Cyclone Idai

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Harriett Baldwin

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

The other day, I was able to give evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee, on which the hon. Gentleman serves, and one of the things I talked about was our new approach to Africa whereby we are putting increased emphasis on adaptation to climate change across, in particular, the poorest and most vulnerable countries there. With regard to the UN specifically, the UK has been asked to lead the work on resilience at September’s UN climate summit, so that is a piece of work that we are taking forward to show real leadership in that area.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that eastern Zimbabwe, particularly around Chimanimani, has been completely devastated, with roads closed and nobody really able to get in unless by helicopter—and there are of course the special circumstances of Zimbabwe already mentioned by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). Will the Minister add just a little bit more on what our ambassador in Zimbabwe is doing and how we are making sure that we are really going to get the aid to the people who are going to need it most?

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Lady, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on Zimbabwe, will want to know that we have been at the forefront of trying to work with our partners to assess the scale of the need. The port of Beira is not just the port for a large part of Mozambique but also the port that is most used by Zimbabwe and Malawi for food imports and exports, so that is, in addition, a particular vulnerability. I understand from the early assessments that reports from eastern Zimbabwe suggest that there has been a severe degradation of the infrastructure as well, and it is very difficult to access all the afflicted populations. We cannot over-emphasise how difficult it is for us to be able to reach people. The pre-deployed kits have reached the airport at Beira, but at the moment many roads out of Beira are closed, and that will also affect eastern Zimbabwe’s response. We are at the forefront of working with partners—for example, UNICEF—in eastern Zimbabwe, and that will need to inform, after the rain has stopped, our ability to respond to some of the lasting damage there.