It was with sadness that we learned of the death last weekend of Noel McDonagh, one of the founders of Self Help Africa over 40 years ago.

A chartered quantity surveyor by profession, Noel McDonagh described how ‘a chance encounter’ with an Irish missionary priest, Fr. Owen Lambert, in Ethiopia in 1984 had led to the formation of Self Help a year later.

The two Irishmen formed the organisation to provide a long-term agriculture based response to a famine that had claimed the lives of one million people in Ethiopia between 1983 and 1985.

In its early years, Self Help teamed up with the Irish Farmers Association to send 2,000 tonnes of Irish seed potatoes to famine affected parts of Ethiopia. The organisation also secured a €1 million at that time from Bob Geldof’s Band Aid Trust, to support its work.

Noel McDonagh served as chairman of Self Help Africa for 20 years until his retirement in 2006.  The organisation became one of the first Irish development charities to receive multi-annual funding support from the Irish government for its work, and was also chosen as the official charity of the Irish Farmers Association.

For his contributions, Dr. McDonagh received a ‘Rehab People of the Year Award’ in 1995.

Paying tribute, Self Help Africa CEO Feargal O’Connell described Noel McDonagh as “a passionate visionary and champion of localisation, decades before it became en vogue.”

“I had the pleasure to meet with Noel a number of months ago. It was fantastic to hear his stories from the early days. He was incredibly engaged, and was delighted to hear about how the organisation had grown and evolved since that time,” he said.

Noel McDonagh is survived by his wife Moira, his children, Mark, Brian and Hilary, by his eight grandchildren, and by his sisters Mary and Anne.