International Development Policies

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather (CB)]

My Lords, I was enormously impressed by the noble Earl’s knowledge of all the ways in which projects are being looked at, but a little depressed at the same time, because it seems that we have too much looking at and not enough doing.

One of the most important things has been touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Desai, and the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon. We live in a world in which no value is given to women in many developing countries. In fact, an animal that has been bought has greater value than the woman. We cannot have any kind of fair world without bringing women into the success that we expect from men. The problem is that if women are not in the economic world, it affects the whole country and the whole world—not just the women. It does not allow that country to progress. Wherever women are doing better, you will find that the country is doing better. This factor must be always looked at.

I have been to many conferences and, unless they are women’s conferences, the “woman” word is not mentioned at all. Women are half the population, and they say that they do three-quarters of the work in the world. They earn practically nothing, just 10% of the wages, and they apparently own 1% of property. It is time for us to realise that unless we bring in the neglected other half of the population, things are not going to change in developing countries. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, mentioned the girl child. The mother is equally important. If you help the mother, she will look after the girl child and the boy child. It is extremely important to start thinking along those lines.

I am so glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, will speak after me. She coined the phrase “children by choice”. We are still using that phrase. In 1950, the population of the world was 2.7 billion; 65 years later, it is more than 7 billion. Yet, when people talk about climate change, they do not mention the population increase. In fact, population, having too many children and family planning are not considered proper subjects to speak about. They are the most important subjects for all our futures. Improving the condition of women is also the most important matter for all our futures. Without improving women’s lives and giving them the opportunity to join the economic life of a country, there is no future for that country. No matter what you do, if half the population is the poorest of the poor and has no impact on the life of the country, that country is not going to progress. Half the population are not even being looked at or considered.

We have a big problem with water stress. Why is that? Is it because of climate change? Yes, it is. What is the cause of climate change? It is obviously not population—except that it is, and we need to think about that. Every woman should have access to family planning, because when women have fewer children those children benefit, the women benefit, the families benefit and the country benefits.

Developing World: Women

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather (CB)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, for securing this debate. I remind your Lordships that he has a trust foundation for looking after widows and the children of widows—which is even more important because often widows do not have the capacity to make sure that their children are well educated. For that, we should thank him and remember that what he is trying to do is very important.

I am going to be a little self-indulgent to begin with. My great-grandfather was a philanthropist in the main city of Punjab, Lahore. Although he was a Hindu, he is still called the father of Lahore by the Pakistanis because he was a civil engineer and he built a canal system that made Punjab the granary of India. He also gave away a lot of money. He started to make money and he used to say, “The more I give, the more comes”. He had widows’ homes and orphanages. He also had two homes for unmarried mothers because, at the beginning of the 20th century in India, unmarried mothers were either killed or had to go on the streets. It was an appalling situation and he was very conscious of the needs of women, which is why I have mentioned him. He was actively campaigning in those days, with the British Government, to get the treatment of Hindu widows improved. By and large, Hindu widows are still treated extremely badly in India. A lot of them are left to beg in places of pilgrimage to survive; they are not looked after by the families. He was very angry about that and kept trying to get the Government to do something about it. He could not change the whole culture by having widows’ homes. He did not succeed, but he tried very hard.

The other thing which we have in India is the child widow. I know that this has been touched on, but if a girl gets married at the age of seven or eight—which is still quite common in Rajasthan—and the boy dies then she is a widow. She is treated as a widow but she has never been with her so-called husband, because they are both children. They have to wait until she is a fully grown woman for her to go to her husband’s home. It is just unbelievable that a girl child is then a widow and treated extremely badly. There is a village in Rajasthan where they kill the girls, and which did not have a girl and boy marriage for 26 years because they had killed all the girls. The treatment of women and girls in India and Africa does not bear thinking about.

I know that we are talking about conflict resolution and I accept that women have an important role to play, but they have an important role to play in life itself and are not given that role. They are not treated as if they are people—human beings—who have something to contribute. They are used and abused, for the most part. They are not people with rights or positions so unless we look at the whole situation of women, in the light of what is happening in the world today, we cannot ask them to help with conflict resolution. They have to feel empowered to some extent to be able to do it. If you say to a woman, “I want you to do this”, her first reaction is, “I don’t think I can do it”. But if you then say, “No, you can”, they, too, find that they can. What we are facing is religion and so-called culture. I do not call it culture but bad social practices. We are facing those two real problems in developing countries and we have to fight against them both. It is not right that women should be treated in the way that they are in India or Africa because Hinduism says so or because a culture has always been like that. That is not how it has to be.

Many words are said but no implementation of them ever takes place. Modi has said that he is going to improve things for women in India, but what has he actually done? He was quite rude to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh when he said, “She has done so well, for a woman”. Can your Lordships think of anything worse than that? I cannot. It is so appalling for a Prime Minister of India to have said that. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, that I was in India during the Bangladesh war. The Indians were very much involved in getting rid of the Pakistanis from Bangladesh then. Two thousand women were found incarcerated, without any clothes, for the use of the soldiers. They did not give them clothes because they knew that, if they had anything, they would hang themselves. Can you believe that people could behave like that in the 20th century? When the women did get clothes, they did hang themselves, because where would they go? Who would have them? How would they be treated? I am glad to hear that later they were treated as heroines but they would not have been at that time. Women face some terrible dilemmas.

USAID will not allow any organisation with which it has any connection or to which it gives any money to perform abortions. Imagine a woman being raped countless times who then becomes pregnant but cannot get rid of the child. What do you think that child is to her? It is a reminder of her misery, a reminder of all those rapes. It is unbelievable that USAID still does not allow abortion, even in those circumstances. I cannot believe that it can go on thinking like that; it does not see women as human beings who cannot bear this nastiness.

We have to do whatever we can for women in general and then try to encourage them to take part in all sorts of areas of interest. They can add something very special to every organisation, meeting and committee, but they are not allowed to—they are not there. Perhaps in two, three or four years something will start to happen, but as I am getting rather old I am feeling very disappointed that it might not happen in my lifetime.

It has been mentioned that in Africa women are not allowed to own property. That is true, but it is worse than that. My friend Ladi is from Nigeria, and her father died when she was five years old. His relatives came to the house and took everything that was saleable, every possession. What is more, they took two younger wives who could work, but they did not take Ladi’s mother because she was older and they felt she would not be able to do as much work as the others. Ladi’s mother was left with 13 children and no means of supporting them. Can you believe that? I asked Ladi what her mother did and she said, “She gave away a child to whoever would take one”. She managed to place children with families in the village—anyone who would take a child. Imagine the life of that child who would be at the bottom of the food chain, with no education and no future. Ladi went to an uncle; she was a goat-herd at the age of six. Until she was nine she had no shoes and today her feet are in such bad condition that she has to have operations on them.

The suffering of women in India and in Africa is unbelievable and intolerable. We know about the suffering of women in Afghanistan and in many other places, but the largest number of those affected are in India and Africa—at least 1 billion. They have very little power and very few resources, and the situation does not look as if it will change overnight.

It has surprised me that, apart from the right reverend Prelate, no man has spoken in this debate. It is amazing. Men hold the power, but they have not spoken today. It is not only for women to talk about women; it is for men to talk about women and to do something about it. Unless men start doing something about this, nothing will happen.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, hopefully, your Lordships will consider that I am a man just about to speak. Although I have already had the opportunity to congratulate the Minister from the Dispatch Box on her appointment, for the avoidance of any doubt, I would like to do it again—congratulations. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, for initiating this debate today and for his strong and powerful commitment to the empowerment of women, in particular his highlighting of the plight of widows. It is only because of his commitment that International Widows Day is celebrated by the United Nations. Like him, my mother’s widowhood has shaped my view of the world.

The first and most important policy to have in place is one to enable women to be in charge of their own lives and to be decision-makers, not always on the end of a handout or someone’s largesse. The right reverend Prelate gave positive examples of meaningful involvement at local, regional and national level in the allocation of resources and services. If women have control over these things, they will have the confidence to resist and report sexual violence. As my noble friend Lady Kinnock highlighted, there is an increased awareness of sexual violence in wartime due to the significant impact of armed conflicts on civilian populations.

Violence against women as a tool of war remains one of the least prosecuted crimes—we have to do better to ensure action against the perpetrators. However, we must be tough on not only the crime but its causes. We must tackle the underlying problem of lack of empowerment, education and inclusion. As we have heard in this debate, the unanimous adoption of Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security was a landmark decision through which the situation of women in armed conflict was specifically addressed. It called for their participation at all levels of decision-making on conflict resolution and peace-building.

However, we have to recognise that to make real progress, we must ensure the words of the seven Security Council resolutions, recommendation 30 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Beijing commitments on women, peace and security, and other initiatives such as the UNGA declaration on ending sexual violence, are translated into practice. They cannot be just words. Turning promises into action is vital as, despite many gains, progress across the millennium development goals has been uneven for girls and women. The MDGs did not effectively address the factors which underpin gender inequality.

The United Kingdom—I am proud to say United Kingdom in the sense that it is not just one Government—has pushed for a post-2015 framework with a strong and explicit commitment to gender equality. Indeed, in response to a Question from my noble friend Lady Kinnock earlier this year, the then Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, committed the Government to,

“a stand-alone goal geared to achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment”.—[Official Report, 9/3/15; col. 438.]

The noble Baroness also confirmed that there should be “rigorous mainstreaming” of gender equality concerns across other priority areas and goals of the post-2015 agenda. I would be extremely grateful if the Minister repeated that commitment in those strong terms.

Too often women are systemically excluded. Women’s role in peacebuilding should be supported at a local as well as international level. Women’s socioeconomic and political participation is key to resolving and preventing conflict, but also to changing, as we have heard in this debate, the damaging social norms that persist.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, I believe it is essential that we also focus on the other practical steps required for progress, including funding dedicated to WPS; funding to local women’s rights organisations as well as systemic consultation with women to give them a platform to highlight the barriers they face and the solutions; an approach that focuses across the pillars of UN Security Council Resolution 1325; and, as we heard in this debate—more importantly for my noble friend—co-ordination across defence, diplomatic and foreign policy. We need to challenge the root causes and social norms that cause violence against women and girls, and women’s lack of participation.

The 20th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action gave world leaders the opportunity to take stock of progress at the national and global level. The conclusions of the Commission on the Status of Women held in March welcomed the progress made towards the full implementation of the Beijing declaration through concerted policy action at the national, regional and global levels. It recognised that this is essential for achieving the unfinished business of the MDGs and for tackling the critical remaining challenges through the post-2015 development agenda.

The UK’s self-assessment concluded that, despite the progress made, discrimination is still prevalent in this country. Globally, many of the seminal achievements of the original 1995 Beijing conference are at risk, as we have heard in the debate, and in not just places of conflict but other areas where cultural shifts affect the rights of women. This is particularly crucial in the area of sexual and reproductive health and rights. We must not allow the clock to be turned back. Women and girls must be free from the fear of violence, coercion or intimidation and have the freedom to choose how many children they want.

The United Kingdom is seen as an important global player in promoting women’s rights. It takes the lead on women, peace and security issues at the UN Security Council and galvanised global action through the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict initiative. Like many in this debate, I pay tribute to the last Government for their focus on women and girls in their development work, and their consistent advocacy of women’s rights at the Human Rights Council. I also acknowledge their work in helping change global opinion on the issue of gender-based violence. It is important that we build on this record by using their influence to ensure that the gains of recent years are not lost. It is vital that the UK’s work on Beijing+20 is conducted in co-ordination with preparations for the adoption of a new global development framework. What steps is the Minister’s department taking to ensure that the UK not only defends the gains of the last 20 years but sets out its vision and priorities for the next 20 years of advancement of women’s rights at home and abroad?

My noble friend Lady Prosser referred to the debate on the implementation of the National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure cross-departmental priority for that action plan? What steps is she taking to ensure that priorities identified go beyond simply a one-term Government and reinforce global initiatives, notably the UN Secretary-General’s seven-point plan on women’s participation in peace-building?

The denial of the rights of women and girls remains the most widespread driver of inequalities in today’s world. Gender-based violence, taking many forms, is a major element of this massive and continuing failure of human rights. Women’s empowerment and the protection of women’s rights are our greatest weapons to prevent discrimination and violence against women and girls.

[Baroness Flather]

I apologise to the noble Lord for suggesting that he might not be a man—I had no intention of doing that—but I think that he is speaking on behalf of the Benches opposite and not actually participating in the debate. However, I always enjoy his contribution, and I thought that it was very good the last time we spoke.

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather (CB)]

My Lords, this is an unusual debate, because a lot of the speeches have filled me with a warm glow—we do not get that very often. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed. He made a wonderful speech, which made clear what we were aiming for. I felt proud, and many noble Lords have already said that they felt proud today. It is a cause for pride that we are the only country among the G8 countries that has accepted this 0.7% target for aid, and the only one that has met it. I think that we need to be proud.

There has been some talk about tying ourselves up, but surely every Act of Parliament ties Parliament up in some way—and, if we do not like it, another time we can change it. I thought that that was normal practice. It does not mean that you do not do something because you are tying the future of the country; you are not tying the country's future because, if it is not working and if we get very poor, no doubt we will come here again and say, “We can’t do it”. So let us not go down that route at all.

I shall say a very few things. First, people have said that aid should be spent properly. Well, naturally it should be spent properly—and, if it is not spent properly, we should change the people who are in charge. This is almost not necessary to say, that aid should be properly directed and targeted and spent. That goes without saying.

Quite a lot of things are being said about India, which is my country of origin. I go there every year and I see what is going on. Yes, things have improved for some people. Even those who are not now starving are really not in a very good place. People who have, say, a salary of 10,000 or 12,000 rupees a month find it very difficult to keep a family because of inflation. So let us not get carried away and say that a huge number of people are doing very well. In fact, half of India is on the poverty line—and I do not know where people draw the poverty line, but in India it is pretty low.

When Christine Lagarde gave her Richard Dimbleby lecture, she said that Indian billionaires could wipe out India’s poverty just like that, if they wanted to. One of the most upsetting and hurtful things to me is that they do not give. India has now passed a law that 2% of net profits of a company must be put into corporate social responsibility. What is going to happen? A lot of Indian companies will create something, and then it will disappear or be for their own benefit. This has been going on for a long time. For tax reasons, they have created foundations from which they redraw the money for themselves. It is really appalling.

We have mentioned corruption—well, corruption is endemic in India and Africa. One of the biggest problems that they face is corruption, because nothing can get done if three-quarters or more of the people—everybody who has the opportunity—take something out. That is something to be watched. Something else that needs to be watched is the Commonwealth. We talk about it as if it was some kind of a dream, because it is not real. The two things that are most important are having no corruption and having rule of law. No country can have democracy or do well without the rule of law, and almost every country now has judges who are under the control of the Government. That is an extremely serious and worrying aspect and, if we can do anything about it, we should do it.

Quite a lot has been said about women, yet not enough. Women are half of the world’s population and they are certainly the poorest of the poor. Why? It is because men hold all that is going—they have control of money and over the bodies and lives of women. It is not as though the women are individual human beings, as we imagine. They are not; they are part of a man’s chattel. That has not changed, and we need to do far more than we are doing for women. And we need to do far more for that elephant in the room—I know that that is a cliché but it fits in this case—family planning. The world is drowning under the increase in population. However much aid we give, however is it going to meet the needs of the increasing population? Unless we do something about it, we are not going to reach any targets.

My Nigerian friend says that, since men are so lazy, if it had been only a little more difficult to create a baby, they would not have done it. But, unfortunately, it is ever so easy. They will have children and they are proud of it. They say, “I am father of 10 children”. “Do you ever feed them?” No, they do not feed them —they just create them.

Development: Post-2015 Agenda

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, for introducing this debate. As far as I can remember, I have spoken in every debate that she has brought to this Chamber. I have always supported her views and I am very pleased that we have her pushing for these issues. These days I do not cry very much because I am quite a happy person. The only thing that makes me feel tearful—I hope that it will not happen now—is thinking about the nearly 1 billion women in India and Africa whose lives are beyond imagination. It is not as if we can sit here and say, “Well, they have very difficult lives”, or, “It is so bad for them”. No, it is impossible for them. I do not know how they survive.

Yet women do most of the work. We all know that without the work of women, no work would be done at all. When I went to Jamaica, I saw a lot of women doing quite important jobs but they were given no status or importance. I said to them, “Why don’t you go on strike for one day? Just down tools and don’t do anything. If you really feel bad, look after the people who are very sick. But, please, do it for one day because your country will come to a standstill”. That is the situation: the women do the work and the men do not work very much in Africa. They work a bit more in India but do not do anything like the same amount of work as women. However, everything that is available is in the control of men.

For me, inequality is not so much about how much money we have, who should be given what or who should be helped with what. Inequality is between men and women in the developing countries. It is striking that we live with it and put up with it. I have been to many conferences where the “W” word has never been used, which is not right. Today, 1 billion women are suffering in India and Africa. What do we do? Really, we do nothing. We talk about it and we feel sorry for them. We say that the NGOs will do it but they cannot do everything. We need to look further than that, and to find means and ways of sorting out their lives.

I know that noble Lords will say that I am touting, but three years ago I published a book about how to change extreme poverty through women. It is about finding paid work for women. One of the most amazing things is that women are not in the economy of Africa or in the economy of India. Christine Lagarde spoke about how much difference it would make to Africa and India if the women were brought into the economy. If you go past the Indian subcontinent, the women are in the economy. It is quite amazing how well they have all done. Do noble Lords think that China would be where it is today without women working? It would not. Women are essential, not just to bear children—which is how they are seen—and look after men; they are essential people who work, provide and produce. We should focus on that. How can we help them to produce something or work at something and earn some money?

I have seen so many projects where, when a woman earns the smallest amount of money, she changes. Her family starts to respect her and she is empowered, although I am not fond of that awful word. She says to herself, “This is my money. I earned it”. Some women in a village who did bits of work that an NGO gave them and then sold that work told me, “It’s so wonderful not to give every penny to my husband. If my child wants something, I can buy it for him or her”. The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, mentioned Gandhiji’s quote about looking at the poorest, most deprived face and the most miserable one. I can assure noble Lords that it would be a woman’s face because they are the most deprived.

Somebody thought that we were moving forward. We are not moving forward in the poorest parts of the world. We are moving backwards. The situation of women in India is worse today than it was when I was a young girl. It is worse than when I was in my middle years. It is definitely much worse in recent times. It is so shocking to me. I cannot speak for Africa in the same way because I am not so familiar with the decades, but I see the women working all the time. The men are sitting around in the shops chatting and the women are doing all the work in the fields. That is Africa. The women are carrying loads. The men do not carry loads. You see a man walking down the street and he is not carrying anything. You see a woman walking down the road and she is carrying more than you can imagine. If she has a child, the child is carrying. It is quite amazing how that situation has developed.

In India, it is extremely sad. The situation of women is far worse today than it was in earlier days. The whole society seems to think in terms of material things, which is fine because they have nothing. What is happening to women? We talk about women who are trafficked, but all women are, in some way or another, slaves. We are slaves to the family. Not us, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin. We are all right, but we are the only ones who are. Women are slaves to their families.

They are mistreated by other women and that is another thing that I should like to mention. Women are not good to each other. Two young men from the University of Durham have just spent a week with me. They told me how bitchy the girls are to each other. One said in a surprised way, “We don’t talk like that about each other. If we have something to say, we say it. But the girls bitch about each other all the time behind their backs”. That is happening in this country. The women say, “But we are not getting on boards”. Women have not learnt how to make the most of their skills. They still compete with each other instead of competing where the power lies, which is with the men. Anyway, that is not today’s agenda.

I should like to touch on something that upsets me a lot, and that is the role of religion. In Africa, Catholics have a very strong voice. What do they say to the women? They say that it is a sin to use contraception: “You must not use contraception because it is a sin”. A woman has 10 children and the man boasts about it, but most of the children do have not enough food or they die of some illness. Is that what should be happening? What are we saying to the Pope? We should be saying, “Open your eyes and look at the lives of the women and children, and then see whether there should be contraception”. The most important thing in a woman’s life at the moment is family planning. With it, she can bring up her children properly because she will have only the number of children that she can feed. This is extremely important.

We say that people will be left behind. People are being left behind now. We will never be able to raise everyone up to any kind of standard. However, if we focus on improving the lives of women, as another noble Lord said, we will find that women are the key. They are the only ones who can bring about change in our world.

Animal Welfare: Methods of Slaughter

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Flather (CB)]

My Lords, first I must confess that I am no expert, but I wanted to come to this debate partly to say what I feel but also to hear what all the experts were going to say. This has been a very distressing and confusing debate. On the one hand the noble Lord, Lord Trees, has told us that stunning is essential, and on the other we have had the noble Lord, Lord Winston, tell us that it really is not. I do not know what to believe.

I have been here in my adopted country off and on for most of my life, since 1947, and all the time we have been gradually moving towards looking after everyone, whether they are animals, women or people needing equality. All those issues have been moving forward, and it has been a fight to get to various points that are important. That underpins the values of this society.

I do not think that the British people are much worried by other people’s faith. They do not seem to be much worried by their own; why would they take much notice of other people’s? I am not in the least concerned about other people’s faiths, but practice is another issue. I hope that any practice that is not in keeping with the ethical values of British society is carefully considered.

We have heard some differing views today. I hope that this will all be put together and looked at carefully. The labelling issue is extremely important because at least we will know what we are buying. I have been buying halal meat because I have found it to be very good; I say that openly. Now I will be worried because I do not know whether it has been done with pain to the animal or with no pain.

I am concerned about many things, and I think that all of us in this country need to watch for changes that take us in directions that we never wanted to go in, especially—the minutes do not seem to be passing.

[A noble Lord]

The Clock is not working.

[Baroness Flather]

So how long have I been speaking? Too long! How wonderful. I want to say one last thing, which is not on the animal issue: when I read about the Islamic Society at Leicester University being allowed to separate girls and boys at a meeting, it breaks my heart. We have worked terribly hard for equality and for animal welfare. Please let us keep those things in mind and not allow this country to go in that direction.

Global Health

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Flather]

My Lords, I have just had tea with a friend from Nigeria. She said that she spoke to her mother over the weekend. Her mother told her about her cousin, who had come home from having a baby and had blown up because part of the placenta had been left inside her. Nobody could give her antibiotics—no antibiotics were available—so she died. This is what we are talking about today. I unashamedly say that I am passionate about women’s issues and how women in Africa and India suffer the most. I know because I have had opportunities to visit and see for myself what goes on for women. Nobody really cares: “A woman dies, so what? There are so many others”. That is why this debate and the report of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, are so valuable. Everything the noble Lord said is absolutely correct. Any support that can be given for what he wants done would be wonderfully valuable.

We have talked about birth attendance, village women helping and so on, but it has never been done in a proper way. The noble Lord is so right to say that if things are not done properly, it is better not to do them at all. My friend also told me that in her village, the woman with the smallest hands pulls the baby out and the mother usually ends up with a fistula. Things are not getting better; they are getting worse in the developing countries and we have to recognise that. Why are they getting worse? Because the population is increasing by a very large number and more people need help.

We know that family planning is absolutely essential. We have a shortage of nurses, skilled midwives and obstetricians and an increase in population to more than 7 billion people. Every day, 800 women die from easily preventable pregnancy or childbirth-related complications. There are 215 million women in urgent need of family planning services.

Current health systems cannot meet these demands. Mix changes could increase women’s access to services, which is exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, is saying. We need access at least to the most basic of services because sometimes basic services can change a woman’s life. They can make the difference between life and death, or a woman being inflicted with a lifelong problem.

I am an active member of the APPG on Population, Development and Reproductive Health. We produced a report some years ago about maternal morbidity. No one knows the figures because we just cannot get them. However, we took a figure of 25%. The report was called Better Off Dead because, in many cases, the women would be better off dead than suffering through a lifetime of problems due to pregnancy and childbirth.

In India there were a lot of not quite hospitals but places where there were doctors and nurses. The problem has always been that doctors and nurses do not want to work in rural areas because they can earn more money in the towns. They would go to work in the towns and when people arrived at those rural centres there would be no one there. The idea was that either the nurse or the doctor would be there at all times, but this was not always the case.

While I have sympathy for the view of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, on tropical disease, the Gates Foundation has really taken that on board and has certainly done a lot in regard to African diseases. As the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, has mentioned, Mozambique, Tanzania and Malawi have seen success in the strategy of people being trained to do something. There are quite a lot of things that semi-trained people can do, such as giving antibiotics. In some places they perform surgery and it has been found that their obstetric operations are no worse than those of the doctors. If you have no one else, it is absolutely amazing that someone can do that.

I hope that this will become an issue with DfID, which has put girls and women at the top of its agenda for almost the first time. However, to be fair, Andrew Mitchell also put girls and women at the top of the agenda. We need to remember that the value of girls and women in African countries is pretty well zero. If women die or are sick, it is of no importance. If children die, it is of very little importance—perhaps a tiny bit more, but not much. It is there for us all to know and all to see.

We held a family planning summit last year. It was a wonderful thing for us to have done and I am very proud of the fact that our Government initiated it. Family planning by itself saves lives and money. One pound spent on family planning can save lives and many pounds if it is available. I hope that we will keep in mind that it is cost-effective and necessary.

I hope the Government will promote skills-mix changes and task-sharing in low and middle-income countries where family planning programmes are now being rolled out. That will improve access to family planning for the hardest to reach. They are the ones who will probably respond more to someone who is familiar with them than to someone who is from elsewhere.

Nothing can be more effective than this initiative, and I hope that the Minister will take that on board. I am not sure how much our Government can do, but perhaps the Governments in those countries could be involved. A lot of money was promised at the family planning summit, but the problem is always to get the Government of the country to support the programme. If the Government of the country do not support the programme, no matter what outside Governments do, it will never work as well as it should.

Rape in Armed Conflict

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather]

My Lords, this important topic needs to be discussed more often and at a time when many more Members are in their place. For me this is a very distressing subject because, as I get older, I find that less value is placed on women, not more. Recently we saw the most appalling incident of rape in Delhi. During the war between Bangladesh and Pakistan, some 2,000 women were kept in cages. They were not given any clothes because they would use them to hang themselves. They were used by the soldiers. Appalling things are done to women during conflict and in war situations. But a woman who becomes pregnant because she has been raped, perhaps many times, is supposed to have the baby. What is that baby going to do for her? Is that baby going to be a child of love? It will be a child of hate and a reminder for the rest of a woman’s life of what happened to her. How can we inflict that kind of situation on any woman anywhere?

We are very protected in this country; we are sitting in a cocoon, but other countries are not so cocooned. The Americans are more cocooned than anybody else in the world and I do not think they understand what the real world is like. I do not think they understand what happens to women during conflicts in poor countries. It is appalling that they cannot see the need.

Many years ago, during the Bosnia conflict, Marie Stopes International held a function in this place. Other NGOs were saying that they could not perform abortions because there was not enough time for counselling and there were no proper operating theatres. My goodness, those women had been raped from morning till night. They did not want counselling or proper operating theatres, they just did not want to bear the children. That is the bottom line. Why should a woman be forced to bear a child that she never wanted and could not want?

The only way forward is for DfID to separate itself completely from all the US-funded agencies and concentrate on abortion and women’s health. Why bother with anything else? Women comprise half the population and they do not get much attention in this world. It is time that we in this country decided that all our money should go to save and to serve women. This is what I would like to see. It is time to stop pussyfooting around and to do something about it.

International Development

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My noble friend is absolutely right, and that is why we have a relentless focus on results and achieving value for money. I would like to give two examples. Every year, nearly 2 million children die from vaccine-preventable diseases, so I am proud that this Government have pledged to vaccinate more than 80 million children over the next five years. Of course, she is also right that it is through education and research, and through ensuring that our aid is delivered in a focused and targeted way, that we will be able to receive the sort of results that we are looking for, and I hope that we will succeed.

[Baroness Flather]

My Lords, can the Minister tell me how DfID is counteracting the influence of the Vatican in this area? As we all know, the population of Italy has dropped like a ton, so they are not bothered about this issue, but it does affect developing countries.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, faith organisations play a very important part in working to ensure that we are able to give choices to women and girls on when and how they have their babies. It is not about the Government issuing edicts on how family planning should be accessed but about encouraging choice, so that women are able to make that choice and, it is hoped, have better control over their lives.

Poverty in the Developing World

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather]

My Lords, as other noble Lords have done, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for getting this debate on the agenda. I am being selfish, because it gives me an opportunity to talk on a subject that I feel passionately and strongly about. The noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, has spoken about some of the things I would have mentioned—that is, the situation of women.

Who are the poorest of the poor in the poorest countries? It is the women. They eat last when everyone has been fed. The girl child does not get as much food as the boy child. We all know these things, and we should be talking about women, first and foremost, because they keep the family going and, in fact, they keep everything going. If women stopped working, those countries would stop working.

I begin by congratulating the Government on what DfID is doing. At last, after a long time, it has returned to look at issues that concern women—family planning, education for women and girls, and all matter of things that help women. Unless we can help them, nothing can change. It is women, not men, who will bring about change to poverty. Men have been ruling the roost for at least 2,000 years that we know of. Has anything changed? No, it has not. They do not work as hard as women; they do not take responsibility like women do; and I disagree with the noble Lord who said that, if we educate children, everything will change. Who will educate the children? The women will. It is the women whom we have to provide for. We have to give them the ability to send their children to school.

I know of the many terrible things that are done to women, because I have been involved in development for 18 out of the 20 years that I have been in your Lordships' House. I have seen projects and the situation of women. I have visited the fistula hospital in Addis Ababa, where there are rows of cots with little bundles on them. You cannot see them without getting tears in your eyes—I might break down, so I apologise in advance. I asked them, “Are these all very young girls?”. They said, “No. Most of them are very malnourished”. The women cannot give birth, either because they do not have the strength or because they are too young.

In Nigeria you can buy a girl of 12 for two goats—and they do. I have a new friend from Nigeria. When her mother became a widow, his brothers came and took everything away from the house. They not only took every thing away, they took his two younger wives as well because they could work. They left my friend’s mother with all the children—13 of them—with nothing to feed them on and no possibility of looking after them. She parcelled out the children to friends and neighbours—one child here, one child there—and eventually got a job cleaning toilets in a hospital for £30 a month. Then she took back all the children. My friend was educated by the Commonwealth Countries League education fund. She put herself through university by going to Lagos overnight and buying things that she could sell in her town. She did this constantly to pay for her university education.

Women are incredible. Give them an opportunity and they will grab it and run. Three-quarters of Indians live on 30p a day. Yesterday, the Secretary of State said that the poorest people are in India. Certainly, the most malnourished are. All statistics tell us that Indians are the most malnourished people in the world—even more so than Africans. Yet India is booming; that is the other side of the coin. There is so much money in India now that it makes you feel ill, because it is in your face all the time, in every city—money, money, money. They say that Indians have $3 trillion in Swiss banks. None of it goes anywhere; it sits in the banks, or is spent in India in a grotesque and obscene way. Nothing is spent on the poor. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett wrote to Indian billionaires to try to arrange a meeting. They did not even get a reply. The billionaires did not say that they would not come; they did not even reply. This is the position in India, despite the fact that it is booming.

To some extent it is right to ask why a lot of aid should go to India when the Indians do not want to help themselves. The Government give money for poverty alleviation, but where does it go? It goes to all the hands that it passes through: hardly 5 per cent reaches the poor. Corruption is a cancer in Africa and on the Indian subcontinent. It is horrifying to see how little of what is provided reaches the people whom it is meant to reach.

I have talked about all the things that I worry about. Now I will say something about how we can start changing extreme poverty. We should start employing women. In India and Africa, people will not employ women. I was told by a number of big businesses, “Women are not trained”. Of course, the boys come out of their mothers’ wombs ready trained. It is a question of giving training to women. They learn very quickly; they are hungry for everything. If you help a woman to earn money, what does she do? Does she gamble or drink? No, she spends it on her family. She sends her children to school and improves her health and that of her family. The only way to change the future is to work with women and give them opportunities to earn money. That will change them within weeks and months, not years. It is not a question of education; they will not get education. However, if they have the resources they will certainly give education to their children. No man has ever said to me, “I want my children to go to school”, but every woman in every project that I have visited has said, “I want my children to go to school. I want my daughters to go to school. I do not want them to have my sort of life”.

Providing family planning and financial resources is the way forward. Women in India are used as hod carriers. My builder was appalled to hear that. The Indians do not see them; they do not see what women do. Let us make a plan to help women to earn money, because that is the way forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I join all noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for securing this important debate today and for his most informed speech. I know he is passionate about his work on conflict prevention and resolution and on Malawi. I am sure he will agree with me that the quality of contributions today has been outstanding. While a number of questions have been raised, on the whole we can say that the whole House is committed to seeing that British aid produces a sustainable and positive outcome on the lives of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

The British people have consistently demonstrated their generosity and their far-sightedness in responding to the needs of the poorest people in the world. That is why the coalition Government’s decision to live up to Britain’s international development commitments, despite the difficult economic circumstances we face, is something that we believe the whole country can be very proud of. We will not balance the books on the backs of the poorest because we know that it is in our moral and national interest to help to achieve the millennium development goals. British aid has already helped half a billion people lift themselves out of crushing poverty, saved the lives of 6 million children through immunisation and put tens of millions more children into school.

However, the scale of the challenge is immense and we need to deliver more than ever before by focusing our effort where the need is greatest, not only saving but transforming millions of lives by providing access to food, clean drinking water, basic healthcare and education. Our approach is defined by our determination to deliver the greatest possible return on our investment, both for the world’s poorest people and for the British taxpayer. That is why since the election we have undertaken three reviews: of our bilateral programmes, our support through multilateral organisations and our response to humanitarian emergencies.

The results of the bilateral aid review have enabled us to direct UK funding to the countries where it will have the most impact on the poorest people. For example, we have scaled up our programmes in countries such as Pakistan and Ethiopia, where British taxpayers’ money can help even more people to access basic necessities. We are ending programmes to countries which do not need aid, such as Russia and China, and we will instead work in partnership with them to help reduce poverty around the world. We will invest more of our resources where the need is greatest and where our money will have the most impact. Other donors will continue to work in countries where they are better placed to help.

I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, about India. India may be a growing economy but there are more poor people in India than there are in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. This is therefore not the time to end our aid—

[Baroness Flather]

I did say that India has the largest number of poor people; I also said that there is now an increasingly large number of very rich people who are not doing very much.

[Baroness Verma]

We will work with India to encourage those very rich people to help the poor people but in the mean time we will focus on the three poorest states–Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa—and start to make a transition away from aid towards a partnership in which we will work together to build prosperity in the world and reduce poverty wherever it remains.

The multilateral aid review took a long, hard look at the value for money offered by 43 of the multilateral organisations through which Britain has, until now, invested aid. It assessed the relevance of each organisation or fund to the UK’s development objectives and their ability to deliver results on the ground. This rigorous and robust exercise which reported in March has provided, for the first time, a comprehensive overview of the strengths and weaknesses of each multilateral agency or organisation. The review confirmed that the multilateral system is a critical complement to what the UK Government can do but it also found evidence of significant weaknesses.

The review has helped the UK to make evidence-based decisions about how we deliver funding through all of the multilateral agencies to make the greatest possible impact. This includes significant increases in funding to some of the best performers, and a withdrawal of DfID core funding from four organisations that make a poor contribution to UK development objectives. The review has also given a real impetus to efforts to improve the international system. It has generated significant interest in other countries, civil society and the institutions themselves. We will be working with all of these stakeholders to strengthen the ability of the multilateral organisations to deliver value for money and better results on the ground. Improvements will benefit both the taxpayer and those living in poverty.

The humanitarian emergency response review, which was chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, proposed placing humanitarian response and resilience to disasters at the heart of the development agenda, better integrating it with development programmes. This is a challenging vision for DfID and for other development agencies, and we are now considering all the noble Lord’s recommendations. The Secretary of State for International Development will present DfID’s response to the report in the coming weeks.

I shall address some current situations. It is critical that change in the Middle East and north Africa is met with and supported by an ambitious and effective international response. DfID is working with the EU, international financial institutions and the UN to ensure timely and generous support for greater political openness, better governance and economic opportunity for all. In addition, our bilateral programmes in Yemen and the Occupied Palestinian Territories continue to support delivery of basic services for the poor and vulnerable, and to address humanitarian needs.

In Libya, Britain is taking a leading role in international efforts to protect civilians from ongoing attacks by the Gaddafi regime and to help avert a humanitarian crisis. The situation in the west of the country is getting worse every day. Towns, including Misrata, are under siege and civilians lack access to basic necessities such as food, water and electricity. There is also a shortage of some crucial medical supplies. The UK was one of the first countries to support the humanitarian needs of the Libyan people. So far, we have given more than £13 million for medical and food supplies and emergency shelter, and assisted the evacuation of more than 17,000 vulnerable people.

We are increasing our efforts to tackle poverty in a number of conflict-affected and fragile states. Helping to address conflicts in the developing world, and fighting poverty among those caught in wars and violence, must be central to our aid policy if we are to help end global poverty. Nine of the 10 poorest countries in the world are fragile states. In Africa, more than two-thirds of the poorest people live in countries affected by conflict and fragility. Not a single low-income, fragile or conflict-affected country has yet achieved a millennium development goal.

That is why this Government have committed to invest 30 per cent of UK aid in fragile and conflict-affected states. We are taking an integrated approach, bringing a sense of unity and common purpose to Whitehall to tackle instability and conflict overseas. This work will make a real difference to the health, education, safety and opportunities of the some of the poorest and most vulnerable people.

The World Bank’s World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security, and Development, released earlier this month, has emphasised that citizen security, justice and jobs are all needed to break the cycle of violence and conflict. The UK is already investing in results in these crucial areas. For example, the bilateral aid review sets out how we will create 200,000 jobs in Afghanistan, train 3,000 Somaliland police in human rights and establish 300 community security schemes in fragile areas of Pakistan.

I am pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, supports DfID’s programmes which place emphasis on women and girls. Like her, we strongly believe that transforming the lives of women and girls is the only route to helping eliminate poverty. This House has debated these issues a number of times recently, including in celebrating the centenary of International Women’s Day. However, the challenges remain. Not only do girls and women suffer disproportionately from poverty, with a third of a million women dying from avoidable deaths in pregnancy and childbirth, but 10 million more girls than boys are out of school. My noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes spoke about women holding the key to faster progress on poverty reduction. She spoke about the two chickens given to a woman to start a small business. Recent research has shown that, for example, a $10 increase in women’s income achieves the same benefits to their children’s health and nutrition as a $110 increase in men’s income. That is what I call value for money.

The Government are therefore committed to putting girls and women at the front and centre of international development. DfID has published A New Strategic Vision for Girls and Women, committing us by 2015 to saving the lives of at least 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth and 250,000 newborn babies, allowing at least 10 million women to access modern methods of family planning, supporting over 9 million children in primary education, of which at least half will be girls, and 700,000 girls in secondary education, helping 2.3 million women to access jobs and 18 million women to access financial services, and working in at least 15 countries to prevent violence against girls and women.

We also campaigned hard for the creation of the new UN Women organisation, headed by Michelle Bachelet. We were one of the first to provide funding for the establishment of the new agency and we look forward to its first strategic plan so that we can provide longer-term funding. We are delighted that Mrs Bachelet will visit Britain on 16 and 17 May.

We want to empower women to make choices for their own and their families’ health, and to make pregnancy and childbirth safe for mothers and babies. The noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, highlighted the great plight faced by many mothers not just in poor countries but in this country too. People—often men—think that childbirth is easy. I wish that they could have a jolly good go at it just once.

As I said earlier, at least a third of a million women and girls die in pregnancy and childbirth each year and 500 million give birth without skilled care. At the end of last year, the UK Government published their Choices for Women framework for results, which sets out how UK aid will save the lives of thousands of women and children. The framework also contains specific commitments to deliver results for the poorest women, who have the greatest need but are being left behind, by focusing on the poorest 40 per cent of households. It also has a particular focus on education for adolescents to build girls’ capability to make healthy choices.

Another example of our very practical approach to improving the health of poor people relates to vaccinations. Immunisation is one of the most cost-effective health interventions available. Our support to the GAVI Alliance, which increases access to immunisation in developing countries, has so far has helped to immunise 288 million children in the world’s poorest countries and to prevent 5.4 million deaths between 2000 and 2009.

At the Davos World Economic Forum in January 2011, the Prime Minister also announced that the UK would double its commitment to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, provided other donors step forward with additional contributions and countries build polio eradication into their routine immunisation programmes. An additional 45 million children will be vaccinated against polio as a result, most of them in the poorest and remotest regions of the world.

Transparency is essential to delivering and demonstrating results so that taxpayers in the UK see where aid money goes and citizens in poor countries can check that it is being used properly—and shout if it is not. The Government’s UKaid Transparency Guarantee increases the amount of aid information published. DfID was also the first donor to publish information in line with a new international aid transparency standard.

The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, mentioned the importance of wealth creation and economic development. We all know that the private sector is the crucial engine for economic growth, which provides new jobs, new opportunities and new markets to lift people out of poverty. However, not enough has been done in the past to support the private sector. DfID has now set up a new private sector department to become more business-savvy and work closely with private sector—both in the UK and with entrepreneurs in poor countries—to drive private sector growth.

DfID will over the next four years increase access to microfinance using technologies such as mobile banking and give small and medium-sized enterprises greater access to financial services. That will help 50 million people and small firms to get access to savings, credit, insurance and other financial services, which is critical to helping them withstand economic shocks, increase their incomes and pay for basic services such as health and education.

It is the world’s poorest who will be hit first and hardest by climate change, yet they are least responsible for its causes and least able to cope with its effects. Left unchecked, climate change will cruelly impede our progress towards development goals and jeopardise our existing gains, but it is not just poor countries and poor people that will be hit. There will also be a knock-on effect on our security and national interest. That is why the UK is showing international leadership in supporting poverty reduction by helping developing countries to adapt to climate change, take up low-carbon growth and tackle deforestation.

For example, in Bangladesh, we have made it possible for more than 90,000 homes to be raised on other platforms to protect 500,000 families and their livestock from seasonal monsoon floods. On low-carbon development, we will give greater emphasis to partnering developing countries to help them attract private investment.

I am running out of time, so I will march through responses to some of the questions asked. The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, asked about the publication of the stabilisation strategy; it will be published in the coming months. As soon as it is, we will inform him. He also asked whether education will now not be a priority. Education is fundamental to everything we do; it is the key to beating poverty and the greatest investment we can make for global prosperity and the future of our world.

The noble Lords, Lord Chidgey and Lord McConnell, asked about the European Union. The MAR found that the European Union budget programmes are less poverty-focused than the EDF, but that they address some of the key issues that other organisations cannot. Therefore, it is important that we ensure that the programmes reform their systems to deliver the best outcomes. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, also asked about the publication of country office plans. Operational plans for all DfID country offices and for departments in the UK will be published during May.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, whom I wish well on her five days of living on less than £1, made the point that we have many challenges ahead. They will be addressed only if everyone signs up to the commitment. That is why we encourage other donors to live up to their commitments—what they have promised and pledged—but also to commit to 0.7 per cent of GNP, as the UK has by 2013. To answer the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, that will be legislated for. The noble Baronesses, Lady Warwick and Lady Kinnock, asked about the conditionality of UK aid on good governance. I agree that that is crucial, but we must not abandon those countries that do not have good governance. It is really about making sure that what they are doing has oversight from donors.

I have run out of time. To those to whom I have not responded today, I promise to respond in writing.

Population Growth

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather]

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on this subject, so I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, for introducing it. I think that we can no longer call this a toxic subject. I have always been involved in the issues of population and family planning, because I come from India, where you cannot avoid worrying about population increase. Until even 10 years ago, population was not a subject that people talked about as we are doing today. Even three or four years ago we were not quite so open about the issue. It is one of the most important issues that we have not tackled or considered and, as has been said, we really do need to think about it.

I should just like to say a few words about the history of Britain’s contribution to family planning. DfID has had some very strange Secretaries of State. Clare Short, for example, dropped family planning completely when she was Secretary of State. Hilary Benn took it up again, and since then DfID has been in a very good phase. It has given £20 million per year under a five-year grant to the UNFPA. Bilateral aid has also increased from £55 million under a three-year programme to £80 million and then, this year, to £110 million. That is for family planning and commodities, which is not bad for this country. I am very pleased to say that Andrew Mitchell’s heart is in the right place on population issues.

I commend DfID for another thing: this year it had a policy paper on abortion and now our Government and DfID accept it. It is an extremely important thing that women have access to safe abortion because so many of them die from botched attempts. And if women cannot feed their children, their children will die, or they themselves will die. That is simply not acceptable.

What is missing in all the words that have been said this evening is the position of women. Women make up half of the world’s population but in the poor countries they have no status and no ability to look after their own affairs. They cannot do anything or say anything because they have no power. We must help them gain some of the power, which we can do by helping them to earn money rather than through education. For 45 years people have been talking about educating women, but how do you educate each woman in a poor country? Let us start by giving them an opportunity to earn money. When they can do so, they will send their children to school and the next generation will be educated. That is the only way that education can come to poorer countries.

I was a little surprised when the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, brought up the situation in the UK. The situation here is also worrying. I was not going to talk about it this evening but, now that he has mentioned it, I feel that I can as well. Some of the minority communities have very large families and the health of these women always deeply concerns me. I do not care how many children people have but I care about the fact that women here suffer from the same health problems as they do in their countries of origin. When the cap comes in I do not know how they will manage.