I'm back. . .

I haven't really posted in a few months. I've been quite busy finishing up my BA (nearly there!) plus applying for Masters, jobs etc. Now, I have less than a month of university left and I have a job which begins in August; I'm moving to Oman, to teach in a private primary school there. Excited does not begin to cover it.

I started this blog when I stopped working full time for Justice Africa and returned to the Irish Centre for Human Rights, as a way of staying immersed in the issues I enjoyed working on- mass atrocity prevention and memorialisation and sexualised violence in conflict.

So, I will be distracted no more. Expect lots of (not so cheery) pieces on the above plus probably stuff on the current abortion debate in Ireland- which never seems to end.

Thank you sincerely to The Gender Jurisprudence and International Criminal Law Project who included my 'Women and Conflict' section on their resources page. They have inspired me to write a lot more on these issues, to justify my inclusion!

What's been going on. . . .

. . . in the world

Well, an awful lot obviously, but here are the stories I've been following closely.

Ireland

It's been all fun, games and abortion debate here in the Emerald Isle. Two weeks ago, the Oireachtas (the Irish Parliament) held a hearing on the proposed abortion legislation which will clarify the existing legislation surrounding medical terminations in cases when the life of the mother is at risk.

I cannot stress this point enough: Abortion will only be legalised in cases where the life of the mother is at risk. It will remain illegal in cases of rape, incest or when a pesky woman decides she has autonomy over her own health care. 

The majority of debate in Ireland at the minute is surrounding the issue of suicide. The Supreme Court ruled that abortion be permitted in cases of where the risk to the mother's life is suicide. Many people don't like this. Many people however (yours truly included) are not really qualified in such matters however and it was good to hear the opinions of those who are. 

The Journal.ie had great live blogging of the hearings and this piece "13 things we learned from Oireachtas abortion hearings this week," is well worth a read.

Kenya

Elections in Kenya are set for March 4th. Although a new constitution, election commission and a reformed judiciary have been introduced since the outbreak of political violence that marred the country in 2007-2008, sporadic outbreaks of minor political violence have fuelled fears of the potential for wider conflict. The International Crisis Group have warned the potential for local violence is especially high, due to candidates campaigning along ethnic lines and exacerbating tensions within and between communities. The ongoing ICC case against four individuals relating to the 2007 election, has raised the stakes for this years election even higher. 

allAfrica.com has a good commentary on the upcoming election, heavily based on a report by the ICG, here.

Sudan

The wonderfully effective police state in Sudan continues its crackdown on independent civil society. Human Rights Watch detailed the crackdown here.

In good news however, South Kordofan activist Jalila Khamis was yesterday released after being imprisoned for ten months on trumped up charges. Although charged with treason, which carries a death sentence, she was found guilty of lesser charges and the judge ruled her time served. This piece from back in October is a good summary of the ridiculous charges brought against Jalila and of the terrible price often paid by civil society activists in Sudan.

Europe

It snowed, as it does every year, and everyone lost their shit, as they do every year (London, I'm looking at you). To be fair, particularly heavy snow which grounds flights, closes schools and businesses etc. is a nightmare. But it does make for some awfully pretty pictures 

. . . in my world

It's January so, inevitably, I'm detoxing- in my own, special half-assed way; caffeine is still in, most carbs are gone. Foregoing my beloved spaghetti and meatballs has made me quite cranky (crankier I hear you yell; yeah alright, well done), plus my GHD broke so I'm full of curly headed rage at the minute. It's a terribly attractive sight.

In case you missed it, just before Christmas I wrote a piece for A Safe World for Women on the frequency of suspended sentences for sexual and domestic violence convictions in Ireland. You can read it here.

Last week I had the pleasure of hearing Mary Robinson speak at NUI Galway, which I blogged about here.

Resolutions and all that? Read more, blog more, exercise more. For Christmas I got these two books, both of which I loved.

 


And I'm currently alternating between this. . .

 


. . .and this

 

It's good to have varied interests after all.

Also, like any good political junkie, my Borgen obsession has been reignited by BBC4. I have a girl crush on Brigitte and an actual crush on Kasper. See below.





It's my birthday in a couple of weeks. Last year, I celebrated by spending a few days in Marseilles and Aix-En-Province with two of my best friends. We drank a lot of wine, walked miles from bakery to bakery to try as many different macaroons as possible and generally had a fantastic time!

This year will probably involve slightly less macaroons but just as much wine I'm sure.

New pieces coming up on human rights vs development, renewed violence in Northern Ireland and the ICC's involvement in the DRC; don't miss out:)

Let's not get carried away now. . . Abortion & Ireland

The headlines are somewhat misleading.

"Abortion to be legalised in Ireland"

Well, yes but only in the most limited of circumstances. Abortion will be permitted if there is a danger to the life of the mother. It will not be allowed if there is a danger to the health of the mother. It will not be allowed in cases of rape or incest. It most certainly will not be allowed because a woman feels it is the best choice for her.

Obviously, it's a victory of sorts but really, what we had to do to get here? Twenty years after our own Supreme Court ruled on this, two years after the European Court of Human Rights urged Ireland to enact legislation, it took the death of a young woman to finally force an Irish government to act on this issue.

If Ireland were not a mere hour long flight from Britain, we would surely be responsible for the deaths of more women. As it is 12 Irish women a day travel to Britain for an abortion. It's shameful how this country treats its women.

Our constitution explicitly states that the unborn has rights. Allegedly these rights are to be upheld with due regard to the rights of the mother but this is not the case. No Irish man faces any interference in his own bodily integrity or his right to health care. The same is absolutely not true for Irish women. Sexual discrimination is inherently built into our legal system due to our Constitution.

Pro-Life campaigners have claimed the proposed legislation will allow for abortion on demand. Unfortunately, I think they're wrong.

Budgets, quotas and women in Ireland

It's not easy being a woman in Ireland at the moment.

Sure, we don't face near the same challenges as women in places like DRC or Syria, but as residents of a supposedly developed European nation, we seem to drawing the short straw quite a bit. Not least by the fact that our Constitution places the value of our lives behind that of men and the unborn.

Now, the lack of female representation in our government means that women are the hardest hit by last week's national budget, the harshest austerity budget yet. I must say, I recognise and agree that Ireland needs to be harsh in order to remain within our debt restructuring programmes. Hard choices need to be made. But women have been disproportionately affected by this budget and it's hard not to draw parallels with the fact that there is only a few women in the Cabinet.

Yet another cut in child benefit means that families have been hit hard. Irish women are still the primary caregivers in the home, meaning they are under yet more financial pressure. A family with two children receiving child benefit will see their income drop by 240 Euro. In Ireland, all parents or guardians of children under sixteen who are in full time education, receive children's benefit, regardless of income. Given the high cost of living in Ireland, now exacerbated by widespread debt and high unemployment, it is essential for keeping working and middle class families afloat. Why not take child benefit off the richest in our country, who do not need it, rather than cutting it right across the board to devastating effect?

The harshest measure on women was undoubtedly the announcement that maternity benefit will now be taxed. This is completely outrageous. A woman's maternity benefit is covered by social insurance, a which is funded by the PRSI tax. So, a woman who has been paying into the PRSI all her working life will now find that money taxed even further.

Orla O'Connor, Director of the National Women's Council commented  “Taxing maternity benefit will hit expecting mothers and young families at a time when many of them are already operating on a very tight budget. The additional money that women have received so far through maternity benefit is only a small contribution to the enormous costs of having a baby."

Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton denied the budget was anti-women but Fianna Fail spokesperson on social protection, Willie O'Dea countered this "The slashing of Child Benefit, taxing of maternity benefit, failure to progress child care provision and cutbacks to the vital Back to School Allowance will be felt most of all by women,” said O’Dea. “For an ordinary mother rearing a young family she will be hit by reduced supports, new taxes and no substantial new childcare supports."

The ruling Fine Gael/Labour coalition government have taken some positive steps towards increasing women's public participation, most notably the introduction of statutory gender quotas; 30% of candidates put forward for election by political parties must now be female.

However, currently only 25 out of 166 Irish TDs are female. Since the Irish state was founded, only 260 women have been elected to the Dail, compared with 4,700 men.

It is not the case that there are not enough qualified women willing to enter politics but rather our political scene has not caught up with the times. Simple measures could be put in place allowing women easier participation in political affairs.The introduction of remote voting on Dail measures for instance, as most Dail votes take place late in the evening, would allow female political representatives to vote from home if necessary. 

If you're interested in more info on this, check out 5050 Group who are dedicated to achieving equal political representation in Ireland by 2020. Nothing changes until something changes. Support Irish women in politics.

Are European countries becoming a collective aid tease?

Ah the joys of debating international aid and its merits, or lack thereof. Is it right or wrong to give aid to corrupt governments? What's the best way of giving aid?  Should European countries be giving aid when they are in such dire financial straits themselves?

These are issues which have been debated exhaustively in development circles but in the last few months, they seem to be more prominent than usual in the mainstream media of many European countries. There's a number of contributing factors for this- the UN report leaked this summer detailing Rwanda's alleged involvement in rebel activity in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo which led to a number of countries suspending aid (and then reinstating it. and then suspending it again) reignited the whole thing. Then we had revelations of large scale fraud in Uganda, with approximately 16 million Euro of aid being misappropriated by the Office of the Prime Minister. The issue of giving aid to middle income countries was also prominent in the media with Britain's announcement early this month that it will stop aid to India after 2015.

Much media debate and public outrage and where has it gotten us? Well, things are how they used to be - foreign aid is dependent on politics. Britain initially suspended aid to Rwanda only to again reinstate it. Just today, it suspended it again. A rather excellent Channel 4 news report earlier this week detailed the uncomfortably close relationship between the British Conservative party and Rwandan President, Paul Kagame.

Last week, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs released its interim report into the Uganda/Irish Aid scandal. It found major collusion between Ugandan officials to commit fraud and also pointed out the failings of Irish Aid officials to pick up on the fraud. The report also suggested that the Irish Government would wait on the findings of the investigation by the Ugandan auditor general. The report is expected to be released next April.

There is little or no expectation however that the report and its recommendations will be implemented by Uganda's notoriously corrupt public officials. Should this fact alone not be a lesson to European governments giving aid to corrupt governments?

 There's a lot of problems with the way European governments currently give aid to the developing world but surely withdrawing it then reinstating it on a whim is not an improvement of any sort.

The point of this post is basically, the UK et al are being a bit of a prick tease with their aid budgets at the minute. For a more sophisticated, and much more knowledgeable, look at some of these issues have a look at this piece from the always excellent A View From the Cave.

The Ugandan Affair: What it means for Irish Aid

Last week, Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore (the Irish Deputy Prime Minister) suspended all Irish aid channelled through  the Ugandan government and announced an immediate investigation into allegations of fraud. The unprecedented move was prompted by a draft report of a special investigation by the Auditor General of Uganda into the handling of aid funds by the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM).

The Auditor General found that significant amounts of donor funding from Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, earmarked for the Peace and Recovery and Development Programme in Northern Uganda had been transferred to an unauthorised account of the OPM. Up to 4 Million Euro of Irish Aid funding was misappropriated.

The reaction from the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) appeared to be swift and decisive. The Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore released a statement in which he described being "deeply concerned by what I have learned today of the findings of the investigation by the Auditor General of Uganda into the management of aid funds by the Office of the Prime Minister of Uganda." The statement concluded "The Government will not provide financial support under our development cooperation programme unless it is clear that Irish money is being spent for the purpose for which it was allocated. Pending the satisfactory resolution of this matter, I have instructed that no further aid funding should be provided through Ugandan government systems.”

The amount of Irish Aid due to be allocated through official channels this year totalled 17 million euro.

Three DFA officials were swiftly dispatched to Kampala to investigate the affair and the Irish media had a field day with the story. Responses were varied; some gave credit to the Ugandan officials who initially  highlighted the fraud; some called for Irish Aid to channel more of its aid through NGOs and charities as opposed to governments; many commenter's on social media called for the permanent suspension of Irish Aid.


To give or not to give?

The whole debacle has highlighted increasing tensions in Eurozone countries surrounding the issue of foreign aid. Ireland has a long, generally proud history of foreign aid. As I talk about in this post, given that we are a small, neutral country with a recent history of conflict ourselves, Irish Aid is generally respected as being non-partisan, not tied to conditions and genuinely concerned with conflict resolution and peacemaking around the world.

Irish people, in turn, have traditionally valued our foreign aid programme and taken a proud view of our commitment to the developing world. There's a lot of reasons behind this but basically: it wasn't too long ago that we were awful poor ourselves and the Irish education system beats you over the head with talk of the Famine from Primary level. So, we appreciate the importance of both charity and long term aid (We are sorry about inflicting Bono and Bob Geldof on the rest of the world though).

Now however, we're poor again- or we think we are anyway. The boom years of the Celtic Tiger are gone. Times are tough, taxes are increasing, benefits are being cut, unemployment is rising, emigration levels are soaring. This story broke as Ireland approaches what is expected to be the harshest national budget in decades. It isn't hard to see why it prompted some people to question the amount of money donated through Irish Aid.

The misappropriated funds in Uganda have increased the calls for a dramatic rethink of the amount of foreign aid, or at the very least the method in which, Ireland donates. This is not a bad thing. We all know that there are many issues with international aid, how it's used, etc. However, we also know it's very easy to point out the problems but much harder to come up with feasible, sensible solutions.

So do we need to justify giving aid in the first place? I often skip these endless discussions of the motivation behind aid, not because I think it's unimportant (far from it) but it's exhausting. Usually, I take foreign aid as a given and focus on ways of improving it but how can we assist development in countries such as Uganda which have corrupt political regimes?

Having spent some time in Uganda last year, I can see how desperately the country needs development. I also think it has one of the most ruthlessly corrupt political system I have ever seen- and coming from an Irish person, that's really saying something. So we come to the difficult questions; Do we refuse to hep the Ugandan people because of political corruption? Why don't we work through the third sector? But will the Ugandan government allow aid to be channelled through others? Is it permissible to turn a blind eye to small levels of corruption in order to get aid to people who really need it?


That's what she said. . .

Once Ireland suspended aid and the Scandinavian countries quickly followed suit. Although hardly an unjustified reaction, are these governments just trying to appear to act decisively on this issue? After all, if they had proper Monitoring and Evaluation procedures in place to start with, would such an instance of fraud have been allowed to occur?

Reports emerged yesterday that the UK had suspended aid chanelled through the OPM (although this decision will not affect the regular budgetry aid it provides to Uganda) back in August when allegations of fraud first emerged and had since launched an independent inquiry. This was even though no British money was taken.

The rapid reaction of the UK to such reports, even though it was not their money alleged to be misappropriated, reflects poorly on the Irish government's slow reaction.

A friend of mine pointed out that the Uganda fraud case appears to be similar to the recent incident in which European donors suspended aid to Rwanda over its connections to militias in neighbouring DRC. European governments were not so outraged by this fact that they cancelled aid. Rwanda's involvement in the DRC had long been an open secret. But with a leaked UN report explicitly spelling it out, many governments felt something must be seen to be done.

Is this the reasoning behind the deployment of the DFA officials to Kampala? A member of the political opposition  I spoke to questioned the decision to send three Irish officials to Kampala. Surely the very capable staff at Ireland's embassy in Kampala are better placed to investigate such an issue. How can the DFA justify the expense of sending three officials, considering the slight returns any such trip is likely to incur? Is it all merely for show?

There are also some nuances to the story which have been under reported in the Irish media . Firstly, the story first began to break in Uganda back in July, when an accountant attached to the OPM went missing. Secondly, it was Ugandan officials and media who forced the story out into the open. The Irish media only picked up on the story last week once aid to Uganda was suspended (although the Irish Times did give credit to the Ugandan whistle blowers). This is not insignificant as it raises serious questions about the M&E procedures employed by Irish Aid. Again, are the DFA now acting to cover up their own failures perhaps?

In the end, even if Irish Aid and the DFA are somewhat at fault, the fraud was committed by the Ugandan OPM and it is the people of Northern Uganda who will suffer, as well as other Ugandan citizens who are tired of the endemic corruption in their country. But there are questions on the Irish side which need to be answered.

So I'll just owe you one Ireland?

This incident however could prove to be a game changer. I don't think Irish Aid will be scraped. But I do think this incident will leave a terrible legacy. It's proving to be a massive headache for the Irish government. It's difficult to justify international aid when you are cutting vital services in your own country such as rural garda stations, special needs assistants in primary schools, hospital beds and home help for carers. It is especially difficult to make such justifications when the foreign aid is found to be misappropriated. This incident has unfortunately increased the likelihood of Irish Aid being cut in the upcoming budget. The Dail's taxpayer watchdog is due to launch a special investigation into the spending of the country's third world aid budget.

The Irish government is demanding repayment of the 4 million euro from its Ugandan counterparts. News reports that the Ugandan government is "considering" such a repayment prompted much amusement from online commentators with a basic sentiment of "yeah, good luck with that one,".

And so we wait the budget in December, to see the real impact this affair will have on Irish Aid.


<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/4175749/?claim=cde85fz7cq2">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>


 

Improving Development: Irish Aid and Beyond

Last Friday, Joe Costello, Ireland's Minister For State for Foreign Affairs, launched the 2011 annual report of Irish Aid- the official foreign aid apparatus of the Irish government. Irish Aid is highly regarded in development circles, both by aid recipient countries and independent evaluators. As a small, neutral nation, there are rarely strings attached to Irish Aid and it has also targeted its funding to specific countries or areas, to try and ensure some continuity of development. Irish Aid was ranked second out of twenty one donors in its committment to African development by the first global survey carried out by the Centre for Global Development in Washington D.C. Plus some Ethiopian farmers I met in Addis airport last month, on their way to China for an information exchange trip focused on new agricultural technology, said they liked Irish Aid. A lot. So there.

Despite the fact that Irish Aid is, by all accounts, run professionally and transparently, Minister Costello felt the need to pledge increased accountability in how Ireland's development aid is spent. Now, this is largely political posturing. Ireland is making bailout repayments to the Troika, social spending is being cut, new taxes are being introduced and public anger is high. There may be some who question the reasoning behind providing development aid for countries abroad, when important social services in the country are being cut. Minister Costello's comments are most likely an appeasement of such critics.

But it does point to difficult issues which plague those who work in development; How to provide time and cost effective accountability and transparency measures. Donors (rightly) wish to know their money is being well spent and properly utilised. In making such demands however, some of their money is wasted on time consuming reporting and costly evaluations, which all drive up core costs such as staffing, making it difficult for charities and NGOs, big and small, to stay afloat. Since the recession, donors have been giving less money and making more demands, squeezing the third sector even more.

Those of us in the third sector can whine about the endless reporting and receipt collecting we are forced to endure by those heartless donors who pay our wages but that's not productive. What would be productive is a dramatic restructuring of traditional donor-recipient relationship. Some donors have already recognised this. A number of considerably large, private donors I have come across have incredibly thorough application processes for grants. All projects and staff, past and present, are vetted and evaluated and numerous stages of proposals, presentations and interviews are required. Once approved however, the recipient is given a substantial grant to do with it as it wishes. The money must obviously be accounted for but the donor does not stipulate what it is to be spent on. After rigorously selecting a trustworthy recipient they then trust in their judgement to spend the grant wisely, whether it be on core costs, project costs, etc. This leads to a genuinely trusting, apprecative relationship on both sides and such an approach often allows recipients to cut down on the admin costs that result from endless reporting to donors.

Other donors are insisting that similar third sector groups amalgate or at the very least work together, so as to make money donated more effective. For example, one relatively small Irish city has numerous LBGT rights groups working exclusively from one another. One donor organisation I know of who prioritises LBGT  rights has insisted any group it funds demonstrate it is working in partnership with other, similar organisations so that there may be real, city-wide, effective campaigning on the relevant issues.

Having spoken to colleagues about these issues, the feeling I get is that private donors are largely restructuring their systems to try and overcome some the issues highlighted above. Governmental agencies however are not. Again, this comes down to politics. European countries in particular are in a difficult position. With the Euro Crisis dominating domestic politics, any money spent on aid must be rigorously justified. They are not the only ones however. A colleague of mine calculated her office devoted at least fifty hours to one grant from a particularly zealous Asian government agency- between proposal writing, email correspondence, reporting, etc. The grants was only for $6000. It literally was not worth the work that winning the grant neccesitated.