This Cut is the Deepest

You may have read last year that Ireland was to a lead in the global
response to the emerging hunger crisis. It was hard to miss. There was
a high profile launch at the UN in September 2008, with huge media
coverage and Ban Ki Moon and Bono smiling on approvingly. Much was
made of Ireland's moral obligation, given our own history of famine,
to stand shoulder to shoulder with the 1 billion people who go to bed
hungry every night.

It was with considerably less fanfare that the Government announced
the latest of its cuts to overseas aid spending in last month's
emergency budget. It didn't even make it into Brian Lenihan's budget
speech. If it had you would have heard that €100 million in funding
was cut. The baldness of the figure indicates how carefully the
decision was measured. This, added to the €95 million cut from Irish
Aid's budget in February (which may also have passed under your
radar), adds up to a 21.8% reduction of the projected total for 2009.
It now stands at €696 million.

Our aid commitments are tied directly to the size of our economy and
set at a percentage of gross national income (GNI). Therefore, as our
economy contracts (or implodes) so to, regrettably, will the aid
budget. However, even the most pessimistic predictions from our
economic talking heads warn of an 8% shrinkage, so the cut's passed on
to Irish Aid are grossly disproportionate.

Ireland, along with other developed nations, has made a commitment to
reach a figure of 0.7% of GNI for overseas aid spending. That is just
70 cent out of every €100 the Government spends but with these latest
cuts we are now further from this target than when we first made the
commitment. These numbers totally undermine one of the key
recommendations from the Hunger Task Force that Ireland should 'work
to ensure that governments internationally fulfil their commitments to
eradicate hunger'.

These are difficult times for us all no doubt but while last month's
budget may mean some harsh lifestyle choices for some of us here in
Ireland, it may be a question of life itself for many people in the
bottom billion, the euphemistic term for the one in six people across
the globe that live on less than $2 a day.

There were riots across the developed world in 2007 as prices for rice
and other cereal commodities reached their highest price ever. Even as
those prices have dropped back somewhat, the International Monetary
Fund estimates that prices for basic staple foods still remain 71%
higher today than in 2005. Add to this the effect of the global
recession on lowering wages and you get a sense of the real crisis
that looms in other parts of the world.

Since 2008 the UN World Food Programme has added approximately 30
million more people to the swelling numbers of those it must provide
basic food and water rations to. In order to meet this growing demand
it estimates it will need to increase its budget by a fifth to €6
billion in 2009. These are simply the funds that are required for
emergency rations to stave off famine. It is an altogether bigger
question to begin to tackle the underlying causes - under-development
in agriculture; increased urbanisation; climate change - that lead to
food insecurity.

In the face of these appalling realities, Ireland is not the only
country shirking its responsibilities. A coherent international
response was conspicuous by its absence at last month’s major
international summits. At the G20 meeting the leaders of the developed
world bandied about incomprehensible figures for bank bailouts and
economic stimuli (how many zeros in a trillion anyone?). On the
Franco-German border, NATO members committed to sinking untold further
human and economic resources into the conflict in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile the cost of feeding a family in that country has increased
by nearly 75% in recent time. As a result children are being taken out
of school and put to work and daughters are being married off at a
younger age, just to put food on the table.

But let's return again to that €100 million figure. In the context of
our national finances, with €90 billion of bad debt to be absorbed and
€3 to be recouped in expenditure, it represents a cheap and cowardly
political decision when compared with larger, tougher choices that
could have been made. Yet, in the context of those who rely on the
projects and programmes of work funded through Irish Aid, this cut
will cost lives and increase the suffering and degradation of many.
This money – whether through direct government-to-government
donations, administered through multilateral funds, or supporting the
work of our missionaries and NGO’s – trickles directly down to put
food in the bellies and hope in the lives of those at the greatest
distance but suffering the worst consequences of our ailing
international economic system. April’s emergency budget has reduced
the flow from that tap, precisely when it is most needed.