GIVE US MORE good news! That is what people in Ireland are saying to the Government and to Irish aid agencies.

A new opinion poll – undertaken by Amárach Research and presented at a conference in Dublin on 7 May – shows that people in Ireland are strong supporters of overseas aid but that they have strong doubts whether it really works, because they are not being shown the evidence.

This Thursday, staff of Amárach Research will present the findings of their latest research to a gathering of Irish Development NGOs. The research was commissioned by Dóchas, the umbrella group of Ireland’s Development NGOs, and involved a series of questions to a representative sample of 1,000 people across the country.

The researchers found that supporters of overseas aid outnumber critics three to one and that 79% of respondents feel overseas aid makes “some” or “a lot of difference” in poor countries. Yet 60% of people in Ireland don’t think the countries in Africa are any better off now than they were 20 years ago.

In other words, despite the fact that Irish aid agencies and the United Nations have lots of proof that efforts to end extreme poverty are working, people in Ireland do not hear about the huge progress being made. Irish media and aid agencies simply aren’t getting the message across that, for the first time in history, 90% of all primary school-age children are enrolled in schools or that in the last 30 years 700 million people – more than 100 times the population of the island of Ireland – have been lifted out of extreme poverty.

The message is not getting through.

Built-in bias in both the media and aid agencies

The fact that good news does not get noticed is not just an Irish problem: similar research in the USA found that a whopping 67% of people thought that extreme poverty increased over the last three decades, when in fact the portion of the world’s population living in poverty dropped from 52% to 21% over that period.

And this is in large part due to a built-in bias in both the media and aid agencies. The media tend to focus on “news” – the dramatic and the sudden – as opposed to slow-moving long-term trends that don’t make headlines. And aid agencies tend to focus on “problems” – the many global issues that have not yet been solved – and often forget to show the extent of their impact and successes of the past.

The new Amárach research to be presented on 7 May shows that we get our information about the world primarily from our peers and from the media. If media coverage of large parts of that world is confined to crises and catastrophes, it builds up a skewed picture of the world, giving the impression of as a vast place of suffering and corruption, urgently in need of aid workers or soldiers to sort it out. Similarly, if the bulk of aid agencies’ public communications is about emergencies and disasters, it blocks out the less dramatic but more important messages about the enormous progress that is being made despite the setbacks.

Negative news breeds powerlessness

The research by Amárach shows that not only do many people in Ireland view the developing world in much the same way as they did 30 years ago, most of us are feeling powerless to change it, too.

While the vast majority of people (73%) say they want to do their bit to change the world, half of us say it is “difficult to find opportunities to take action for positive change”. And despite a high level of awareness of the power of fairtrade products and ethical fashion, people in Ireland are 2.5 times more likely to agree rather than disagree with a statement that they “feel helpless in bringing about positive change”.

Most worryingly, very few people say they feel “confident” in their ability to bring about change: Only 33% of people believe they have some degree of influence on events in their local community, dropping to 19% when asked if they had influence on decisions affecting other parts of the world.

In short, the relentless stream of bad news is telling people that nothing ever changes, and that they do not matter in the bigger scheme of things. By not highlighting the positive news, we are in danger of creating a generation of people who don’t believe that citizens have a say or that nothing they do will succeed. And that is a grave danger for any society.

People are now healthier, wealthier and better informed than ever before

And this is where Irish charities come in. The Amárach research shows that the majority of people trust the information provided by charities and that they would support those organisations that show they are making an impact. People may be confused as to the precise causes of, and solutions to, global poverty, but it is clear that they are open to suggestions from Irish NGOs about what works and what needs to be done.

The time is therefore ripe for Irish NGOs to step up initiatives such as ‘The World’s Best News’, an online news service that aims to bust the myths about developing countries.

The World’s Best News, available on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram and Flipboard is a news service with stories that do not make the mainstream news, but that are equally important, and often very surprising and that illustrate how determined citizens can make a difference in their own lives and their own societies.

The stories featured on “The World’s Best News” are a celebration of the fact that around the world, people are now healthier, wealthier and better informed than ever before. These stories of hope and change help us challenge our preconceptions, update our world view and help us make better decisions as citizens of an increasingly inter-connected global village.

Hans Zomer is Director of Dóchas, the Irish national platform of Development NGOs. Through Dóchas, Irish NGOs work together to improve the impact of their work, and to apply their collective experiences to inform government policy and practice.