Development Co-Operation: Options for IrelandAuthor(s): Jerome ConnollySource: Irish Studies in International Affairs, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1979), pp. 61-71Published by: Royal Irish AcademyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30001706 .

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DEVELOPMENT CO-OPERATION: OPTIONS FOR IRELAND

JEROME CONNOLLY The Irish Commission for Justice and Peace, Dublin

This paper argues that Ireland should be involved in 'development', not only because there are moral, religious and humanitarian reasons for doing so, but because it is in her national interest to be involved; that the process of international integration has gone so far that development policy is for- eign policy; that in the past the majority of Irish people and policy makers have been blind to some of the most important causes and effects of the international development process, and that step by step with any effort to reach a more adequate understanding of international development must go a change in the perception of Ireland's own development experience and her part in the international scene.

Ireland is a latecomer to the international development co-operation scene. A recent analysisl of Irish involvement in official development assistance in quantitative terms shows that (i) the growth of Irish official involvement in 'development' has been reactive, not innovative, and (ii) there is as yet no coherent and comprehensive Irish approach to development at official government level.

In discussing options in development policy open to Ireland, it is important to be aware that she is likely to have already absorbed unconsciously the main assumptions about international development prevalent in the West during the past two decades. The dominant western organisation structures con- cerned with the administration of development programmes, which are likely to serve as models for Irish decision makers, reflect certain deep rooted approaches difficult for a newcomer to set aside. Indeed to do so might be virtually impossible unless there is a clear perception that there are alternat- ive and equally cogent ways of understanding and thinking about the world development process besides those which have underpinned official Western approaches - alternatives which may be more appropriate to Irish circumstances.

Even if the dominant western policies about development were soundly based, it would be import- ant to try to understand why the people whom such policies are in theory designed to help increasingly reject them. The time is long past when 'development' could refer mainly to programmes designed to administer modest and altruistic resource transfers given in amounts, at a pace and to recipient countries selected to suit the donor's convenience or national interest. Development now embraces cultural, military and ecological realities of deep concern to our daily lives. It must grapple with the potentially explosive tensions arising from disparities of control over international power structures and resources, disparities whose legitimacy is disputed as fast as their nature is revealed. As a nation which by circumstances of place, history and colonial occupation is European, Ireland's economic and cultural circumstances give it more common ground with developing countries than is generally con- ceded. Concern with the question of international development implies as well changing perception about our domestic development process.

The evidence of the inadequacies of 'development' as pursued by official western aid and develop- ment programmes continues to accumulate. The poorest forty per cent of the people in developing countries 'are virtually outside the development process', the Chairman of the World Bank said in 1977. Despite this and other equally blunt judgements, long-established habits of thought are difficult to root up. No simple enumeration of defects and failures is likely in itself to dislodge most people's accept-

1. Mary Sutton, Irish government aid to the third world - review and assessment, Joint Dev- elopment Education Programme, Trocaire/Irish Commission for Justice and Peace, (Dublin, 1977).

Paper read to the Irish National Committee for the Study of International Affairs in the Royal Irish Academy on 19 December 1977.

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ance of the conventional western wisdom on development. What is at issue is essentially a world view encompassing far more than economics.

So imbued is the average Irish person with the prevailing orthodoxy about the 'development' and 'underdevelopment', and the nature of the economic relationships between rich and poor countries, that it would seem useful to outline a comprehensive alternative analysis of international development relationships, from the vantage point of a developing country. One such analysis, fairly widely repres- entative of one important school of thought, is given below in highly condensed form. It is based on Osvaldo Sunkel.2

The central concern of classical political economy in the century following the publication of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in 1776 was capitalism, but this was displaced from the last quarter of the 19th century to the Second World War by neo-classical economic theory, which focussed on the behaviour of individual producers and consumers in perfect or imperfect markets, and on attempts to explain the cyclical instability of capitalism.

Development began to re-enter economic thought in the 1950s, but with reference to countries not yet industrialised; 'the economic development of underdeveloped countries is what we really have in mind when we now speak of development thinking'.

When the concepts of 'development' and 'aid' began to emerge in the late forties and early fifties, most of the so-called 'underdeveloped' countries were either colonies or (except for the Latin Americ- an countries) only recently independent. They were almost all tied economically, politically or cultur- ally to one or more of the industrialised countries. To these they exported primary products and sur- plus; from them they imported manufactures, technology, investment, institutions, human resources, culture, ideas and values.

These imports were consumed by a 'modern' sector which depended on the size of the total sur- plus generated in the export sector, the proportion of it that the local ruling groups could keep (con- sumed or invested) and the degree to which they exploited the rest of society both by partially preserv- ing local institutions and cultures and by partially destroying them to provide cheap labour. A wide mixture of indigenous and imported, old and new, forms of organization coexisted under 'more or less hegemonic capitalistic relations of trade and/or production'.

From the thirties through the fifties the internal composition of the ruling groups changed as a result of the depression, the Second World War, decolonisation, and the cold war/super power struggle. The new groups which emerged to claim and share power also wished to enjoy the consumption levels and patterns which the older elite had imported from the industrialised countries (the so-called dem- onstration effect).

To do so, 'the new social groups had to enhance their control over the foreign sector in order to capture a larger proportion of the surplus needed to finance increased consumption and investment'. They used the instrument of the State to achieve this, aiming to reproduce the characteristics of the mature capitalist countries - industrialisation, agricultural modernisation, infrastructure, social services, etc. Hence the vital equation: countries having these attributes were 'developed', those with- i3u; were 'underdeveloped', and 'development' was the process of transition from one state to the other. (It is probably true to say that this is still the predominant western understanding of what dev- elopment is about.)

The Cold War reinforced these already powerful trends. The world-wide ideological conflict was fought to a large extent in the third world. The equation, by the elites of developing countries, of development as synonymous with following the western capitalist model was reinforced and buttressed by the west. The United States, by now the dominant western power, played the main role in this and development programmes became a foreign policy instrument of the cold war. Ruling classes were

2. Osvaldo Sunkel, 'The development of development thinking', Liaison Bulletin ( 1977) No. 1, OECD Development Centre (Paris, 1977).

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supported against 'subversion' and against the left, even to the extent of military intervention. Conversely, the national elites looked for backing to the 'centre' powers. The development of modern industrial capitalism in the so-called under-developed countries became therefore the common long- term aim of the ruling classes (especially in Latin America).

By around 1950, according to this analysis, the great analytical strength of the founding fathers of economics, viz. 'the attempt to relate the operation of the economics of the market, the changing nature of social classes and the consequent redistribution and use of power, in the long-term historical context of the emergence and worldwide expansion of industrial capitalism', had been driven out by 'positive' economic theory, leaving two main bodies of pure economics, neo-classical economic theory (including the comparative cost theory of international trade) and Keynesian macro-economics. These corresponded to the requirements and characteristics of mature capitalism, i.e. efficient operation of individual firms and consumers in national and inter-national markets, and the avoidance of cyclical in- stability with short-term policies of full employment and long-term ones of growth.

Gap between theory and reality

So far as developing countries were concerned, the assumptions underlying neo-classical or Keynes- ian economics applied, if at all, only to the very limited export sector and the main cities. Money was used rarely within or among rural communities; except for some export activities and the urban sector, there was hardly a labour market. The capitalist entrepreneur and enterprise were to be found mainly in the export sector and in trade, and some small-scale enterprise. Basic infrastructure was only avail- able to the export sector and the main cities. Contact between the capital city and the metropolitan countries was often better than between the capital and its own hinterland. Education was confined to a small urban elite. Financial institutions hardly existed (except for branches of foreign banks). The state apparatus was 'extremely limited in geographical scope and variety of operations, and had a weak and highly unstable tax base mainly in the foreign sector'. Policies based on these schools of thought therefore implied profound political, economic and cultural transformation.

The newly emerging social groups looked for a more active development policy based on indus- trialisation and state intervention; macro-economic theory provided rationalisation for an active state role and for capital accumulation as the basis for economic growth. Theories attributing underdevelop- ment to the lack of industrial development justified industrial protection, planning and investment in infrastructure and manufacturing.

In general the aim of creating modem, industrialised, capitalist societies on the US/west European model, based on a broader middle class, and promoting the same type of political democracy as existed in those countries, provided the rationale for expanding formal education, rural modernisation, tax reforms, creation of new financial and administrative institutions, and so on.

In Latin America the Cold War and the Cuban revolution underlay US-inspired modernisation and development programmes, e.g. the Alliance for Progress, as a response to Castro.

The growing US post-war transformation of the international economic system built up by the European powers in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century was a major new factor. After World War II in particular, a very large expansion of US private investment overseas took place, not so much in primary products (except oil) as in infrastructure and services, and now mainly in manufactur- ing.

'Institutionally speaking this is the period of the phenomenal expansion of the transnational cor- poration.' Development in general represented 'the alliance of the new transnational industrial elites of the centre [countries] and the modernizing elites of the peripheral countries.'

It seemed, at least in the early sixties, that these approaches were working, and would eventually achieve the desired goals of industrialisation, social mobility, urbanisation and political democracy.

In the later sixties and early seventies however, it began to be perceived that something was wrong.

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Historically unequalled rates of economic growth, though achieved, did not increase employment; in fact urban unemployment often rose drastically. Income distribution was highly skewed, and inequalit- ies increased. The overall benefits associated with industrialisation in developed countries were not to be found. Primary products continued to predominate, rather than export diversification occurring. Subsidiaries of the transnational corporations took over the more dynamic domestic industrial activit- ies and larger-scale enterprises. Growing foreign control of industry led to a continuing inflow of cap- ital-intensive technology. Conspicuous consumption intensified and imports and foreign exchange re- quirements rose.

Agrarian reforms, a basic requirement, generally proved politically impossible; while the larger estates modernised, often giving increased yields, greater productivity and higher incomes for the land- owning class, the bulk of the rural small holding population stagnated or was forced to migrate. Rural inequalities increased.

The same phenomenon of growth, expansion and concentration, side by side with disruption, dis- placement and stagnation of the smaller groups, firms and agricultural producers, could be seen one way or another in every branch of economic activity.

Rising urban unemployment and social polarisation led to a strong emphasis on 'social' policies - progressive taxation, social welfare expenditure, regional policies, etc. However, these failed because of underlying structural situations.

The situation worsened in the early seventies. Government expenditures and activities had been heavily expanded, while revenues continued to be derived from an 'essentially stagnating and highly un- stable' foreign sector. Urban/rural income imbalances worsened. The various disequilibria fuelled internal inflation and balance of payments crises, causing heavy foreign indebtedness. The need to con- trol inflation, curb imports, increase exports, control urban poor and repress rural uprisings 'has event- ually led in many countries to severely deflationary policies and to authoritarian regimes. Development rather than easing tensions and facilitating political democracy, has in fact aggravated socio-economic and cultural polarisation and accentuated political conflict'.

In the third world, especially Latin America, these contradictions led to a growing questioning of prevailing Western-based schools of thought in economics and related social sciences, which were increasingly seen to be based on the study of 'the economic, social and political operation of a national society, given the structural and historical conditions of modern urban capitalism'. By contrast, the development problem was increasingly seen to be a question of 'the socio-cultural change and inter- action brought about by the capitalist mode of production into semi and/or pre-capitalist social form- ations'.

The dynamic but at the sanme time disruptive nature of capitalist development which takes place inside and in interaction with pre-capitalist formations was analysed. Its tendency is to expand vigor- ously; this requires a radical re-organisation of society, with new social forces gathering the power to oust existing dominating groups and take over the institutions regulating the generation, control and use of economic surplus. Economic growth implies changes in social structure, redistribution of politic- al power, and institutional and structural transformations. All this involves conflict. The state becomes the battleground of the different social groups and the basic political instrument of social change and development.

Apart from a much closer scrutiny of the disruptive aspects of capitalism, third world critiques of development emphasise the importance of the global scale on which processes of capital accumulation, technological innovation and demand manipulation are carried out. Thinking on development must try to understand the phenomenon of contemporary capitalism, the forces within it making for change both in the 'centre' and the 'periphery' areas, the relation between centre and periphery, and the interaction between capitalism and socialism. This means in short that 'the unit of analysis of develop- ment could not be the nation-state'. Examination of a particular country's development, while neces- sary, could not make sense unless located in the framework of global capitalist evolution.

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Such an approach faces up to the observed facts of the shared historical legacy of developing countries - colonisation, the development of primary product and raw material exports, growth of 'modern' sectors and dependence on metropolitan centres, the struggle to de-colonise, cultural invasion and the transfer of foreign institutions, culture and language, financial dependence on international capital and so on. Obviously the picture is not uniform but the underlying factors are found in practic- ally every third world country.

The existing results of development surprise many observers - economic growth plus growing un- employment; increasing polarisation and inequality, new forms of dependency, collapse of democracy and spread of repression and authoritarian regimes. According to Sunkel this surprise results from fail- ure to conceive of development as 'capitalist' development, from ignorance of the history of such dev- elopment both in the centre and the peripheries, from failure to appreciate characteristics of contem- porary capitalism, and from an uncritical acceptance of the ideology of modernisation.

In sum, the basic etror, it is argued, is to treat the 'end results' of capitalist development - high material living standards, moderate inequality, urban/industrial life styles, political democracy - as the means of development. Apart from its effects in development countries, twenty years of unpreceden- ted economic growth in the capitalism of the 'market economy' world have produced unexpected effects in industrial countries themselves - environmental break-down, rising unemployment, aliena- tion, lack of participation, and bureaucratisation, waste etc. The analysis concludes that the developed countries are themselves facing basic development problems, as a consequence of which social scientists in those countries 'are also beginning once again to focus on what was the central concern of classical political economy in the nineteenth century and of development thinking in the last 25 years: the development of capitalism'.

Any analysis, along these or similar lines, of the development process in poorer countries and the relationship between rich and poor countries shows a more critical approach than that prevailing in the west. It also has much to say that is unpalatable about the nature of the development process within developed countries. It is likely to be resisted more for its implications about the nature and con- sequences of dominant western development values and assumptions, than for its analysis of what has happened within developing countries. For one thing, it undermines the concept of development policy as a secondary and relatively insulated aspect of foreign policy. Equally it asserts that the main prob- lem for developing countries is not the level of development resource flows they receive, but the very economic growth patterns and lifestyles of developed countries. The approach of Sunkel and many others reveal the ambiguities that lie at the heart of much conventional Western development policies. The cleft stick in which Western policy makers increasingly find themselves is exemplified by the developed countries' embarrassment in the issue of closing the gap in per capita incomes between dev- eloped and developing countries. Long a stated objective of Western development policies, it is clear that two decades or more of sustained efforts have failed to close the gap. Robert McNamara, referring to this in 1977, acknowledged that 'the proposition is true, but the conclusion to be drawn from it is not that development efforts have failed, but rather that closing the gap was never a realistic objective in the first place. Given the immense differences in the capital and technological base of the industrial- ized nations as compared with that of the developing countries, it was simply not a feasible goal. Nor is it one to-day.'3

Such an unusually blunt rejection of the objective of international economic equality may be, on examination, less extreme than it looks, but it begs practically all the questions which developing coun- tries insist on putting on the international development agenda.

3. Robert McNamara, Address to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 28 April 1977, IBRD (Washington and Paris, 1977).

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World development and Ireland's domestic situation

A further little-explored aspect of Ireland's growing involvement in development cooperation is the self-reflection that it must induce on her own national policy goals and her position in the world economic and social system.

Ireland is one of a number of peripheral European countries which exhibit various symptoms of dependence and, by comparison with the European metropolitan countries, 'underdevelopment'. 4 It has been highly dependent on the UK for example, as an outlet for surplus labour. It is dependent on Europe and the US for tourism. It has a 'population problem'. Its unemployment rate is the highest in the EEC and is almost certainly substantially understated (school leavers cannot join the register). Dep- endence on foreign investment is high and growing: from 1972 to 1976 nearly half of Irish workers in manufacturing industry were in jobs which did not exist five years earlier and about three quarters of which came from the establishment and/or expansion of foreign-owned industries. Well over four-fifths of recent Irish exports of minerals are generated by foreign-controlled firms. Half the foreign invest- ment in Ireland is American and, in the past two years, three-quarters. 5 In 1976, total US investment in Ireland was $900m, with profits at 24 per cent. For 1975 and 1976 the pre-tax return on American manufacturers' investment was 29.5 per cent, more than twice as high as the 12 per cent they averaged in the EEC overall. 7

Such figures do not in themselves make a case, but they do at least indicate that there is a case to be investigated, namely, the nature and extent of Ireland's economic dependency on and integration into the international capitalist system. In terms of development cooperation, this approach should lead her to take a more critical look at the EEC's policies towards the third world - are they in fact, if not in theory, likely to produce the same type of relationship between developing countries and the EEC as those from which Ireland has suffered, firstly vis-à-vis Britain and then the EEC centre areas as a whole? If the EEC is unwilling, as it is, to tackle its own regional inequalities, it will show even less commitment to reducing imbalances and dependency between itself and developing countries. Ireland therefore has a major stake in highlighting the common ground between the policies and actions need- ed to bring about the proper and balanced development of the EEC countries and regions in relation to each other, and the policies and actions required to achieve the same objectives in EEC third world relations.

Elements of Ireland's national interest

A clearer definition of Irish national self-interest in the currently emerging one-world situation would help not only materially but morally and ethically in working out appropriate responses to the totality of world development questions, the 'problematique', as the Club of Rome calls it. 8

The argument that national interest, properly understood, is the way by which moral values enter foreign policy has been put as follows by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.: 'It is through the idea of national interest that moral values enter most effectively into foreign policy. Here the function of morality is to clarify and civilize conceptions of national interest. Morality primarily inheres, in short, in the

4. Dudley Seers, 'Some points arising from the first meeting of Regional Associations and its follow-up', ibid.

5. 'Can Ireland grow its own jobs?', The Economist, 19 November 1977. 6. 'Overhaul of British aid administration proposed', Financial Times, 26 October 1977. 7. The Economist, op. cit. 8. D. H. Meadows, D. L. Meadows, J. Randers, W. W. Behrens, The limits to growth, Pan Books

(London, 1972).

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context a nation puts into his idea of national self-interest.'9 What is Ireland's national interest, faced with the challenges of a one-world society in process of

painful birth? Let me briefly set out the areas in which I think it may presently lie.

(i) Ireland is a small, weak and economically very exposed country; her national interest lies in work- ing towards a world order in which decision making and participation are more democratically shared, and subject to reasonable rules. (ii) Ireland is highly dependent on and interdependent with other countries and regions. Mutually acceptable agreements and mechanisms for sharing basic resources such as food, energy and other commodities are in her long-term interest, and can in fact be achieved with little real sacrifice. 10 (iii) Insofar as Ireland is a dependent and peripheral country in regard to the centre areas, it has common ground with developing countries which are dependent in the same way and are trying to change and improve their situation. (iv) The most basic values in Ireland's society are also the most universal. There is a close correspond- ence between attempts to achieve just and equitable development at home and in the world at large. A progressive stance in favour of international human rights, social justice and the re-ordering of rich/ poor country relations cannot but reflect on her domestic attitudes and values in such fields as social justice.

Principles of Irish development co-operation

An Irish approach to development co-operation, assuming it to be as rational and consistent with the points raised earlier as is practical, should, I suggest, be based on several fundamental principles:

(i) The aim of 'development' is to achieve some sort of world order. This must mean accepting the consequences of applying globally the principles of social justice now taken for granted domestically. (ii) Ireland is part of an interdependent world. Interdependence is irreversible and growing; it must be regulated for the common good. (iii) Irish domestic politics are, therefore, to an important extent, international foreign politics, and her international politics are by and large development politics. (iv) Development co-operation is about human rights, their meaning and universality. (v) No coherent development co-operation 'philosophy' is possible without relating it to develop- ment problems within Ireland. (vi) A partial approach to development may be more dangerous than none at all. Partial approaches foster a misleading idea of the nature of world development issues, as well as permitting unnecessary and cos~tly inconsistencies in development programmes. (vii) Involvement in development co-operation will have to be, for Ireland at least, a struggle to liber- ate herself intellectually, conceptually and culturally from a cherished and deep-rooted mind-set.

Irish development co-operation efforts

Conventional development co-operation programmes are prone by their nature to a number of weaknesses.

9. James T. Johnson, 'Just war theory - what's the use?', World View July/August 1976, re- printed in Catholic Mind (December 1976).

10. A recent estimate of the cost of meeting the poor world's basic needs is given by Mahbub Ul Haq, in 'Meeting basic needs held not beyond reach', Report - News of the World Bank (November- December 1977).

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(i) They tend to be isolated from other crucially important aspects of international relations. (ii) They are vulnerable to manipulation and pressures from elsewhere. (The UK development prog- ramme has been criticised by the Board of Trade for not doing enough to promote British exports.)11 (iii) They are commonly under pressure to show 'results' in restricted, short-term and quantitative terms. (iv) They work in a piece-meal, unplanned way (among other reasons, because of, and uncertainty about, resources and fluctuating government interest). (v) They tend to be self-perpetuating (true of any institutionalised effort but especially to be watched in the development co-operation field, which changes so fast, and where existing programmes generally lag badly behind what is required. (vi) They are marginalised. In terms of national politics, departmental infighting and popular con- sciousness, development co-operation is invariably last out of any given list of priorities.

Innovation in Irish development co-operation approach

Irish development co-operation policy and programmes can and should begin to innovate. They can and should be radically different in important respects from the approaches prevailing in the maj- ority of western aid-giving countries. However, two conditions should be present: firstly, a substantial planned increase in resources for development co-operation (not at all the same thing as a simple increase in official development assistance); secondly, if possible, an inter-party consensus on the broad orientations of future Irish development co-operation efforts.

In development co-operation matters, Ireland should act on the principle that small is agile. As a latecomer, she has less to discard and more experience from which to learn; but how to translate this into a practical programme?

Proposals have already been put to the present and previous governments by a coalition of national groupings (the non-governmental bodies, semi-state agencies, including the Agency for Personal Service Overseas, and the Higher Education Consultation Group) for the establishment of two key develop- ment bodies. These are (i) a National Council for Development Co-operation, to advise and comment on all development issues, and reflecting all major sectors and interest groupings in Irish society; (ii) a semi-state type agency, politically responsible to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, with considerable flexibility and automony in day-to-day affairs, to administer bilateral aid programmes. 12 At the time of writing, it seems that (i) is likely to materialise, but not (ii).

Underlying both proposals was the conviction firstly, that development is of major importance to all sectors of the community and that there should be a central national forum to reflect this, and sec- ondly, that in the more restricted field of development assistance, bilateral efforts ought to be insul- ated as far as possible from pressures which, while legitimate, if not kept adequately in check, could lead to the subordination of equally legitimate development efforts.

Underlying the proposal for a National Council is the conviction that development must be part of the mainstream of Irish life and therefore of the desirability of having a central national forum to take an overview of development issues, following them wherever they lead - in other words, a rejection of the equation that development equals aid.

One of the main tasks of a National Council, and of all the other groups and sectors directly con- cerned with development, will be to define the general framework within which an emerging Irish development programme and its related administrative structures should operate. In the light of all that has gone before, I suggest the following basic orientations: -

11. Financial Times, op cit. 12. See Sutton, pp 66, 67.

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(i) It should be explicitly based on a one-world/world concept. (ii) It should provide, as a framework, a provisional analysis rather than a simple description of the process of world development and under- or mal-development. Although such a framework would inevitably be tentative and require continual revision, it would be invaluable in promoting clearer and more rational discussion and policy making in this area. (iii) As far as possible, such an analysis should provide the framework within which overall Irish for- eign policy is integrated; (this is another way of saying that for Ireland, foreign policy, coherently viewed as a whole, is development co-operation policy). (iv) The capacity should be developed, in terms of personnel, resources and organisation, to exam- ine and monitor world development issues on an integrated basis, i.e. interdisciplinary, inter- departmental (at government level) and inter-sectoral (at national level). This could mean, for example, looking at the total effects of the EEC's Common Agricultural Policy, or a cost/benefit analysis of the Integrated Commodity Programme of the UN. (A recent US cost-benefit analysis of the latter showed that the US would have been richer by up to $15 billion yearly in the run-up period to the UNCTAD IV meeting which discussed the integrated programme). 13 (v) One, perhaps the most important, of its basic objectives should be to strengthen and vindicate the concept of human rights in their totality, i.e. both economic and social as well as political and civil. In this way, the danger of becoming over-committed to a particular ideological position, whether of the left or right, would be diminished. It would also reinforce the arguments, already strong for other reasons, in favour of working closely with NGOs, including the Churches, who, according to the Sec- retary General of the International Commission of Jurists 'are probably doing more than anyone in the

'field of human rights'.14 (vi) It should have an explicit emphasis on improving the effectiveness of non-violent methods of bringing about change, both sub-nationally and between nations. (Here the example could be noted of the actions of the Swedish government in setting up the Stockholm International Peace Research Instit- ute, which has done so much to document and draw attention to the trade in conventional arms to developing countries.)

Resources for development co-operation

Given these basic orientations I would urge that within the context of a planned and substantial increase in Government resources for development cooperation, the proportion allocated to official development assistance should be reduced, perhaps to two-thirds of the total, by 1981-82. This would release the necessary resources for the more radical, innovative approaches outlined below, while per- mitting Ireland to honour existing obligations e.g. to the EEC and the World Bank.

Given her small size, use of Irish official development assistance (ODA) resources in current conventional channels will obviously not make any noticeable difference to global aid flows, or to their existing impact in transforming the development situation. If however some of her increased resources for development were used in the ways suggested below, it could make an appreciably more significant impact.

A large proportion of the resources devoted to official development assistance will for the foresee- able future have to go through multilateral channels. Without making any judgement on the relative preference to be given to multilateral as opposed to bilateral aid, there should be general agreement on the necessity of safeguarding official development assistance from commercial, export promotion and

13. Sylvain S. Minault, 'The $15 billion that got away!', Development Forum. Vol. V. No. 7, United Nations Centre for Economic and Social Information, Geneva (October 1977),

14. Niall MacDermot, 'The credibility gap in human rights', address to the Canadian Human Rights Foundation, 1974; text in The Month (November 1977).

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similar pressures. This can be done by appropriate policy decisions and by ensuring administrative and

operational independence, especially in bilateral resource transfers.

Project criteria

Bilateral projects should be consistent with the overall approach set out above. Explicit criteria for selection should be published. Priority should go to the following: -

i. Co-liberating projects, projects which help developing countries but which also deal with prob- lems facing Ireland such as bargaining with multi-national corporations, reducing energy dependence resolution of conflict situations, reducing structural inequality.

ii. Projects related to advancing the New International Order concept, such as regional groupings, collective self-reliance, commodity negotiations, diversification.

iii. Projects supporting 'Alternative Society' countries and endeavours, e.g. Tanzania, gas genera- tion from animal and human waste in Indial5 or the recent project for a new international information /news agency to be jointly operated by developing countries.

iv. Projects aimed at supporting the 'Basic Needs' approach to development. v. Projects concerned with human rights, sometimes the most politically difficult but the most

necessary of projects.

The allocation for each project funded should include provision for continuing assessment of the project, in order to promote continuous adaptation, evaluation and improvement of project assistance.

Innovatory aspects of Ireland's development co-operation activities

In view of existing development aid structures and pressures, it is in the area outside ODA prog- rammes that the greatest possibility for an innovatory Irish contribution to development co-operation exists.

I would pick out three areas16 in which the non-ODA portion of total resources for development co-operation should be concentrated. They are:

(i) Education and Research in Development, carried out both inside and outside Ireland. National development education programmes are already in operation elsewhere, and are well established in the Netherlands and Sweden. (It is worth noting that the Government-sponsored Netherlands National Committee for Information on Development Co-operation picks out the Churches as an important priority group to work with in the process of world education and awareness 'not only because of the number of church members, but also because of the faith which is preached in most Churches'.17 The initial aims of a development education programme within Ireland could include a better understanding of the idea and reality of the one-world concept, of Ireland's position in this regard, of the require- ments of world justice leading to an appreciation of the world order concept and of the need for and meaning of structural and cultural adaptation to cope with an evolving one-world society. This should be done not only through official channels, but also to a significant extent through organizations in the non-governmental sector, while at the same time respecting its autonomy and diversity, and

15. A. M. K. Reddy, 'The Trojan horse', in Ceres-FAO Review of Development, (March/April 1976).

16. Recommendations along these lines were made in September 1977 to the Minister for For- eign Affairs by the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace.

17. 'National Policy Memorandum', National Committee for Information on Development Co- operation', (Amsterdam, 1974).

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even accommodating conflicting approaches. The accent should not be primarily on the formal educat- ion sector, although this will have to be adequately catered for. A much heavier emphasis on develop- ment education should of course materially increase public support for an expanded national develop- ment co-operation effort.

An Irish development education programme should extend beyond Ireland, notably into the EEC, both in collaboration with the programmes of other EEC governments and the European Commission itself, and by way of encouraging non-governmental organisation activities, especially on a cross- frontier basis. (ii) Political action outside Ireland, backed by policy-linked research. Maurice Williams, Chairman of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC), noted in the 1976 DAC report that 'gov ernment leaders in the third world, like those in other countries, harassed by day-to-day problems, know they should devote more time to longer-term plans and programmes which address key object- ives for development'.18

Political action as a specific part of Irish development co-operation policy could include research and lobbying, especially at EEC level, on the basis of a long-term development strategy, and in relation to specific issues and negotiating points, such as the Common Fund, greater automaticity in resource transfers etc. It could include selected 'consciousness raising' activities. which can be disproportion- ately effective (e.g. exercises on lines similar to the Club of Rome 'Limits to Growth' Report, the 1975 Hague 'Symposium on a New International Economic Order', or the Dutch Government's support of international lobbying by non-governmental organisations in connection with the 1976 UNCTAD meeting in Nairobi). Such action, although in my opinion logical, necessary and giving promise of much greater effectiveness than the present emphasis on resource transfers, is unlikely to emerge and be im- plemented without a prior evolution of awareness and political commitment within the Irish govern- ment and development co-operation sector. (iii) Domestic structural readjustment measures. Planned measures to adjust Ireland's national economy are one of the more sensible ways to adapt to the growing pressures from developing count- ries for the various proposals covered by the concept of a new international order. It is better that changes which are inevitable should be anticipated rather than treated as if they simply did not exist. An obvious danger is the abuse of resources ostensibly for development-related domestic structural re- adjustment, but such abuse can be avoided.

As development-related structural readjustment is such a new area, the prudent approach is, firstly, to allocate resources for research and, secondly, to select pilot projects.

18. Development co-operation-efforts and policies of the members of the Development Assist- ance Committee, 1976 Review, OECD, (Paris, 1976).

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