Irish Aid

Priority areas of work

Ireland works towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals as set out by the United Nations. Accordingly, Irish Aid's priority areas are; Ending Poverty, Hunger, Gender Equality, Environment and Climate Change, Health, HIV/AIDS, Governance and Human Rights, Education, Trade and Economic Growth, Agriculture, Water and Sanitation.

Irish Aid also responds to humanitarian crisis around the world, including locations not in their area of operations, through humanitarian relief/assistance and supporting non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with multilateral aid. The Irish Aid Rapid Response Corps (RRC) is a team of highly skilled and experienced professionals available to deploy at short notice to humanitarian emergencies anywhere in the world, working with the UNHCR, WFP, OCHA and UNICEF to identify and fill specific skills gaps in emergencies.

Ireland sits on the OECD's 30-member Development Assistance Committee (DAC).

Partner countries

The main focus of Irish Aid is on Sub-Saharan Africa. Long-term development assistance has been established in nine "Key Partner Countries", these are;

Irish Aid also works in a number of other countries affected by conflict, including; Liberia, Palestine, South Africa, Timor Leste and Zimbabwe.

In 2014, more than 80 countries benefited from Irish bilateral aid.

Irish Aid operates its assistance programmes through the network of Ireland's overseas diplomatic missions.

Organisational structure

Employees

Irish Aid employs permanent staff under contract with the Department of Foreign Affairs. Permanent staff are considered civil servants (diplomats). To work for Irish Aid, an employee generally must be a Masters graduate, and can enter the organisation through the Junior Professional Internship (JPI) scheme. Irish Aid employs a wide range of specialist staff, such as Senior Development Specialists and Agricultural Advisors. There are 145 permanent posts attached to Irish Aid's domestic headquarters in Dublin and Limerick in the Republic of Ireland. There are 39 permanent posts (excluding locally recruited staff) within Irish Aid missions in nine programme countries and a further 290 locally recruited overseas staff across all missions. This brings the agency's total number of employees to 474.

Budget

Ireland allocated €651 million in official development assistance (ODA) in 2017. This represents 0.36% of gross national income (GNI).

Since the beginning of the millennium there has been a rapid expansion in the scale and scope of Ireland's development assistance programme which has seen the foreign aid budget rise from €255 million in 2000 to €914 million in 2008, more than a three and a half fold increase in less than a decade.

In terms of GNI, Ireland is the 12th highest global contributor of ODA as a percentage of GNI and the 19th highest international contributor overall (2015 figures). The government has set a target of reaching the UN Millennium Development Goal of 0.7% of GNI in foreign aid, a target which is projected to exceed €1.5 billion based on current economic growth if achieved.

Locations

Irish Aid's headquarters in Ireland are at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Iveagh House, 80 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2 and Riverstone House, 23-27 Henry Street, Limerick. Irish Aid has permanent offices in Irish embassies in; Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and Zambia.