Minister of State Lenihan welcomes ActionAid Report endorsing Irish Aid

“Irish Aid is one of the most effective aid programmes in the world”

Minister of State, Conor Lenihan TD, welcomes ActionAid Report on international aid, Real Aid 2

“I am delighted with the positive assessment of Irish Aid by the international NGO ActionAid.

With these reports, ActionAid aims to distinguish between what they call “real aid”, which makes a difference in the lives of the poorest people and “phantom aid”, which includes tied aid and poorly targeted aid.

Today's report says that Ireland is the donor “with the highest share of real aid”.
This is the second year running that the NGO has rated Irish Aid so highly. This means that Irish Aid is one of the most effective aid programmes in the world.

The ActionAid report is an endorsement of Irish Aid's approach to development: we work to assist the poorest people in the world's poorest countries.  This report is further evidence that we are successful in this.

I hope the report gets wide circulation here in Ireland; it is important that the Irish people know that their aid programme, Irish Aid, is making a real difference in the world.

In addition to the high quality of our aid, the volume is now higher than ever.  We are making rapid progress towards the 0.7% target, in line with the announcement made by the Taoiseach in New York in September of last year.   This year our aid spending is at its highest ever level in terms of both volume (€734m) and as a percent of our GNP.”

The full report is available on the ActionAid Web site:

http://www.actionaid.org/index.asp?page_id=1120

ENDS +++
5 July 2006
Press Office