Attitudes towards Development Cooperation in Ireland
Dóchas members commissioned research in 2013 on public attitudes to development aid and global poverty due to a lack of published data on levels of public support for Ireland’s overseas aid programme. The study aimed to gauge the knowledge, attitudes, information sources and engagement of Irish people in the context of overseas aid, in order to promote reflection among Dóchas members about the impact of their public communications strategies on those attitudes, and to explore ways to shift them.
2015 was the European Year for Development. Dóchas coordinated activities in Ireland for the year, which aims to change the way people think about, talk about and act on global issues by establishing a new development narrative in Ireland that shifts beyond charity and aid to address issues of universality, engagement, individual and collective responsibility and global solidarity.
As part of its activities for EYD2015, Dóchas commissioned Amárach Research to conduct a follow-up attitudes survey to determine current public attitudes to development cooperation and global justice and to see if attitudes and behaviours had changed in the intervening 21 months.