Home About us Humanism Ceremonies Membership Publications News Links Contact us

HAI makes submission to Government on overseas aid

(Originally published in the July - September 2005 issue of The Irish Humanist, the quarterly publication of the Humanist Association of Ireland.)

Last October Conor Lenihan T.D., Minster of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs announced that Ireland will not be able to reach the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product by 2007, as was repeatedly promised by the Taoiseach at international fora since he first gave the undertaking in September 2000 at the UN millennium summit. At present the figure is 0.39 per cent of GNP, which means that Ireland spends 39 cent out of every €100 of national wealth on the poor of the developing world - about €418 million last year.

Mr Lenihan now suggests that 2012 is a realistic date by which 0.7 per cent might be achieved, three years ahead of the official UN deadline. The Cabinet is to decide on a timetable before it is announced and in February the Minister announced that the Government was to seek public submissions on the future direction of Ireland's overseas aid programme.

These submissions will form part of a broad process of public consultation and will lead to the publication of the first ever White Paper on development policy in 2006.

Minister of State Lenihan said:

"This will be the first ever White Paper on overseas development policy. The Irish public, as well as NGOs and others who are familiar with the problems of developing countries, should be given every chance to express their views on all aspects of our development cooperation policies. Public interest in the Government's aid programme has always been high and this process will give us a chance for us to hear what the public want us do with what is, essentially, their money.

The consultation process will also give us an opportunity to inform the public about the work that we do, on their behalf, not only in offering assistance in the event of natural disasters such as the Asian tsunami, but also in our longer term development programmes, primarily in Africa."

The Government has already earmarked a minimum sum of €1.8 billion for the next three years, 2005 - 2007 for overseas aid. This makes Ireland the eighth largest contributor of aid in the world when calculated on a per capita basis. The aim of the White Paper, in the context of this rapidly increasing budget, is to set out coherent, effective and sustainable policy priorities for the Government's official programme of development assistance, such that this assistance is informed by both public and expert opinion and meets with best practices in the field.

Advertisements calling for submissions appeared in the national papers.

Below is the Humanist Association of Ireland's submission to the Government which was made in April 2005.

Humanist Association of Ireland Submission on the Government's White Paper on Ireland's official programme of Overseas Development Assistance

Executive Summary

The Humanist Association of Ireland contends in this submission that no ambiguity should attach to the criteria used when choosing third parties as distributors of Ireland's overseas aid. In this regard Ireland's overseas aid should have as its single objective the betterment of individual recipient's material welfare.

Introduction

The Humanist Association of Ireland (HAI) is a company limited by guarantee without having share capital, and with an elected Board of Directors. It is a member organisation of the European Humanist Federation and is affiliated to the International Humanist and Ethical Union.

It is a voluntary body founded in 1993 to promote the ideals and values of Humanism: an ethical philosophy of life, based on a concern for humanity in general, and for human individuals in particular. This view of life combines reason with compassion. It is for those people who base their interpretation of existence on the evidence of the natural world and its evolution, and not on belief in a supernatural power. In this, Humanism continues a tradition which has existed for over 2,500 years and which still flourishes today. Humanism encompasses atheists and agnostics, but is an active philosophy in its own right and not simply a negative response to religion.

A Humanist believes that the happiness of individuals and of humankind depends on people, rather than on religion and dogma. We encourage open-minded enquiry into matters relevant to human co-existence and well-being and believe that people can and will continue to find solutions to the world's problems so that quality of life can be improved for everyone. As Humanists we are committed to the application of reason and science, to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems.

Both in personal and social terms we believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness and responsibility. Moreover, our ethics are amenable to critical, rational guidance. It follows from such commitments and beliefs that we are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with the elimination of discrimination and intolerance. We support the axiom that a separation of Church and State will facilitate the achieving of a society that is open, tolerant and pluralist.

In pursuance of these ideals, the HAI provides support and representation to people who seek to live full responsible lives without religion, assisting in the provision of secular ceremonies of births, weddings and funerals, publishing a quarterly journal The Irish Humanist, maintaining an informative website (www.irish-humanists.org) and making constant endeavours to voice the Humanist and secular viewpoint in both the print and broadcast media. In addition, the HAI makes appropriate submissions to Government, organises seminars and workshops and contributes to cultural life. In short, Humanists are positive, gaining inspiration from our lives, art and culture, and a rich natural world. It is worthy of note that those who do not avow any religion now form the largest ethical minority within the country, greater in fact than the other four minority Christian denominations combined - Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, Orthodox and Methodist (National Census 2002).

Humanism and Ireland's development cooperation policies

The Humanist Association of Ireland welcomes the invitation by Conor Lenihan T.D., Minster of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, to the Irish public, as well as NGOs, to express their views on all aspects of Ireland's development cooperation policies.

The Association urges the Government to ensure that Ireland's development cooperation policies are administered in a transparent manner in order to guard against the maladministration of public money granted to third parties for the purpose of development aid.

Aid agencies, however well intentioned they may be should only channel aid into projects that are self-sustaining in the long run. Many of the projects funded at present by Irish development aid do make some effort to recognise this necessity. However, the anti-family-planning culture of the Roman Catholic Church and other religious evangelical organisations undermines this goal.

In this regard the Humanist Association of Ireland does not welcome the signing by Minister of State for Development Cooperation, Tom Kitt, and the Chairperson of the Irish Missionary Resource Service, Sister Noelle Corscadden, in July 2004, of the Memorandum of Understanding which, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs Press briefing "heralds a new era in the Government's support for the development work of Irish Missionaries abroad."

Humanitarian aid has as its object the material betterment of humans. In undertaking this work religionist organisations have at least two other objectives which supersede the objective of material betterment - firstly to save the 'soul' of the person by converting them to belief in a particular deity, and secondly to gain for themselves post mortem entry to paradise by the doing of 'good works' while alive.

The conflict these objectives set up in non-secular administration of development aid is highlighted by the attitude of some religionist organisations to the use of a type of contraceptive device (the condom) in the struggle to prevent the spread of HIV. Leaving aside the various medical strategies for the defeat of AIDS and the role of the condom within them, the unscientific and ideologically driven misinformation disseminated by the Roman Catholic Church and others on condoms and their use gives Humanists serious cause for concern. For example in October 2003 the then president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, said: "The AIDS virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon. The spermatozoon can easily pass through the 'net' that is formed by the condom." The World Health Organisation replied, saying: "These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million."

The practice promoted instead of the use of barrier contraceptives is that of 'abstinence-only.' Human Rights Watch and other activists point out that every abstinence-only program that has ever been evaluated has failed to reduce rates of teen pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. Human Rights Watch has now accused the government of the United States of America, by its support of Christian evangelical aid organisations, of violating the right of young people to information about sexuality, condoms, and other methods of contraception that could save their lives. (Human Rights Watch, "The Less They Know, the Better: Abstinence Only HIV/AIDS Programs in Uganda," March 2005).

And again, according to the 2004 annual report from the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization, in Uganda (an epicentre in Africa's epidemic) AIDS is fast becoming a disease that disproportionately strikes young women. The report suggests the soaring infection rates among young women are fuelled by religious teachings that require women to remain ignorant of sex and sexuality until they marry. And once they marry, the religious prime directive is procreation, which means unprotected sex.

A final citation makes the point: New York Times writer Nicholas D. Kristof (March 30, 2005 "When Marriage Kills"), writing from Zambia and Zimbabwe stated "The stark reality is that what kills young women here is often not promiscuity, but marriage. Indeed, just about the deadliest thing a woman in southern Africa can do is get married."

In these prevailing circumstances Irish aid should be restricted to only those third party agencies that unambiguously support the provision of comprehensive medical assistance including contraception.

Many people in Irish society, not only Humanists, consider the ideological aversion of the Roman Catholic Church and other evangelical Christian organisations to the provision of contraception services, to be scandalous (for example Mary Raftery "Trocaire's Condom Challenge," The Irish Times, March 11th 2004).

The recent report by the Dáil Public Account Committee (PAC) into the State's redress scheme for victims of institutional abuse, though not directly related to the issue of development aid, nevertheless is relevant to this issue. The deputy chairman of the PAC Fianna Fáil T.D. John McGuinness was quoted in The Irish Times newspaper as saying that the report showed the State side was "out gunned at all times" during negotiations with religious orders. Colm O'Gorman of the One in Four group was quoted in the same newspaper on the release of the PAC report -- "This deal is in itself a scandal, a scandal which supports the broadly held belief that successive governments, both at political and public service level, have been unable to remain objective in their dealings with the Catholic Church."

Humanists are therefore concerned to ensure that proper controls are in place so that, in the delivery of development aid to the disadvantaged, best practice be adhered to at all times i.e. that the material welfare of the individual recipient be the sole criterion for the degree and type of aid delivered.

The most expeditious method of achieving this is to dispense Irish development aid through secular institutions. The Humanist Association of Ireland is mindful that no institution is perfect (witness for example the allegations of sexual abuse against personnel in the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo). However, secular institutions such as the UN are governed by law and are committed to transparency. Contrast this with for example the worldwide response of the institutional Roman Catholic Church to allegations of child sexual abuse by members of its clergy. This response was characterised by denial, outright lies, and cover-up.

In conclusion, any group or institution acting as conduit for Irish development funds should be vetted to ensure that among the qualities it possesses are: a strong humanitarian culture that does not promote religious dogmas which undermine development aims, a commitment to the values of openness and transparency, both in regard to its dealings with the Government and the wider public, and not least within its own organisation.