East Africa: Famine

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I have taken my opportunity to do so. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for his excellent suggestion. I attended the EU Foreign Affairs Council for Development last week and made exactly those points and the plea. The Secretary of State also wrote to High Representative Mogherini on the same issue. Later today, the Foreign Secretary will be chairing the Security Council on this issue at about 8 pm GMT. That will be an opportunity to reinforce the need for the international community to do more—and do it quickly.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I commend the Government on their high-profile response to the famine in east Africa, which has helped to galvanise not just public support but support among the international community. DfID’s hunger safety net programme in Kenya provides small, regular cash transfers through secure biometric systems and has been shown to be very effective in reducing extreme hunger. Notwithstanding attacks from the Daily Mail, are there plans to extend this proven programme to other countries in east Africa—and if not, why not?

[Lord Bates]

Certainly this is a tool that has been used to get relief to the people who need it most, but often there is a scarcity of food supplies. To come back to insecurity, when there are terrorist organisations, conflicts and civil wars, sometimes just handing out cash to individuals fuels the conflict because the money finds its way to the terrorist organisations. We need to be extremely careful in these areas that we provide relief to those who need it and not resources to those who are causing the conflict.