Budget not so bad

After one of the toughest budgets in Ireland's history here is what we in Camara think (our press release).

Camara welcomes Irish Aid’s commitment to aid effectiveness as reiterated in its response to today’s budget. According to Cormac Lynch the CEO of Camara “While the €25 million cut in overseas aid is unfortunate, it represents a cut of only 4% which could have been much worse in these hard economic times.”

Camara wholeheartedly welcomes Irish Aid’s determination to ensure that ‘development has maximum impact and is rigorously focused on achieving clear results for the lives of the poor and the hungry’. In the wake of massive cuts totalling 24% in 2009, the government’s new effort to stabilise the aid budget is encouraging.

The government's resolve to maximise aid effectiveness provides major opportunity for reform in the sector and Camara welcomes this challenge. The organisation strongly believes that the Irish taxpayer deserves significant demonstrated results from charities, and in this regard has published extensive and critical impact assessments of its own work. Cormac Lynch, emphasised today that “The newly-stabilised aid budget should be spent with primary focus on results, value for money, and achieving maximum demonstrable impact for the world’s poor”.