Overseas Aid: Famine Relief
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Verma
My noble friend raises an important question. While we are world leaders, we are pressing Governments, not just from developed donor countries, but also from regional donor countries, to ensure that they are playing their part in responding to this crisis.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
Will the Minister comment on the fact that we knew full well that the Horn of Africa was experiencing the driest year in six decades and the worst regional food crisis in this century, so it need not have been such a surprise to donors? Does she agree that, yet again, the response to what is clearly a desperately serious food crisis has come too late—indeed, only after disaster has struck and thousands of desperate people have been forced to seek food and refuge in refugee camps?
Baroness Verma
The noble Baroness is right: this was forecast. However, we in the UK are playing our part and pressing other donor countries to play theirs. We know that there is a shortfall and we are pressing other Governments to ensure that they respond. We are working very hard with agencies across the globe. Ultimately, it is about ensuring that we are putting long-term resilience plans into place, which take time to build up. At the same time, we will press for short-term responses from other Governments.
Abyei
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Verma
I am sure that my noble friend will urge both the President of the United States and our Prime Minister to ensure that Sudan is part of the talks that they will have. I am aware that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is also concerned. He made a strong statement yesterday urging leaders from both sides to demonstrate the political will not just to resolve the situation in Abyei but also to talk about the communities that feel marginalised and out of the discussions at the moment.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that it is very dangerous at this time to take our eye off the situation in South Kordofan? There have just been deeply flawed elections in that province, which, with its oil field, sits on the still undefined north-south border. What exactly is the troika doing beyond just urging the two sides to work together? Surely on Abyei and South Kordofan this is a very faint hope.
World Development Report 2011
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, in the context of the Government’s two declared priorities of focusing additional resources on fragile states and simultaneously ensuring that there is value for money, how does the Minister respond to the view strongly expressed in the World Bank report that in countries where governance and financial systems are weak it will not be possible to account for every penny spent?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, the noble Baroness is also aware that unless we direct what we are doing and have a focus we will not be able to address any of the difficulties that those conflict-ridden countries are facing. This is not about saying yes to this and no to that but about a combination of both. I think the noble Baroness is also aware that, through our reviews, we have been able to work very closely with the multilateral agencies to ensure that we are directing our aid to where it is most required.
Poverty in the Developing World
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, I also thank my noble friend for initiating what has been a very timely debate. He mentioned the Global Poverty campaign and Positive Women, an NGO which is small, effective and remarkable in many ways and which I also know very well. My noble friend has shown his expertise and commitment. I have worked over a number of years with him as both of us have similar views and interests in international development.
This debate, as it always strikes me, has again been extremely impressive. Your Lordships show not only a real grasp of the issues but a passion for working for change. There is the global commitment to halving poverty by 2015. The millennium declaration is a unique compact between the north and the south and represents a consensus across the world that world poverty is a global problem. Poverty means that if you are a woman you walk several kilometres every day to collect water and firewood. It means suffering from diseases that were eradicated in rich countries decades ago. It means that children whom I have met on many occasions will never hold a pencil, never mind touch the keyboard of a computer. It means that you live in a dangerous and unhealthy environment. It means that you and your children will often go to bed hungry. It means that you are powerless, voiceless, fearful and marginalised. Malaria, HIV/AIDS and maternal and child deaths kill millions every year. Add to that the conflict that has claimed thousands of lives and then we understand why there is a perception that Africa, in particular, is a wasteland of poverty, conflict and disease.
This is not a time for pessimism and cynicism. Great leaps forward have been made and more is certainly needed and possible in the battle that has to be waged against the endemic inequities which keep the people poor, excluded and powerless. Some countries have suffered serious setbacks and economic growth has been extremely unequal. The UN asserts that while the gaps in human development across the world are narrowing they remain huge. Now, however, is not the time to peddle doom and gloom about these issues, but rather to show that aid works and that effective development can and must be supported. That is why donors should focus on what they do best and should work with Governments on health, education, good governance, and support for justice and taxation systems.
In the current financial climate we hear many horror stories but those alone will not bring the necessary responses and justified support for international development which we need to see. Pictures and words about pathetic and supplicant people engender a sense of hopelessness about what can and must be done to make poverty history. A central plank of the Government’s development policies is to work on fragile states and to seek the objective of value for money. Would the Minister care to comment on the view that increasing aid to fragile states is hardly consistent with the value-for-money objective? Is the Minister aware that the National Audit Office has warned DfID that serious efforts have to be made to minimise the clear risk of fraud and corruption in countries where governance and financial systems are weak?
Indeed, Andy Sumner, a very respected development economist, has statistics showing that more than 80 per cent of DfID’s bilateral aid to Africa and Asia by 2014-15 will be going to countries defined as “very corrupt” by Transparency International. Is that not a cause for some serious concern? When we read the inevitable stories of mismanagement of UK development assistance, how then will the Secretary of State justify claims on value for money and how does DfID propose to deal with the clear risks that exist in this situation? Are there plans to ensure that civil society, faith groups and parliaments have access to information that makes it possible for them to track and monitor government expenditure? Is DfID engaged in supporting that in countries where we work?
As many noble Lords have said, a critical element in the arguments that we make about tackling extreme poverty is gender equity. If we do not achieve the MDG targets, we will not achieve gender equality; if we do not achieve gender equality, we will not meet the MDG targets. Extreme poverty erodes the skills, experience and networks that, through women, keep communities going. There is a perfectly justifiable priority for tackling the most intractable MDG—as others have mentioned, it is on maternal mortality—but such is the low value, status and respect given to women that we will not see the fundamental change that we need if we are to be able to save those precious women’s lives.
We say this in the context of an OECD report that projects that aid will increase at about 1 per cent a year compared with a 13 per cent annual growth rate in the past three years. We should therefore be concerned that additional aid to low-income countries is likely very soon to be outpaced by population increases. Fifteen DAC members that are EU countries are promising a collective target of 0.7 per cent in 2015. One of them is the United Kingdom. Will the Minister confirm that the Government are absolutely sure that the 0.7 per cent target will be reached by the UK by 2015? Does the Minister agree that in the current circumstances innovative sources of financing development must be found? Will the Government support calls for increased taxation of the UK’s financial sector, which according to the Institute for Public Policy Research could raise an extra £20 billion of revenue every year? The revenue that accrues could be used to tackle poverty at home and abroad and to meet the effects of climate change. This so-called Robin Hood tax has widespread support. The European Parliament recently adopted a position backing the idea of a tax that ensures that financial services make a contribution to the cost of recovery from the banking crisis. Global agreement on such a tax would be best, but the UK’s stamp duty demonstrates that it is possible to introduce a successful, well designed financial transaction tax without undermining competitiveness. According to experts, a levy, even at the very low level proposed, is expected to raise funds that can contribute to global collective goods, especially green technology and development aid. Would the Minister care to comment on whether it is likely that the UK will support the view of Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy that now is the time to move forward on the financial transaction tax?
May I also ask whether the UK will join members of the G20 that urge greater control of food speculation? Does the Minister agree that the activities of commodity investors and hedge fund managers have exacerbated the increases in food prices that we have seen and the resulting hunger and increased poverty?
I shall finally make one small point. Many Members of this House have spoken of making poverty history. There are things that we can do. New sources of finance are one of them, and hope I have made a case for them. What we have to do is to make sure that we make poverty history and not our future.
International Labour Organisation
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, the noble Baroness will be aware of the excellent ILO programmes on the elimination of child labour, which have been responsible for getting millions of children out of hazardous work and into school. Is she also aware that the ILO is committed to ending the worst forms of child labour by 2016? Will she therefore agree that it is certainly not the time effectively to end the UK's partnership with the ILO when such critical development objectives as child labour and education are at stake?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, through DfID we will continue to focus on child labour issues by working through a wide range of partners, including the ILO. The Government's annual contribution of £16 million through the Department for Work and Pensions directly helps the International Labour Organisation combat child labour. In addition, we provide £12 million to the fairtrade labelling organisation, which effectively combats child labour and has robust systems to investigate allegations.
Burundi
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Verma
My Lords, Burundi has not met any of its MDGs at all. The president has promised universal education, which will go a long way to meeting the primary education goal. We feel that the rest of the goals will be achieved through strengthening Burundi’s infrastructure, which will come about through Burundi being a free access market to the countries in that region.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, does the noble Baroness recall that the Secretary of State for International Development said that we will be dealing with people who live in extreme poverty and in very conflicted societies? Does the noble Baroness therefore agree that Burundi certainly qualifies on both counts? Can she account for the inconsistency of a Great Lakes policy that includes increased commitments to the DRC and Rwanda but closes the United Kingdom’s office in Bujumbura?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, as the noble Baroness has just heard, we believe that we are better placed to put some of our funding through the EU and the World Bank, where we are large contributors. Our funding programme that will end in 2012 was only a small programme of £10 million. We believe that putting in an agency that will actually help Burundi grow through its economic development will benefit that country far more than the £10 million that we were giving.
UN: International Year of Youth
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, for initiating this debate and for calling, as other noble Lords have done, for greater emphasis and a stronger focus on measures intended substantially to increase the participation and the quality of life of young people. The actions and the desired outcomes we have discussed here today, as noble Lords have shown, make absolute and infinite sense.
Young people have potentially a huge contribution to make because of their experience and understanding, which they can add to global efforts to meet the millennium development goals and to fight against inequality and discrimination. There has, quite rightly, been substantial investment in young children, especially those under five. However, that does not mean that there is any justification for giving insufficient attention to the crucial second decade of life, which of course is the focus of the UN International Year of Youth.
Youths continue to be subsumed under the category of children but are too often overlooked in the programming and resources available; it is far more likely that that programming and those resources will be directed to younger children. It means that young people’s contributions are overlooked and neglected. As many noble Lords will know, many of these young people are heads of households, often caring for young siblings, fetching water and preparing food, yet they have absolutely no authority within their community and are excluded from all the decision-making. We now risk jeopardising the gains in early and middle childhood that have been made since 1990 and seeing a deterioration in those advances.
I am reminded of the story of a young woman speaking at a recent UN meeting. She asked the delegates, “How old will you be in 2050?”. The chair of the committee admitted that he would be 110 and therefore unlikely to see the results of our failure to act. The fact is that the kind of world in which that young woman lives will depend both on those who inherit it and on those who bequeath it to them. Noble Lords have talked about young people being our future. I would say that young people are our present too, and it is very important that we remember that.
It has certainly been my experience that all too often young people are not consulted, are not taken seriously and are not given a voice, when the parameters of rights and responsibilities are clearly agreed under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Tackling the challenges faced by young women is imperative at this time, as many noble Lords have said.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes)
With many apologies to the noble Baroness, a Division has now been called in the Chamber. The Grand Committee stands adjourned until 5.26 pm.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, I carry on where I left off. Two-thirds of the 137 million illiterate young people in the world are young women. The noble Baroness mentioned some of the statistics. If you break them down, you see that more than half of HIV-infected young people are young women. That is why tackling the challenges faced by young women is an absolute imperative. Educating girls brings benefits such as delayed marriage, reduced rates of HIV, reduction in unwanted, unplanned pregnancies and maternal mortality, higher family incomes and lower rates of domestic violence. There is a long list of proven benefits. It is clear that talk of social transformation is meaningless unless the culture of discrimination and inequity which so many young women face is challenged. Young women need equal access to secondary education, to health, to employment, to juvenile justice and to identity. Adolescent girls need access to sexual and reproductive health rights. This should be urgently addressed. Complications relating to pregnancy and child birth are a leading cause of death worldwide among adolescent girls between the ages of 15 and 19.
Much of what needs to be done will be achieved only, as the noble Baroness said, if data are disaggregated. They should be disaggregated by age and gender; otherwise, one cannot make the relevant deductions. There has to be engagement across the board, from communities, Governments, the private sector, civil society, religious leaders, NGOs and donors. Everybody has to come behind the messages of this UN International Year of Youth. Many institutional and cultural barriers stand in the way of progress for young people at this time, but this year, which celebrates young people, should be used as a springboard for their future progress and opportunity.
International Aid Reviews: Conclusions
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement made earlier by the Secretary of State in the other place. It is indeed encouraging to note the emphasis on value for money—who would not agree with that? This objective was a central plank of the Labour Government’s policy from the very first DfID White Paper in 1997, so talk of value for money is certainly not a new thing. While welcoming the emphasis on maternal mortality and on girls’ education, I would like the noble Baroness to confirm that the Government’s view is that it is essential also to promote the rights and empowerment of women and to encourage their leadership and participation. Should women not participate equally in public dialogue and decision-making?
As the Secretary of State listed the countries with which we shall no longer engage, is the noble Baroness aware that bilateral aid to Russia ended in 2007 and that the Labour Government were also committed to closing programmes in China? Last week I travelled with members of the APG to the north and the south of Sudan and can confirm that there are enormous needs and very high expectations in the south. Will the noble Baroness comment on the fact that aid to Sudan is not set to increase—it is currently £140 million a year to 2015—despite the fact that that aid will now be dealing with the needs of two countries, especially, of course, the south?
Sixteen countries have been listed as ones that the Government feel no longer need the support of Her Majesty’s Government, including, for instance, Burundi, which has enormous needs and is in the Great Lakes region of Africa, where the whole situation is always very vulnerable; and Lesotho, a very small country in the south of Africa, which is very much supported by Wales, where many of us are very much aware of its needs. Will the noble Baroness tell us whether adequate donor co-ordination will take place to make sure that the needs in these countries—which will undoubtedly still exist when we exit—are picked up? This very serious point was raised today in a press release from Save the Children.
The agency UN Women urgently needs long-term, predictable funding. Thirty countries have contributed already—Spain, a country experiencing enormous financial difficulties at the time, was the very first country to contribute to UN Women. Michelle Bachelet, the head of the agency, is struggling to manage the resources that she currently has, and I fear that we cannot accept the statement from the Secretary of State that she has to wait until June when an assessment will have been made of the objectives. To leave her struggling for these resources at this time, when the other agencies that are working for women’s interests have been more or less disbanded, is extremely serious.
Will the Government make a commitment to increase cross-border aid to reach parts of Burma where the dictatorship refuses access for aid to people there? Is the noble Baroness aware that DfID aid to Burma under the current circumstances is almost entirely channelled through registered organisations that have been vetted by the regime? Should DfID not seek other channels to achieve a more equitable outcome?
Finally, after the funding of part of the Pope’s visit and the loan to the Turks and Caicos Islands, can we feel sure that our aid programmes will not be driven by the priorities of other departments of state?
International Development Aid
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Verma
My noble friend is absolutely right about the work that DfID has done to try to reduce the suffering caused by landmines and the explosive remnants of war. As I have said several times over, we are coming towards the end of our reviews. These really can give us a greater focus on where our aid will go. However, healthcare and education are key to supporting the work that we do.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, how will Her Majesty’s Government respond to the request made only last week by the International Development Select Committee for a list of exactly which countries will qualify as fragile and conflict-affected states, which will therefore be eligible to receive increased funding?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, the noble Baroness raises an important point. She will also be aware that the reviews are coming to a conclusion. They will be able to lay out all the questions that the Select Committee raised as well as the ones that she has asked.
St Lucia: Hurricane Tomas
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Verma
My Lords, my noble friend raises an important point. However, our DfID programmes are concentrated mostly on a regional presence and are there to assist in climate change, disaster and risk management, and to tackle crime and insecurity. I will take back my noble friend’s question. However, we are doing quite a lot of constructive work through multilateral agencies.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, does the Minister agree that we should acknowledge the importance of €200,000 in humanitarian aid that the European Union is contributing, the considerable funding that goes towards disaster preparedness in the Caribbean, and the disaster management programmes there?
Baroness Verma
I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness. She has summarised concisely what we are doing.