take very seriously in the context of the negotiations of which we are a part.