Gotta love the flag with the auld AK on it.

Oddly where a lot of the aid goes……

Being honest, I personally don’t trust any country with an ak47 on their flag.

Just came back from a month on Mozambique. It is economically one of the leading countries in Africa. There is poverty there but not famine or hunger. The government squanders much of the revenue and it is not divided equally among the north and the south. There is a huge influx of Chinese money due to gas discoveries in the North. Mozambique is a country rich in natural resources. Not sure why they receive so much aid from Ireland?

WE ARE BROKE.
Borrowing millions every week which we can’t afford to give to charities is insane when people are hungry in Ireland. Imagine what reception we would get asking for charity from countries who are in debt.

@colm “nobody is going hungry in Ireland ” ? . RIDICULOUS statement.

Colm!!!!!! Maybe you should contact at Vincent de Paul because only for them their would be a lot of starvation in Ireland and also ppl out in the cold… We have homeless people out on our streets that are unable to change their lives and some children through no fault of their own somehow I don’t think they would agree with you

Mozambiqueans, great bunch of lads..

There are certainly many countries more in need of our aid than Mozambique. Surely Portugal and the Republic of South Africa should take the lions share of responsibility for it!

Junket

I bet they will find that Mozambique is the model recipient country.

Colm Ó Súiligh is right. People in Mozambique face challenges far greater than our own. The UN Human Development Index ranks Mozambique 184th out of 187 countries. But due to aid and other factors, their situation has, actually, been improving. But, believe it or not, people in developing countries get hit first and worst by economic and environmental crises, so this achievement is under threat.

It’s true that, in our own country, inequality is getting higher and more and more people, and children, are finding it harder to stay fed and warm. The big difference is we still have a well-functioning state and many alternative economic and social resources that keep us resilient against the worst effects of the crisis. People in developing countries – the ‘bottom billion’ – do not have this.

The aid our government – and other Western governments – provide goes in three directions: one to improve how the Mozambiquan state provides important services and safety nets to people in order to improve their lives (we’re talking basic healthcare, education, agricultural development), to Mozambiquan NGOs that do a similar job to what the Saint Vincent de Paul does; and to Irish NGOs that deliver programmes in partnership with Mozambiquans to address various issues.

As someone said, Mozambique is wealthy in natural resources, but it has been treated badly and continues to be. Aid is not the answer, democracy and trade are, but it’s needed to help get the country to a point where it can compete and that also means having an educated and healthy population that can share more equally in the country’s prosperity. That path was cruelly interrupted when South Africa waged a proxy war to destabilise it and the scars are still evident in the capital city’s architecture.

I visited Mozambique two years ago and found it an exciting, dynamic place. Maputo is a great city where you can see wealth flooding in and occupying gleaming new office blocks and renovating old turn-of-the-century architectural masterpieces (such as Gustav Eiffel’s train station). But alongside a gleaming country with its azure seas and golden sands, are desparately poor people doing their best to make a living in very difficult circumstances.

I’ve seen myself how aid works, and I’m fully behind our government spending what we do and more on international development aid.

Was I asked if I wanted this? Yes. All parties in the general election supported our aid programme and the aid budget is debated and approved by our elected representatives every year in the Dáil and Seanad.

But it looks like a garden hoe and book on it aswell,so it’s not all that bad!

i wonder when all these african countries are up and running will they look favourly on us