Cause for concern

The mainstream media was too busy getting apoplectic about the banks last month to pay much attention to the Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin slashing the Overseas Aid Budget from €891 to €796 million.

Small change to an Anglo Irish Bank executive, but a hammerblow to independent Irish aid organsations already hit by the fall in value of the euro against the dollar and a recessionary downturn in public donations.
“€95 million doesn’t sound like a huge amount compared to the billions we’re hearing about every night on the news, but out in the field it’s a significant sum,” reflects the Dublin-based Chief Executive of Concern Worldwide, Tom Arnold. “It varies depending on the country and the circumstances, but if you take €95 as the average benefit to an individual from Irish aid, that’s 100 million people we can no longer give assistance to. Combined with earlier cuts of €45 million in July 2007 and €15 million last October, that’s a total of 17.2% we’re down by, which in practical terms means that we’ve had to make the decision to pull out of three countries and scale back our programmes in other countries.
“The Irish Government gained a lot of kudos internationally when under Bertie Ahern it committed to providing 0.7% of GNP in overseas aid by 2012. This latest cut means we’re currently at 0.53%. If in three years time we renege on our commitment, the moral authority we have in terms of being able to put pressure on other rich countries will evaporate.”
In addition to the shrinking Overseas Aid Budget, Concern and their fellow Irish aid organisations like GOAL and Trocaire are also having to contend with a 25% drop in street donations and getting 20% less than they did twelve months ago when they change euros into dollars, the common currency for most aid work.
“That’s why we’re so disappointed with the scale of this latest cut, which was made without any sort of detailed consultation as to what the consequences might be,” Arnold resumes. “Yes, we’re in a recession and the Government has to make savings wherever it can, but if we’re to reverse the trend people, poor ones included, need purchasing power.”
As for the “charity begins at home” brigade who’ve been so vocal recently on Joe Duffy, Arnold proffers: “I don’t see aid purely as a matter of charity. By having a well-organised and effective aid programme, we’re garnering goodwill, which will be of long-term economic and political benefit to us.”
Concern currently works in 29 countries including ones like North Korea, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo where their staff are either walking a very delicate political tightrope or are in physical danger.
The latter was brought into sharp focus before Christmas when United Nations security ordered Concern out of eastern Congo because their base there was in danger of being overrun by anti-government rebels.
“We drove across the border to Rwanda, which I know sounds a bit ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’, but it’s actually more stable there at the moment than it is in the DR Congo,” proffers Concern’s Fergus Thomas who’s spent nearly two years working in Africa’s third most populous country. “There were people moving away from the rebels, and government troops walking around with heavy looking machine guns and bazookas. Even more poignantly, we saw a child soldier who couldn’t have been older than 12 or 13.”
Thomas and his colleagues have since returned to the DRC, but know the likelihood is that they’ll have to flee again in the future.
Concern staff are also on red alert in Sudan where three of their Medecins Sans Frontieres counterparts were kidnapped a fortnight ago by what the Sudanese government describe as “bandits”.
“You do everything within your power to keep your people safe,” notes Tom Arnold sanguinely, “but there’s always going to be an element of risk.”
No mere desk-jockey, Arnold had a few uncomfortable moments of his own in January when he visited Zimbabwe – an experience, which left him feeling “bloody angry.”
“The cholera epidemic, which has killed 3,000 people and effected 60,000 others, was entirely preventable,” he charges. “Having spent months denying there was a cholera problem, the government had to appeal for foreign aid because the Zimbabwean health service has completely broken down. You’ve five to six million people dependent on food aid in a country that has good land, a good climate and, even now, good roads and other infrastructure. The crisis there is entirely man made, and a terrible indictment of Zimbabwe’s internal politics.”
180 people are employed in Concern’s Dublin 2 headquarters, which, with their different desks for different countries, resemble a mini-United Nations. There are also dedicated teams assigned to fundraising, internet awareness, human resources, active citizenship – a very vocal group of students were dispatched to Brussels before Christmas to remind Irish MEPs of their third world obligations – and supplies & logistics, which unit manager Martin Dalton jokingly describes as “the MacGyver side of the operation.”
“We had a situation recently where we had to get food aid to a remote Afghani village, which you couldn’t reach by truck or helicopter. We scratched our heads for a few days, and then decided to rent 1,000 pack animals from local tribes people. We had 50kg loads on the donkeys and 100kg ones on the horses, and that way managed to deliver 3,000 tonnes of aid in three weeks. There was only one casualty – a donkey that unfortunately fell down a ravine. Every country is unique in terms of the challenges it presents.”
That’s certainly true of Somalia where Concern are dealing with rival warlords rather than a cohesive government, and North Korea whose mistrust of foreigners extends to aid organisations.
“Unless people accept us and the work we’re doing in that area, we have no right to be there,” reflects Overseas Director Paul O’Brien who’s been with Concern for over 20 years. “In Somalia for instance, it’s possible to gain the acceptance of even a hardline Islamist group like al-Shabab if your programmes are culturally sensitive and delivering things that are needed. There are other things you can do to minimise the risk to staff like using local taxis instead of white jeeps, which scream ‘foreign organisation’. We also take the identity cards and other documentation off our staff – the process is known as ‘sterilisation’ – so that if they’re searched there’s nothing linking them with an NGO.”
Hindering rather than helping Concern is the type of ‘hearts & minds’ work, which has been undertaken by the British army in Afghanistan.
“It’s crucial for us as an organisation to be seen as neutral, independent and impartial. That can be very difficult when, as part of a military campaign, you’ve got soldiers building schools and digging wells. We’d prefer them not to blur the lines, and leave that sort of work to us because otherwise local people perceive you as associating with the military, which puts programmes and personnel in jeopardy. Our techniques are actually quite sophisticated. We don’t regard development as a gift to be handed out by us westerners. Programmes are designed to engage with and encourage the participation of communities who know what their needs are better than anyone else. It’s about listening and negotiating rather than going in with preconceived ideas, which is what the military tend to do.”
Much debate was prompted recently by GOAL Director John O’Shea’s assertion that: “Billions of euro have been poured into the continent (of Africa) and there is no appreciable improvement. The reason for that is that every single African country has been run by corrupt regimes.” Fair comment?
“No, we don’t take the John O’Shea line of, ‘They’re all corrupt, send in the troops,’” O’Brien counters. “To fight whom, for how long and to what purpose? We find that very, very naïve. They’re great soundbites, but lacking in analysis or understanding of the situation.
“We’re in 29 countries at the moment, and rarely do we hand things over to the government. One recent exception would be Pakistan after the earthquake where the locations we needed to get to were so remote that we had to use military helicopters. In almost all other instances, we work with local partner organisations who, like ourselves, are committed to the long-term sustainability of programmes.”
O’Brien is also irked by the celebrity culture that’s crept into aid work.
“There’s something almost offensive about having to have a celebrity to promote your cause. The story in itself is no longer a story – it has to be about a child or a dog or much bigger than the last thing which was covered. There were about 10 million people requiring food aid last year in Ethiopia but it hardly got any coverage because, ah sure, they’ve had famines before. It’s always difficult for us to explain coherently to an audience whose attention span is diminishing.”
Do those offensive celebs include Bono?
“His engagement appears to be long-term, well-informed and helped by having quite a few world leaders on speed-dial!” O’Brien smiles. “If he’s able to focus government minds on the giving of 0.7% of GNP to poorer nations, then his will be a job well done. Making sure foreign aid doesn’t drop down the agenda is the challenge facing all of us at the moment.”

To find out more about Concern Worldwide visit www.concern.net.