ActionAid celebrates role of women in development to mark 30 years in Ireland

October 18, 2013

ActionAid Ireland celebrates 30th anniversary

Thursday, 10th October, 2013 with an event on The Positive Power of Women in Development: Strength and Resilience in the Face of Adversity.

The event took place in the Hugh Lane Gallery and we had a huge response with attendance from our supporters, donors, staff, volunteers, and members of other development agencies and Irish charities.

Olga McDonogh, CEO of ActionAid Ireland discussed our 30 year history and some of the inspiring women that she has worked with. She also introduced our key note speaker Mary Robinson, President Mary Robinson Foundation for Climate Justice, who we were honoured to host on the evening.

Mary Robinson talked about the strong and resilient women she had met over the course of her career. She also identified four main issues facing women across the world: the treatment of the girl child; the prevalence of child marriage; underrepresentation at the development table and within powerful positions; and the effect of climate change on women. She said:

“The empowerment of women is central to tackling the key challenges faced by the developing world, from poverty reduction to political oppression, to climate change. When we liberate the potential of women in their homes, communities and at national level, we can transform societies bringing improvements in the social, environmental, economic and political lives of all.”

Rodney Rice, former RTÉ Presenter and ActionAid Ireland Board Member did a marvelous job as MC for the evening with well researched questions that provoked powerful and moving answers from our panel: Former President Mary Robinson; Farah Kabir, Country Director of ActionAid Bangladesh; Alison Milton, Civil Society Section of Irish Aid; and Orla O’Connor, Director of the National Women’s Council of Ireland.

Observations over the evening

Some of the observations from our panel included: Farah Kabir, Country Director of ActionAid Bangladesh:

“Women do recognise {the problems facing them}, believe me they know what the problems are, the issue is how to mobilise.”

Orla O’Connor, Director of the National Women’s Council of Ireland said that the lack of women in power was the greatest challenge to development:

“There is an absence of leaders at the local, national and international level.”

Alison Milton, Civil Society Section of Irish Aid noted the importance of women’s rights within development:

“Gender Equality is now at the centre and a prerequisite for any development to happen.”

Thank you!

We were delighted to meet many of our supporters and donors, some who have been supporting ActionAid for over 20 years. One supporter traveled all the way from Ennis to be there on the evening! We’d like to again thank everyone that attended for making the evening such a resounding success. We look forward to another 30 years making a difference and working with strong and resilient women in the developing world.

Protestors at COP 28 in Dubai. Photo: Konrad Skotnicki.

Belfast Climate Change March, 2019. Photo: Trócaire.

The Profit Driving the Crisis

Despite their overwhelming contribution to global emissions, fossil fuel companies continue to attract significant financial backing—driven by their enduring profitability. This is starkly illustrated by the case of ExxonMobil, the top fossil fuel investment held by asset managers based in Ireland. In 2023, ExxonMobil reported €33.63 billion ($36 billion) in profit. That is almost twice the GDP of Botswana (€18.1 billion) and nearly three times Namibia’s GDP (€11.5 billion).

Ireland plays a hugely disproportionate role in facilitating investments into fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. In 2023, the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland generated an estimated 72.5 million tons of CO2e. This is more than the CO2e emissions for the entire country of Ireland—and more than ten times that generated by Sierra Leone.

The Global Human Impact

The climate crisis is here, now, and it is causing disproportionate harm in the Global South. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels and increasingly severe cyclones are displacing coastal communities, with projections indicating that 17% of the entire country could be underwater by 2050. The legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change explicitly acknowledges the importance of tackling private finance. Its three overarching goals are: keeping below 1.5C of warming; increasing adaptation and making finance flows consistent with low emissions and resilience.

This gives a clear mandate for action: both tax reform and corporate regulation are needed to tackle financial flows, and both nationally in Ireland and at EU level, ‘polluter pays’ taxes are lacking and regulation of the financial sector remains weak and fragmented. While EU regulation exists, it is designed more to nudge investors toward more sustainable investment practices by increasing transparency and reporting levels than to enforce strict standards. And it is moving in the wrong direction: the recently passed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive excluded investments; and now the EU Commission’s Omnibus legislative proposal threatens to undo the limited gains made on climate plans, as well as blocking future attempts for stronger action at national level.

The Risk of Inaction

Fossil fuel investment is too profitable to remain weakly regulated. If Ireland continues with its current strategy of encouraging FDI at all costs, and relying on weak EU regulation, we are headed for catastrophe. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that every fraction of a degree beyond 1.5°C brings irreversible consequences: collapsed ice sheets, vanishing coral reefs, and extreme weather events that will make vast regions of the planet uninhabitable. And yet, companies are developing oil and gas fields that could push global warming beyond 2°C.

Our research found that 91% of the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland were to companies that have plans for fossil fuel expansion like these. Ireland cannot afford inaction on this issue.

About This Research

The figures in this report regarding investment from Ireland are based on new research commissioned by ActionAid Ireland and Trócaire. In the paper, we uncover the scale of fossil fuel investment through Ireland, who the investors are, and in which fossil fuel companies they are investing. We analyse the current regulatory framework and explain why it is inadequate—and moving in the wrong direction. And we make specific recommendations for change, which are summarised below.

Summary of Recommendations

Regulate the private financial sector
Ireland must end its outsized role as an enabler of destructive fossil fuel investment. Ireland should introduce a strong gender-responsive national human rights and environmental due diligence framework which includes the regulation of investors with respect to human rights and the environment and climate. The transposition of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could achieve this if downstream activities are included and the Omnibus proposal is rejected. Ireland should prohibit investments in fossil fuel expansion and require investors to implement climate transition plans consistent with a 1.5°C climate limit.

Endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Ireland should endorse developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to curb fossil fuel expansion and commit to a fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels.

Support tax justice
Ireland should support bold and fair new global tax rules through the UN Framework Convention on Tax, should adopt all OECD BEPS measures, and should conduct an updated and comprehensive spillover analysis of its tax policy. Ireland should take coordinated action globally, at the EU level and domestically to introduce a range of new taxes to mobilise finance needed for climate justice, based on ‘polluter pays’ and social equity principles such as wealth taxes for the highest earners, climate damages tax on investors, fossil fuel production taxes and levies on aviation and shipping.

Finance a just transition
Ireland must also meet its fair share climate finance obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and pay our ecological debt to the Global South. Ireland should support conditionality-free debt cancellation for countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, commit to a new UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, moving debt negotiations from the IMF to the UN, and to a debt workout mechanism that is fully representative and fair.