Strengthening Policy Coherence for Development in Agricultural Policy : Policy Recommendations to Irish Aid

The recent White Paper on Irish Aid made coherence one of the guiding principles of Ireland's development cooperation policy (Government of Ireland, 2006). Agriculture is at the heart of much of the debate about possible incoherence between trade and development policy. This paper presents the policy recommendations made to the Advisory Board for Irish Aid arising from a research project it supported to examine the impact which the EU's Common Agricultural Policy has on developing countries, and the impact which CAP reform would have on global poverty, and which was undertaken by a team based at the IIIS, Trinity College Dublin. Concluding the Doha Round with an ambitious reduction in agricultural trade barriers should remain the priority objective from a policy coherence perspective. However, the research recognised that Ireland's partner countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are not likely to benefit, if at all, from further reductions in OECD country agricultural trade barriers, largely because of their preferential access to these markets. We recommend that Irish Aid should increase its efforts to strengthen the supply-side capacity of these countries to take advantage of existing market opportunities, through increased assistance for agricultural and rural development and as well as trade-related assistance. The paper also discusses how a framework for policy coherence might be established within Irish public administration