The Republic of Ireland has announced a 17% increase in its expenditures on overseas development aid (ODA) in 2023 compared to 2022. Unveiling the budget for 2023, Ireland’s Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Michael McGrath, said that ODA would go up by 177 million to exceed €1.2 billion, the highest amount ever.
Irish Aid (Cúnamh Éireann), the government’s official aid agency, will manage the lion’s share of the increase, €100 million. Another €75 million will go to “providing a response to the humanitarian needs” within the war-stricken Ukraine and its immediate neighbors as well as to help Africa and parts of the Middle East deal with food insecurity that has been worsening following Russia’s invasion in Ukraine.
Minister McGrath also announced a separate €30 million increase to the 2023 budget of the Department of Foreign Affairs “to provide additional humanitarian assistance for victims of the devastating food security crisis in the Horn of Africa”.
Despite the announced increase, Ireland’s ODA is still short of meeting its goal of 0.7% of the gross national income (GNI). In 2021, Ireland’s ODA spend was calculated at 0.31% of GNI.
The announced increases for ODA and humanitarian assistance comes on the heels of earlier announcements that Ireland will spend €3.2 million on funding drought mitigation measures in East Africa. The country also pledged a 30% increase in its commitment to the Global Fund to combat AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, bringing Ireland’s total spend to €65 million on the Global Fund for the period of 2023-2025.
The new budget increases come during a time when Ireland’s economy is facing enormous challenges, including an inflation rate of over 9%.
“We have not experienced inflation like this for 40 years. Broad based inflation – such as what we are currently experiencing – impacts negatively on living standards across the board, and requires a carefully balanced response,” said McGrath during the budget unveiling ceremony.
Evolving Priorities
Irish Aid was founded in 1974 as a subdivision of its Department of Foreign Affairs and its Development Corporation and Africa Division (DCAD) and has provided humanitarian assistance to more than eighty countries.
Historically, Irish Aid and the majority of the government’s other expenditures on development assistance have focused on sub-Saharan Africa, especially Ireland’s eight “key partner” nations of Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
In 2019, Ireland unveiled its long-term development strategy known as A Better World, that was developed before the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic. The “Better World” policy document outlined four key priorities: reducing humanitarian need, climate action, gender equality, and strengthening governance. The “Better World” policy seeks to achieve the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals by addressing poverty, injustice, and “damage to our planet.”
In 2020, Ireland spent over €150 million on non-domestic expenditures in response to Covid-19, including a quadrupling of its contributions to the World Health Organization and increases to the Global Fund (for HIV, AIDS, and Malaria), the Vaccine Alliance GAVI, and the COVAX initiative. Total ODA expenditure for 2020 was €867.5 million, of which €545 went to funding development projects in sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2021, Ireland spent €1.044 billion on ODA, the majority of which went to projects in sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2022, Ireland spent €55 million on military aid to Ukraine as well as approximately €200 million on settling refugees from Ukraine in Ireland, bringing the country’s total commitment to the crisis to over €1 billion, a figure that is expected to rise north of €3 billion in 2023, including ODA.
