Overseas Aid: Charities and Faith-based Organisations

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, on behalf of the whole House, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, and I congratulate him on his maiden speech. The noble Lord has a distinguished history of public service. As we heard, he rose through the ranks of the Labour Party and the GMB union, culminating in seven years as the Labour Party’s general secretary. He joins a number of other distinguished noble Lords on the Benches opposite who came from that office. During that time, I understand that he dramatically improved the party’s financial position, so perhaps he might make some important contributions in our debates on the economy. I understand that, among his hobbies, he enjoys snowboarding and playing the bagpipes. While I do not think he will have the opportunity to demonstrate his snowboarding skills here, I hope that maybe we will have a chance to hear him on the bagpipes, although probably not in the Chamber. He is also a black belt in karate, so I understand the Opposition Chief Whip is keen for him to join the Whips’ Office so he can put his talents to good use. I am sure I speak for the whole House when I say that I look forward to hearing from him in the coming years on his key interests in workers’ rights, social mobility, housing and homelessness.

I congratulate my noble friend Lady Stroud on so ably introducing this debate. I am particularly pleased that we are debating this topic because small charities and faith organisations play such an important role in helping to create a diverse and, therefore, more resilient and thriving aid sector. Before starting, I want to highlight my interests as listed in the register. Through my work as a co-chair on the APPG on Women, Peace and Security, I connect with many charities. I am also a trustee of the Chalker Foundation for Africa and a patron of Afghan Connection.

We should be proud that the UK was the first G7 country to achieve the UN target of spending 0.7% of GNI on aid. Faith-based and secular humanitarian organisations have a long history of responding to people in need. In recent years, the world has witnessed the phenomenal growth of civil society and the proliferation of charities and NGOs within that. While there are natural caveats about ensuring accountability, efficacy and transparency, this increase has meant more avenues through which the UK can deliver aid. However, all too often small charities are overlooked in spite of their valuable contribution to development. With DfID’s stated intention of delivering value for money, small charities generally have the added advantage of low overheads. They are often started by a person with a passion who may work all hours with almost no remuneration, often with the involvement of volunteers. In many cases, they tend to specialise because they have identified a gap that needs addressing. Although generally not having many resources, they are often innovative, light on their feet and flexible in their approach.

However, in spite of many such charities doing excellent work, they struggle to find funds. As any politician knows, fundraising is hard and time-consuming, in terms both of running events and trying to access grants. For most small charities, trying to attain government funding from DfID or the FCO has been almost impossible, yet the majority of development aid, with the figure sometimes put at 80% to 85%, comes from Governments.

While the MDGs halved the number of people globally living in extreme poverty, the SDGs have the ambitious goal of “leaving no one behind”. I am sure that the Minister will agree that a focus on women’s empowerment and girls’ education are the two linchpins in progress towards the majority of the global goals. To do this, work needs to be done at two levels. First, getting the constitution of a country right is important to ensure equality and equal opportunity. At government levels, work needs to be done on setting up healthcare and education systems. There needs to be security, law and order, land rights and institutions that can deliver for people.

Development aid is good at creating change at the national level. However, to really make change in a country, work needs to be done at grass-roots levels too. If not, it is hard for national laws and policies to reach people out in the country miles away from the capital and, all too often, inequality and customary law continue to preside. I have seen it on some of my visits overseas. I remember in Liberia asking women in a village why they were not bringing perpetrators of sexual violence to account. They told me that the elders would not let them visit the policeman in the next-door village, who would have given them access to the national legal system. They were made to come before the village elders—all men—who saw the situation very differently.

I have also seen how working at the grass roots can bring about enormous social change. I visited a village in Mali where a project on FGM had begun by persuading the elders that FGM was harmful to their women and girls. They had espoused this and had helped create change. It is small charities, these local, community-focused groups, which can really make a difference at the grass roots.

I have mentioned funding. As already mentioned by my noble friend Lady Stroud, it is hard for a small organisation to fill in the complex and lengthy application forms that DfID demands. I question whether it is really necessary to ask them to do so in the same way that is asked of a much larger NGO, which will usually have dedicated staff. Evaluation is important, but the processes are arguably too onerous. If we ask small charities to do this, all their time will be spent on applications and evaluations rather than on delivery, which is after all what they are about and what we want.

I congratulate the Government on launching the Small Charities Challenge Fund, aimed at charities which have income between £25,000 and £250,000. This is an excellent start. However, at the moment, it is a tiny proportion of the aid money spent. Are there plans to expand this fund? There are also quite a number of charities that are slightly bigger than this—medium-sized charities—which will not be able to apply. Are there plans to help with funding those? For example, Afghan Connection will not be able to apply for this fund as it has a slightly larger income, yet it appears to be too small for most other DfID funds. It is delivering children’s education in remote parts of Afghanistan, often when invited in by the local elders—exactly the type of project that is in line with what the UK Government encourage.

I understand that the Small Charities Challenge Fund is open only to small British charities. Are there plans to help with the funding of small overseas NGOs, rather than them necessarily having to rely on UK-based partners? As mentioned earlier, often the local NGO on the ground is the most effective, while it is often impossible for British NGOs to get into conflict-affected and fragile states. UK Aid Match is also an excellent scheme by which DfID matches the funds that a small charity raises. This has the added benefit of giving people a say about where they want DfID’s money to be spent.

The fact that DfID gives grants for only one year can be problematic. In some cases, especially where overseas posts have had to bid for funding, the money may arrive several months late. The charity may thus have a shorter time to spend it. It therefore has only a small window in which it can concentrate on the actual project and not worry about whether it will be able to continue after the year-end. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister might think about giving small charities longer-term funding over, for example, three years. Being effective on the ground means building relationships, and change can be effected much more easily where trust has had time to build up.

It is, of course, essential that small charities get appropriate funding; getting too little or too much can have a detrimental effect. Historically, DfID has always preferred to give larger grants as they are less manpower-intensive, but maybe other models can be followed. For example, in Iraq I met Hanaa Edwar, who won the Sean MacBride Peace Prize. She told me that she had acted as a funding platform by applying for funding and then distributing it to small NGOs. That adds one more step to the transparency chain, but has DfID considered a model such as this in fragile and conflict-affected countries?

Faith-based organisations can play a critical role, as we have also heard. I saw this in Iraq, where the Catholic Church was offering respite to Christian IDPs and refugees as they were not safe in the UN camps. Part of the raison d’être of Christian NGOs such as Tearfund, World Vision and Christian Aid is that they work through local partners because they believe that, for the most part, engaging in humanitarian and development work through local churches adds value. Tearfund succinctly sums it up in its recent report on this issue by highlighting the unique role that local churches and faith groups can play in fighting poverty. It is because they are integral in their communities, inspirational to their congregations and influential through their networks. It is not just Christian organisations; those such as Islamic Aid can often reach into countries and places where western organisations are unable to go.

When a disaster strikes, response times can make all the difference in saving people’s lives. Faith organisations are often among the first responders on the scene and provide the place where people go when they have lost everything. In the long run, capacity-building through churches and local faith organisations should be commended as one of the ways to build community resilience and as a means of helping to work towards the global goals. I am glad that the UK Government are now more welcoming to applications from these organisations.

There is one more area that I would quickly like to touch on: organisations dedicated to advocacy and lobbying need more support. Too often in the past, well-meaning people coming from outside have tried to impose change in developing and post-conflict countries. However, change really happens only when it is owned and driven by the people of that country themselves. Building change means building movements and campaigns, yet funding is nearly always directed to the easily measured project work. Too often in fragile countries, those who could have been instrumental in effecting societal change have had to dedicate themselves to delivering projects because they cannot afford to work for nothing.

I heartily and sincerely congratulate Her Majesty’s Government on their approach to international development and direction of travel, but I hope that we can develop our work with smaller and faith-based charities. I hope my noble friend will agree that we need to work with big and small NGOs of all kinds if we are to reach the goal of the SDGs and really leave no one behind. I leave your Lordships with the thoughts of the US anthropologist Margaret Mead, who once said:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”.

International Women’s Day: Progress on Global Gender Equality

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, and I much admire her wonderful work on promoting family planning, reproductive health and safe abortion.

Today we celebrate International Women’s Day, and this year it is particularly special. A few weeks ago we debated the role of women in public life and the progress made in increasing their representation in Parliament, 100 years after women—some women—were granted the vote. It was an occasion to look back and see how far we have come. I welcome today’s debate, so ably introduced by my noble friend Lady Williams, which gives us an opportunity to look forward.

There is still no country in the world where women are equal to men in political, economic and social terms. We are indeed lucky to live in a country with a Government dedicated to gender equality and who put women’s rights at the heart of international development. I congratulate DfID and the Secretary of State on their Strategic Vision for Gender Equality: A Call to Action, which was announced yesterday. This recognises the need for all of us to take action to make gender equality become a reality. We have come a long way but, as others have already mentioned, there is still a long way to go both in the UK and globally.

I take this opportunity to declare an interest, due to my involvement with GAPS and other NGOs as listed on the register. The UK has a global reputation as a leader on gender equality, but yesterday nominations closed for places on CEDAW—the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Why have we never put forward a candidate? CEDAW consists of 23 experts from around the world. Every country that signs up to CEDAW is obliged to submit reports, and the committee, having considered these, addresses its concerns and recommendations to the state party as concluding observations. What kind of message does it give to other countries that the UK continues to ignore this very important global committee?

Goal 5 of the sustainable development goals adopted by the UN in 2015 seeks to,

“achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”,

and includes nine targets. Ensuring the inclusion of that goal was a big achievement. However, it is only in the years to come that we will see how effective it has been. Too often, countries sign up to international conventions but then not enough is done to implement them. After all, all countries that are members of the UN have to sign up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, yet 70 years later we are still pushing for gender equality.

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s focus on girls’ education, because it is hard to take part in today’s world without any. Still, an estimated 131 million girls worldwide remain out of school.

The statistics are stark. About a quarter of girls today between the ages of 15 and 24 have never completed primary school and two-thirds of the world’s illiterate people are women. As we have heard, poverty drives some parents to deny their daughters education as they need them to work. In some countries, parents pull their daughters out of school when they reach puberty because they are worried that they will be raped and, if pregnant, they are then unmarriageable. In poor countries, people cannot afford to have an unmarriageable girl.

I mentioned rape, but violence against women is still an epidemic across the world, with one in three women experiencing it in their lifetime. Despite all the work and publicity, even here in the UK two women are killed a week. Nothing can be more frightening for a child than seeing their mother being beaten up. This will have a profound effect on them for the rest of their lives and on the whole community.

Conflict causes rates of domestic violence to rocket. In countries such as Afghanistan, it is estimated that 87% of women suffer from domestic violence. At a symposium in Kabul last summer, I heard a psychologist talk about the fact that, because of high levels of violence in the family, it will be hard to achieve a peaceful society there.

The Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, launched in 2012 by William Hague—now the noble Lord, Lord Hague of Richmond—brought this issue to global attention. As noble Lords are aware, I was a member of the Select Committee on this issue, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, and sit on the steering board of the initiative. The initiative was always going to be a marathon and not a sprint, as the situation was of such magnitude that it needed sustained effort. So I press the Minister to ensure that the UK does not lose focus on this important issue. Will the UK lead another global summit in 2019 to assess progress?

One has only to look at the conflicts raging today and the high levels of sexual violence committed by Daesh against the Yazidis to see how relevant the initiative is. Ending impunity is key to this. Were any Daesh men held for these war crimes when Mosul and Raqqa fell? What has the UK done and spoken out about in relation to this?

Since the adoption of the women, peace and security agenda in 2000, only 27% of peace agreements have referenced women. Between 1992 and 2011, women made up only 9% of negotiators in peace processes and 4% of signatories, and between 2008 and 2012 this fell to 3%. Yet we know that where women are included in peace processes there is a 20% increase in the probability of an agreement lasting at least two years and a 35% increase in the probability of an agreement lasting at least 15 years.

The UK holds the pen at the UN on women, peace and security, and we launched our latest national action plan in January. However, 18 years after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, why are Syrian women not allowed at the peace table? We should not have to justify why women should be included in peace processes; we should ask men to justify why they are excluded.

In the aftermath of the Kabul process for peace and security co-operation last week, we must not forget the Afghan women who have put their lives at risk to take part in public life. It is imperative that their rights are not traded away to bring the Taliban around the table. How can we in the UK exert global influence to make sure that more countries adhere to what they have signed up to?

Next week, like my noble friend Lady Anelay, I and many other women from around the world head to the UN for the Commission on the Status of Women. The theme will be rural women, with the review theme looking at women in the media and information and communications technologies. What would we like the effect of this meeting to be? The CSW is the second-largest meeting of the year at the UN, yet almost nothing is heard about it in the media. Around 5,000 women from around the world attend, and we should send out a strong message about some of the terrible suffering endured by women right now, today: the Rohingya women; the women in Yemen and South Sudan; the women and their families being bombed in eastern Ghouta, to name but a few. While CSW is enormously welcomed as a meeting, I hope that the UK will work with others to improve its impact to resound across the world.

I enormously welcome this debate, because we still have much work to do. I look forward to helping our Government to further the cause of gender equality both here at home and around the world.

Air Guns

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I said in my answer to my noble friend Lord Black, we are certainly looking at the regime in Scotland as part of our review and in coming to our conclusions.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend please tell me how many people were prosecuted last year for injuring animals in this way?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I can certainly tell my noble friend about the number of fatalities. I know that the number of these crimes has fallen. I am trying to find the figure, but will have to write to her about that.

Syria: Refugees

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what help they are giving refugees and internally displaced persons in the countries bordering Syria who have been displaced by fighting and the actions of Daesh.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK is at the forefront of the international humanitarian response to the Syria crisis. We are providing life-saving and life-changing support to millions of people displaced inside Syria, and to millions of Syrian refugees living in neighbouring countries as a result of Daesh and the ongoing conflict.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for his Answer. Last September, I went to Kurdistan to observe its referendum and while in Irbil, I visited St Joseph’s Cathedral. There, the church is helping Christian refugees and internally displaced people who, I was told, are not able to go to the UN refugee camps as they are not safe there. I understand that this is the case in Jordan too. Is DfID aware of this situation and what are Her Majesty’s Government going to do to investigate these claims? Please can they take it up with the UNHCR and UNICEF to ensure that everyone, regardless of their religion, is able to get the help and protection to which they are entitled? Would my noble friend be willing to meet me and others who are interested in this, so that I can raise these matters further?

[Lord Bates]

I would certainly be willing to meet my noble friend. In fact just this morning, I met the All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief and earlier I met with the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and my noble friend Lady Nicholson. I believe there is repeated evidence that there is no fair treatment in the refugee camps. That is deeply worrying because the UN Convention on Refugees advocates against any discrimination at all. Her Majesty’s ambassador in Amman, Jordan, is hosting a roundtable on 23 January with faith leaders and the UNHCR so that they can present their findings and the evidence they have received, so as to seek to remedy any discrimination against people fleeing the terrible actions of Daesh and other organisations.

DfID Economic Development Strategy

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for allowing me to contribute and in particular I thank my noble friend Lady Nicholson for introducing this important debate. Encouraging economic development is the way to help countries lift themselves out of poverty, and ultimately the goal of development strategy has to be to make countries sustainable and able to stand on their own feet.

Many of the poorest countries have the ability to generate economic growth but too often they are hampered by lack of knowledge, political instability, conflict and corruption. Today’s world is complex and those of us lucky enough to live in a developed country need to help. That is why we should be proud that we in the UK not only give 0.7% of GNI in aid, we have enshrined it into legislation to ensure that it continues. While this still appears to be somewhat controversial, we need to stand firm. Not only is it the right thing to do, but by helping those countries to gain stability it will help to cut migration flows and stem potential conflicts. Conflict creates poverty, but poverty can also create conflict.

Investing in the poorest countries is one tool we can use. I congratulate our Government on having increased the budget to the CDC by £3.5 million. Investing in private sector businesses has the benefit not only of generating income but of creating direct and indirect employment and thus having a real impact on individuals, families and communities. The general public here in the UK is quite rightly demanding that aid is well spent but supporting businesses in the most fragile countries does have risks and sometimes there will be failures. I would like to ask my noble friend the Minister about DfID’s appetite for risk, and for transparency and accountability of the long-term investments that the CDC makes. How are the CDC’s successful investments accounted for in the ODA budget—are they put against the spending as they create income? Is there more that we can do to encourage UK private sector investment in businesses in developing countries?

Besides investing in existing businesses, stimulating business creation is also important. As my noble friend Lady Jenkin has already said, microfinance is an important grass-roots tool to encourage people to set up businesses. I have seen examples in Africa where a tiny bit of seed capital has helped women to set up stalls in the marketplace and create an income. Can the Minister say what the Government can do to encourage more microfinance opportunities?

Besides encouraging capital investment, there are other ways that we can help. The Hammamet conference last year, organised by the British Council, brought together youth from across the MENA region, where there is much unemployment but no culture of entrepreneurship. So perhaps through our trade envoys and attachés, ways could be found to link entrepreneurs in the UK with aspiring entrepreneurs in developing countries to encourage and assist. For example, getting produce into an international market can often be a problem. This is an area where the UK has speciality skills. Perhaps we can look to specifically link expertise and mentoring to help increase access to markets as well as to help with marketing. Too often, products are sold and then packaged and marketed elsewhere, losing the added value to the producer.

However, we should not overlook that, all too often, the barriers to economic prosperity are poverty, conflict and corruption. All the work done by DfID through its programming and the UK embassies on the ground to help with stability and to encourage law and order, border controls and anti-corruption laws is to be applauded. Of course, too often it is women who are the poorest of the poor, so I particularly welcome all the work that the UK is engaged in to counter violence against women and to promote equality.

I thank noble Lords for letting me intercede today. I congratulate DfID, under a Conservative Government, on leading the way in creating this important strategy and all it is doing to encourage economic development in the poorest countries.

Overseas Development Assistance

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Of course we are not talking about going it alone. The OECD and DAC process is made up of 30 countries. It is a consensus operation and we have to work with colleagues to bring about the changes that we seek. The Secretary of State convened a meeting of 18 NGO leaders in the department last Wednesday, which I attended. It was a very productive session. The first thing it recognised was that the existing rules were not perfect. The second thing, which we are absolutely sure about, was that it was essential to preserve the primary purpose of aid; namely, economic development. That will remain our focus as we consult colleagues on the DAC, NGOs and other parties here.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, it is often the small organisations working at grass-roots level that can really make a change and a difference to the poorest communities around the world, but they find it very hard to apply for these grants; there are often very complicated procedures to get the money. Will my noble friend please tell me what is being done to help these small organisations access funds?

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Small organisations often bring innovation to the process, passion and low overheads, which are deeply needed in the way that we develop aid. As part of that process, the Secretary of State has announced that we are going to launch a small charities challenge fund aimed particularly at small organisations with a turnover between £25,000 and £250,000 for accountable grants of £50,000 each. We will be making an announcement about that next week but I will certainly make sure that all Members of your Lordships’ House, who I know follow these matters closely and have good links to many small charities doing amazing work around the world, have details of that fund.

Women and Girls: Employment Skills in the Developing World

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, for raising this important subject today.

Tonight, one in nine people will go to bed hungry. In spite of much progress in recent years as a result of the millennium development goals, there are still 700 million people, mostly women and girls, who remain below the poverty line. It is women in developing countries who are often denied the opportunities to earn a living and thus lift themselves out of poverty. The OECD concluded in a 2012 study that greater gender equality in economic opportunities is key to sustainable economic growth and social cohesion. Thus, ensuring that more women are able to get into the workplace is crucial to helping transform developing countries. However, it is not just about building their skills; it is also about creating conditions that enable women to work.

At the core of inequality are entrenched cultural attitudes towards women. In some countries, it remains taboo for a woman to even talk to a man outside her own family or to walk down the street unaccompanied by her husband. In Afghanistan, the Taliban have a saying: a woman’s place is in the home or the grave. Thus, employment outside the home can be almost impossible.

In most countries women are expected to be the care-givers. On average, women do two and a half times more unpaid care work than men. Societies do not value this unpaid work, even though it is estimated to be worth $10 trillion a year globally, and it limits the time that women have available for paid work.

Access to basic infrastructure is often also a problem. It is estimated that women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa spend 40 billion hours a year just fetching and carrying water to use in the house. They may also be expected to collect the family’s firewood or to work in the fields—all unpaid.

Of course, the journey to employment begins with education. Girls’ education benefits the next generation as well, with children born to educated mothers being 40% less likely to die before the age of five. Although there have been improvements in recent years, there is still a long way to go. Girls in Africa are still much less likely than boys to start secondary education, and two-thirds of the world’s illiterate are women.

In 2011, UNICEF found that each additional year of primary school boosted girls’ eventual wages by 10% to 20%, and an extra year of secondary school by 15% to 25%. But too often girls fall out of school, frequently because of issues such as a lack of girls’ lavatories, insufficient numbers of female teachers and negative classroom environments.

I remember talking to mothers in a village in Sierra Leone. They did not want their girls to go to secondary school. The school was in another town and they were worried that their girls would be attacked on the way there or that they would be raped in the school by teachers or fellow pupils. Once a girl in Sierra Leone was pregnant, she was unmarriageable and a lifelong burden on her very poor family. Thus, they felt it was better to marry her off to protect her from sexual harassment and unwanted pregnancy. In developing countries, one in three girls is forced to marry before her 18th birthday. Child marriage restricts the lives and livelihoods of millions of girls each year.

To protect women, systems of law and order are required, with laws that are implemented at local level. Too often national laws are not known about in villages, with customary law being in the hands of the male elders. I remember hearing in a village in Liberia that a woman who had been raped was not able to report this to the police. The nearest policeman was in the next village and she could not go unless given permission by the village elders, who preferred to “sort things out themselves”.

So how can we help? DfID must continue to fund programmes that help address some of these issues. Developing countries must be helped to build their capacity to educate and encouraged to have laws that protect women and prevent early marriage. Women need to be trained in economic-generating skills and helped to gain access to microfinance and markets for their products.

We must, however, work with the men in these countries by explaining the benefits of caring duties in the home being more equally shared, which will release women to help bring income into the family. Employers need to pay women equally: the global gender pay gap is still 23%, with the gap higher in poorer countries.

To conclude, achieving greater female employment in the developing world, with the resulting positive economic growth, will help lift families, communities and countries out of poverty and contribute to the SDG aspiration to “leave no one behind”.

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 18th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for raising the issue of international development in his Private Member’s Bill today.

This Second Reading comes at a pertinent time following the announcement yesterday that the target spend on official development assistance of 0.7% of GNI was achieved precisely in 2015. The UK Government have led the world with their commitment to deliver 0.7% annually—a target set by the UN—and we are the first G8 country to do so. This target was first achieved here in 2013, two years ahead of the EU target, and the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act enshrined this commitment into UK law in March last year. That legislative commitment was not easy to attain and had to be hard fought for. We should be proud of our Government for this achievement and for setting an example that other nations should follow. As we have heard, the Bill before us seeks to amend the legislation from having an annual target of 0.7% to making it apply over five years, and that causes me some concern. I know that many question our commitment to overseas aid, but tackling poverty and thus tackling the root causes of many of today’s challenges in developing countries is not only the right thing to do, it is also in the interests of the UK.

I do not propose to reiterate all the arguments that were put forward when the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015 was debated, but I think that we have all been shocked by the sheer numbers of refugees trying to get to Europe this summer. The majority of them come from countries where there is either extreme poverty or conflict, and the simple fact is that unless we help these countries, more will follow. I have seen myself when visiting countries the enormous difference that aid can make. Giving children an education in today’s world is critical for economic empowerment, and between 2010 and 2015 the UK has supported 11.3 million children in primary and secondary education. Over the four years to 2015 the UK had helped 64.5 million people to gain access to clean water and better sanitation, which impacts positively on health and livelihoods. I have seen women in Africa who expend all their energy every day walking miles to bring water home. Also, through working in fragile and post-conflict states, UK aid is protecting the national security of this country. The Syria crisis, one of the worst disasters of our time, has caused millions to flee their homes. It is to be applauded that the UK has committed £2.3 billion in humanitarian assistance from 2012 to 2020. When one visits the refugees in camps, as I and I am sure many other Members of this House have done, one can see what vital support we give. I remember a woman in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon trying to look after seven children in a tent. The water standpipe nearby was life-saving for her. I saw how traumatised women in a camp in Kurdistan who had fled from Daesh now had a safe haven where support was being given and some education provided for their children. This is all vital work which is the difference between life and death for so many.

I welcome the fact that we have a new Prime Minister and a new Secretary of State who are prepared to stand behind the annual commitment to 0.7% of GNI. Having made this commitment, we have to demonstrate to the British taxpayer that the money is spent wisely and efficiently and that we obtain maximum value for every pound spent. I welcome in particular the fact that DfID has put women and girls at the heart of development because it is the women of the developing world who are always the poorest of the poor. How will my noble friend the Minister ensure that some of our aid reaches the smaller organisations working at the grass roots, because it is there, working in communities, that meaningful change can be made?

What are my concerns about the Bill? I am worried that this change may undermine the overall goal of the international development Act and that it could be seen as the thin end of the wedge. While I recognise that it is not easy to ensure that the 0.7% GNI target is hit every year, changing it to every five years would mean that there can be annual slippage. I suppose I worry that in tight financial circumstances there might be a temptation at the end of five years perhaps not to make every year a good one.

As I have said, we fought hard to get the overall annual commitment to 0.7% and if we lose it now we will never get it back. At the moment this is a closed issue with 0.7% locked down. That gives the UK the moral authority to encourage other countries to do likewise. That is because the UK cannot do it alone. To lift countries out of poverty it needs other countries to come alongside and commit their resources too. This Bill will damage the UK’s standing in this regard and contribute to lessening the moral impetus on other countries to meet the target.

In conclusion, much as I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising the issue of international development, I am unable to support the Bill.

Humanitarian Emergencies: Women’s Rights Organisations

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to fund women’s rights organisations during humanitarian emergencies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for International Development (Baroness Verma) (Con)]

My Lords, we recognise the critical role that women’s rights organisations play in achieving lasting transformation in the rights of women and girls. This is precisely why I announced a $1 million fund for the UN-led global acceleration instrument. My noble friend will also be aware that, since 2012, we have increased our humanitarian violence against women and girls programme sixfold, and we are proud to be contributing to the UN trust fund and to Amplify Change. I also pay tribute to my noble friend’s work in these matters.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her Answer. I also congratulate the Government on their commitment at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul to give support to women and girls during emergencies. Can she tell me whether the Government will be establishing a funding mechanism for women’s rights organisations during humanitarian emergencies, especially conflicts, to ensure that funding gets to those organisations at the grass roots—and, specifically, whether UK funding is getting through to women’s rights organisations in Syria, which are desperately trying to look after families and provide support and services to their local communities?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right that we need to ensure that women’s rights organisations on the ground are properly funded and supported. Therefore, I am proud of the work that the UK is doing. We are trying to encourage our partners and other donors to step up, too, but we need to make sure that the funding is going to support those local organisations on the ground in their capacity-build to be able to respond. On that, the department is doing a lot of work.

Women: Discrimination

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, across any teachings, we need to ensure that the basic human rights of all people are supported and protected.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, widows and wives of the disappeared are at particular risk in conflict in developing countries. Does DfID have a specific focus on them, because they really need our protection?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for her question on widows. We fought hard to have a stand-alone gender goal at the UN General Assembly last year so that we could have a life-cycle approach, which included widows. We are doing a lot to help vulnerable groups in society who are susceptible to violence, including widows.