Covid-19: UN Sustainable Development Goals

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg [V]]

My Lords, as my noble friend says, due to the current circumstances, work to develop experimental statistics has been suspended. DWP’s current focus is on supporting people financially in these unprecedented times. In the current uncertain climate, I am afraid that I am unable to provide my noble friend with a date for when this work will continue. It will happen only when we are able to do so and are sure that benefit payments and support to the vulnerable will not be put at risk.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the global devastation caused by Covid-19 tells us that we must redouble our efforts to deliver the SDGs. This will require vision, finance and open and transparent collaboration between Governments and stakeholders, both public and private. Why are we dismembering the one department within government that is closest to those requirements? How will our experience be any different from Australia’s, where a similar merger led to a loss of over 2,000 years-worth of experience?

[Baroness Sugg [V]]

My Lords, as I said, the UK remains committed to the SDGs and to the underpinning pledge to leave no one behind as we strive to achieve them. The Prime Minister said in his statement to the UN high-level event on financing for development at the end of May that, following Covid-19, there is every need for us to work together to advance shared international objectives, including the SDGs. The SDGs will therefore remain central to the new department’s mission.

Covid-19: Vaccine Availability

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Sheehan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that a COVID-19 vaccine, if developed, is (1) available to, and (2) affordable for, low- and middle-income countries.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development (Baroness Sugg) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK is leading international efforts to develop and ensure fair and affordable access to a Covid-19 vaccine. The UK has committed up to £250 million to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and is the largest donor to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. These organisations are key to developing and globally distributing a Covid-19 vaccine. We are committed to working with international partners to develop a vaccine and make it available to all.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD) [V]]

I thank the Minister for her reply. However, Gavi and CEPI have taken no action to tackle IP barriers to ensure access for all. The Government cannot assume that access, supply and affordability will simply be dealt with by others through the WHO ACT-Accelerator. Does the Minister agree that there is a critical need for the UK Government to attach conditions, including pricing and transparency controls, to their public funding of the potential vaccine being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca?

Sub-Saharan Africa: Water and Sanitation

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, I gather that the noble Lord, Lord Duncan of Springbank, is not asking his question, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD) [V]]

My Lords, in Africa, the WASH sector is critical for both containing the virus and lowering its devastating impact on human and economic costs. Can the Minister say what conversations DfID has had with the CDC about using its heft to leverage investment into both WASH, infrastructure and products such as soap and sanitiser?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, obviously we work closely with CDC to ensure that it is responding sufficiently to Covid. CDC is urgently undertaking a Covid-19 impact and vulnerability assessment across its portfolio of investments in Africa and South Asia. As other investors withdraw, CDC is looking at extending the risk-sharing agreements it has with partner banks to ensure that it will continue to be able to support projects. I will certainly have a further discussion with it about how it can specifically support WASH projects.

Covid-19: International Response

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to those of other noble Lords to the Minister for initiating this debate. It is indeed crucial that the international dimensions are thoroughly explored when the world is confronted by a crippling disease of global proportions. A disease that knows no borders can be defeated only by a united front of all countries in the world, because no one is safe until everyone is safe.

The breadth of briefings received by me as international development spokesperson from the Liberal Democrat Benches, and other speakers, have reflected four key themes. First is the importance of supporting front-line workers, both to put in place measures to fight Covid-19 and, crucially, to maintain existing programmes to prevent health systems becoming overloaded and unable to serve the most vulnerable who cannot help themselves, including refugees and IDPs. Second is support for the WHO as the world agency best placed to ensure a co-ordinated response and equal access to future vaccines and treatment. Third is the importance of giving Governments a breathing space, with debt relief to strengthen health systems. Last is support for calls for a halt to wars. We have an invisible foe to fight that does not discriminate. We should not fight ourselves.

I start with the importance of supporting front-line NGOs who know their local communities well and are able to rapidly mobilise help to where it is needed, something larger agencies cannot match. It is not a matter of either/or. It is true that the larger UN agencies have unique and important leveraging power to plan logistics and must be equipped to do this. However, where they operate, our UK NGOs have unrivalled knowledge of local structures, and should receive Covid-19-related support commensurate with this level of reach and delivery expertise. It is frustrating beyond belief that these are the very charities battling for survival in the face of falling funding revenue from the public—for obvious reasons—but there is no reason why support from ODA funding should not be forthcoming. A mere £20 million to UK NGOs out of a total of £744 million announced to date to combat Covid-19 is inadequate. The Minister will recall that well over 100 parliamentarians signed a letter from the Lib Dem spokesperson in the Commons to the Secretary of State for DfID, calling for greater funding for UK NGOs. Will the Minister undertake to do all she can to help our highly respected overseas aid charities deliver aid to the poorest communities on the front line of the fight against Covid-19?

It is crucial that the hard work to lay the foundations for delivering the sustainable development goals is not forfeited in misguided decisions to move funding away from the health, education, gender and age equality programmes designed to create more resilient and sustainable economies and societies around the world. As tackling the Ebola crisis showed, preventive healthcare, such as nutrition and immunisation, is particularly at risk during emergencies, first because health services become too stretched to deal with anything non-urgent; and, secondly, because people avoid visiting hospitals and health centres for fear of catching the virus. It is a sad fact that, in the 2019 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than twice as many lives were claimed by the secondary outbreak of measles than by Ebola.

DfID must take steps to ensure that preventive health programmes continue and have safety mechanisms built in to deal with Covid-19 risks, which include ensuring that community health workers have appropriate PPE and are able to implement no-touch techniques, such as using dolls safely to demonstrate to parents how they can screen their children for malnutrition. It must also ensure that the distribution of food, nutrition-related health products and cash is exempt from lockdown restrictions. Is that happening?

Nutrition, immunisation and infectious disease programmes complement one another. Good nutrition is needed to develop a strong immune system and for vaccines to be effective. All three interventions working in tandem lead to better educational outcomes for all, especially girls. Access to education is something that we must heed as this crisis hits harder in the developing world. Sadly, the Tokyo Nutrition for Growth summit, scheduled to take place this year, has now been put back. It was set to follow in the very successful steps of the previous summit, which was hosted by the UK in 2013. Will the Government augment their welcome early commitment to funding for Gavi by doing all they can to push for a virtual Nutrition for Growth summit so that programmes do not risk falling off a cliff edge in 2021? Will DfID play a leadership role and renew its nutrition commitments in 2020?

I shall take this opportunity to highlight the impact of Covid-19 on the efforts to eradicate polio. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative has helped to reduce the number of polio cases by more than 99% since its formation in 1988. We are on the cusp of eradicating polio. However, because of Covid-19, most preventive polio immunisation campaigns and outbreak responses in GPEI-supported countries have been suspended. While the GPEI’s focus on halting the spread of the pandemic is welcome, it is crucial that polio eradication efforts restart stronger than ever. They must include strengthened routine immunisation systems so that progress in eradicating this debilitating disease once and for all can continue. A recent Imperial College article states that if as a global community we are able to maintain

“the most critical prevention activities and healthcare services for HIV, TB and malaria”—

I think polio could be safely included in that list—we

“could significantly reduce the overall impact of the COVID-19 pandemic”,

and therefore lessen the scarring long-term social and economic consequences.

A number of noble Lords have mentioned the WHO, which has come under sustained attack by the President of the United States, and yet it is clear that there is general consensus that it is the global body with the necessary grasp of the measures needed to prevent millions of people dying, to help us return to our own social norms and, in time, to start to rebuild our crippled economies. Let us face it: if the WHO did not exist, we would have to invent it. What the world needs now is visionary leadership, to rally global support for the UN’s $6.7 billion global humanitarian response plan for Covid-19, which the UK co-hosted with the EU.

I ask the Minister: will the UK help ratchet up the response by other countries by committing the UK’s fair share early? I am sure the Minister will point to the £744 million announced by the Government to date to tackle Covid-19, but she will be aware that a large part of that is dedicated to research to find a vaccine and treatments through organisations such as CEPI—the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. But I would be really interested to know what proportion of the £744 million has been dedicated to providing front-line help to the poorest people in the world.

The majority of Covid-19 research and development is publicly funded and, in fact, large amounts of ODA money are being used to finance research. Will the Government give categorical guarantees that UK taxpayers’ money will not fund private profits, and that any treatments and vaccines developed will be accessible and affordable to the NHS as well as to patients in low and middle-income countries? Although it is very welcome that the UK has committed to the WHO’s access to Covid-19 tools accelerator, with its core aim of ensuring equitable global access to vaccines, treatments and tests, the Government still have not set out their plan for how equitable access will be achieved. When will they do so? The idea of a global pool to co-ordinate access and information sharing has already been supported by bodies including the WHO and the European Union, but so far our Government have been silent on the proposal. Will the UK Government move beyond rhetoric on equitable access and look to impose legally binding public-interest conditions on all UK funding committed to developing vaccines and treatments for Covid-19?

With the OBR predicting a large decline in UK GDP this year, there will be a commensurate reduction in the availability of ODA, which is pegged at 0.7% of GNI. Other government departments are spending an increasing amount of ODA on programmes that are not directly delivering relief to the poorest in the world, so does the Minister agree that this position is no longer tenable in the time of Covid and that all effort must be made to rid the planet of Covid-19 as quickly as possible, if only to keep ourselves safe? The diminishing amounts of ODA should be under the sole aegis of DfID, the department best placed to deliver the best value for money for core programmes. The longer it takes to rid ourselves of the virus, the greater the risk that it will mutate into a form that will come back to bite us all even harder. Time to eradicate it is critical.

I finish by asking the Government what they are doing to support the call by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope and the Secretary-General of the UN for a global ceasefire, so that we can give peace a chance and unite in defeating this threat to every country in the world. We desperately need to turn our attention once again to the threat of runaway climate change, which threatens our way of life more permanently.

Africa: Support

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

I assure the noble Lord that we will absolutely take into account the economic and supply chain impacts on the developing world. We have pre-meetings ahead of the G7 where that discussion is already happening, and I am sure it will be on the agenda for the summit.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, aid to developing countries is dwarfed by massive debt repayments to rich countries. Other than the G20’s decision to temporarily suspend debt payments, what further measures are being considered to alleviate the crippling debt so that health systems can be strengthened?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the noble Baroness refers to the suspension of debt repayments, which we argued for with the G20 and the Paris Club. I have already mentioned the £150 million going to the International Monetary Fund for catastrophe containment. We are also working closely with the private sector to see what we can do there and providing advice to developing countries on how best to respond to the economic impact of Covid-19.

Overseas Development Assistance: Gender-based Violence

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

I agree with the noble Baroness. Particularly in the face of Covid-19, with overwhelmed health systems trying to cope with the disease outbreak, sexual and reproductive health services will be even harder to access, putting even more lives in danger. We are working with our partners to support them to continue to reach populations, and to make sure that every woman and girl can continue to realise her right to choose.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

I congratulate the Minister on her appointment as the UK champion for She Decides. ODA is increasingly being spent in unusual ways. For instance, the FCO’s prosperity fund has investments to develop ideas from industry and the bond market. How can this displacement of ODA from front-line UK NGOs battling the funding challenges that Covid-19 has brought be justified?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her congratulations; I am delighted to become a She Decides champion. I agree that it is important that we fund NGOs on the front line delivering the response to Covid-19, and that is what we are determined to do.

Covid-19: Overseas Development Assistance

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Lord is right to highlight that global commitments on nutrition financing are indeed ending this year, and I agree with him that this continued investment is needed to prevent and treat malnutrition, particularly as countries face worsening levels of malnutrition in the face of Covid-19. We are looking carefully at the options for the UK commitment now that both the Olympic pledging event and the main Nutrition for Growth summit have been postponed, and we will provide an update on our plans when we are able to. Yesterday, the World Food Programme reported that Covid-19 could push 265 million people into acute hunger by the end of this year, so maintaining our commitment to nutrition is more important than ever.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I have two questions for the Minister. First, borders are an ineffectual barrier against Covid-19, so does the Minister agree that only a victory that fully includes Africa and the rest of the developing world can end this pandemic? Secondly, notwithstanding President Trump’s intervention, do our Government acknowledge that we need a World Health Organization fully equipped to co-ordinate an international pooling mechanism for Covid-19 research into diagnostics, treatments and vaccines that will be affordable for all?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, Covid-19 is a global challenge and it is essential that countries come together to tackle the shared threat. We will continue to fund the World Health Organization. We are a key donor to the WHO and have already contributed £75 million to help the organisation lead international efforts to stop the spread of the virus, find a vaccine and end this pandemic.

Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, my question is also about the case that the Gambia brought to the ICJ in The Hague and follows on neatly from that asked by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. It is to do with the response of the de facto ruler of Myanmar, the quite extraordinary insistence by Aung San Suu Kyi that efforts to bring stability and progress to Rakhine state have been hampered by international condemnation. Does the Minister agree with that statement and, if not, have we responded to her assertion in the strongest possible terms?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the UN fact-finding mission has concluded that ethnic cleansing has occurred against ethnic minorities, including the Rohingya in Rakhine state. I indeed saw Aung San Suu Kyi’s evidence. We want a peaceful, democratic and prosperous Myanmar with the military under full civilian control. We will work with the civilian Government to help achieve this but, of course, we must continue to work with our international allies to see the Government of Myanmar deliver it.

Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for bringing this important issue before your Lordships’ House today. As ever, the breadth and quality of contributions never ceases to amaze, such that by this stage in the debate there is very little to add. Maybe in summing up on behalf of these Benches I can add emphasis to some of the key points.

This issue is at the heart of successful delivery of the sustainable development goals, which owe their very existence in no small part to the leadership of development professionals within DfID. Let us face it: we can put a multitude of excellent questions to the Minister, to which she will no doubt give reassuring responses, but all good intentions pale into insignificance if the Prime Minister is determined to pursue his aim of abolishing DfID. I join my noble friend Lady Featherstone and the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, in stressing the importance of maintaining a fully functioning department for development, one that is already firing on all cylinders and which has the necessary structures, processes and global networks to pull together the threads that weave success on the global stage—something that the Prime Minister is so keen to achieve.

One thing that we know for sure is that there is a good reason why we have 17 SDGs, together with 169 targets and 232 indicators. It is because a transformative, interlinked agenda cannot be delivered without a holistic vision—one that leaves no one behind. But that vision needs to be informed and tempered by experience. Experience tells us very clearly that, to deliver our vision for better health, people need better jobs, and better jobs are dependent on better education. With better education, we can have better sanitation and hygiene, which completes the cycle back to better health. All development goals are interlinked and interdependent. It is a no-brainer that, in order to have healthy, educated people with good jobs, they must have good, nutritious food.

The Government have rightly identified the education of girls as being a crucial factor in successful delivery of the SDGs. We know that investing in girls’ education, enabling access to contraception and reproductive health care and giving women the power to decide when and how often to have a baby, will have the biggest possible impact, not least on the size of families, a point eloquently made by my noble friend—I hope I can call her my noble friend—Lady Tonge.

However, while the Government’s commitment to girls’ education is commendable, I hope they accept that a nutrient-rich diet which provides not only the calories but also the vitamins and minerals needed for healthy development is a necessary prerequisite.

We have heard some shocking statistics on the impact of malnutrition, but the one on stunting shocks me the most: 149 million children are malnourished enough to be classified as stunted. That is a shocking 21.9% of all children—more than one in five. What does it mean to be stunted? Stunting refers to children with a height considerably below the average for their age, as we heard from my noble friend Lady Featherstone, but modern neuroscience shows it also takes its toll on children’s brain development. Health and education outcomes for stunted children are poor and its consequences are irreversible. Without intervention we are building in inequality from birth—and sometimes before birth because stunting can occur in the womb of malnourished mothers-to-be.

We know that intervention works. For example, we know that encouraging breastfeeding is the single most effective way to reduce child mortality in countries with high burdens of malnutrition, and I hope the Minister will agree that bearing down on the marketing of breast-milk substitutes is essential. Hand in hand with that goes adequate nutrition for breastfeeding mothers.

Sometimes there is no alternative but to give micro- nutrient supplementation, fortification and biofortification —they work, as do ready-to-use therapeutic foods. We know they work because we have made it work before. The first Nutrition for Growth summit was hosted by the UK in 2013, mobilising $17 billion over seven years, as a result of which 12 million fewer children suffer from stunted growth and millions of lives have been saved. The next summit takes place this year in Tokyo in December, with a springboard event in July. DfID’s early leadership will encourage donors and high-burden countries to step up and pull in the same direction.

The International Coalition for Advocacy on Nutrition is asking for a pledge from Her Majesty’s Government of £800 million per year for 2021 to 2025. Is the Minister able to say whether that ask will be met in a timely manner for maximum impact?

UK Aid: Nutrition-sensitive Programmes

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Collins, in co-chairing the APPG, an important body. Our current commitments to nutrition will come to an end in 2020, so the Tokyo Nutrition for Growth summit in December will really be a key moment in making sure that progress continues. We have bold ambitions for the summit. We are working closely with the Government of Japan to ensure that it is a success. We are looking to strengthen health systems, to come up with longer-term funding and to ensure that Governments, donors and businesses take positive action to improve access to nutritious and sustainable diets. I would be delighted to come along to the APPG with officials to provide further briefing.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, last year the Government made an announcement of £61 million to be invested in supporting crops that can help to prevent food insecurity as a result of climate change. Such climate-resilient crops really should pack a punch and contribute well to a healthy, nutritious diet, so will the Minister commit to ensuring that nutrition sensitivity is embedded throughout DfID’s climate and food and agriculture portfolio?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, climate modelling shows that the additional deaths that will stem from climate change will be largely due to undernutrition, so it is absolutely right that we focus on this. There are two ways in which we need to do that: through both the quantity of food available—we are looking at investing in flood-tolerant rice and drought-tolerant maize, for example—and the quality, ensuring that healthier, nutritious diets are affordable and accessible. We are looking at nutrient-rich, biofortified staples such as vitamin A-enriched sweet potato or zinc-enriched maize. We will continue to ensure that we invest properly in new agricultural technologies so that the quality of the diet is available as well as the quantity.