Building Stability Overseas Strategy

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Thursday 6th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe]

My Lords, I join in the thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, for securing the opportunity to debate this new Building Stability Overseas Strategy. I share her view that this is a timely and important piece of cross-government work, drawing as it does on much expertise and experience within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence.

The strategy is bold and its aims are clear. This is essential if we are to respond effectively to conflict where it arises but, even more importantly if we are to anticipate and prevent triggers for future conflicts. The recent uprisings in the Arab region have been a reminder of how quickly and unexpectedly political landscapes can change. They also, I believe, reinforce the importance of our continued investment in governance in complex and challenging regions.

When announcing the strategy earlier this summer, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs noted that at its heart lies the conviction that stability can be achieved only when a society has the “strong, legitimate institutions” it needs to manage tensions peacefully. I share that conviction, which stems from my time as chief executive at the Westminster Foundation for Democracy during the early 1990s—a function that I shared with the noble Baroness—and my continuing involvement with Voluntary Service Overseas. I further believe that working with local, credible organisations, as do both these organisations, will continue to be a critical element of effective UK support for those legitimate institutions.

Increasing the proportion of UK official development assistance that supports conflict-affected and fragile states to 30 per cent by 2014-15 is a bold decision. Explicitly focusing on unstable states is not an easy or necessarily an obvious option, because it produces potentially higher risks for those involved on the ground. I do not mean just the Armed Forces, of course, but the many involved in humanitarian work, aid workers, NGOs, the media and others engaged with civil society in those states. On the other hand, the emphasis on co-ordinating all the forces available—the 3D approach which puts diplomacy, development and defence into an integrated strategy of prevention—makes complete sense. It is, as they say, a no-brainer as the basis for a more effective approach to managing tensions, offering the greatest chance of success.

I welcome the strategy’s intention to create an early warning system to help us anticipate instability. I support its creation of a £20 million early action facility within the conflict pool to help us act fast to prevent a crisis or to stop it escalating. However, I believe that it is the third of the three pillars of this strategy—that of upstream prevention—which will be the most effective and most likely to succeed in the long term. It is here that I want to focus my remarks. Upstream prevention tackles the underlying drivers of instability before a crisis occurs, avoiding the enormous human and financial costs of conflict. As the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, said in another place, upstream prevention,

“goes to the heart of the drive to achieve better targeted, more effective aid”,

helping,

“to improve the lives of some of the poorest and most vulnerable people on the planet”.

As the strategy reminds us, nine of the 10 poorest countries in the world are classed as fragile states. Five countries, all in the midst of conflict, produced 60 per cent of the world’s refugees in 2009. It is right to focus our efforts on helping fragile states build those strong, legitimate institutions that provide the basis for trust and confidence. These institutions range from the police and legal systems to civil society organisations, religious groups, political parties, government departments and banks. The strategy is also right to emphasise that,

“effective local politics and strong mechanisms which weave people into the fabric of decision-making—such as civil society, the media, the unions, and business associations—also have a crucial role to play”.

That is at paragraph 4.4.

Bodies such as the Westminster Foundation have long recognised that working with local government, communities and the media is how we will reach the most vulnerable people. This so-called soft power is critical. I particularly welcome the recognition that our capabilities to ensure that this strategy is effective go beyond government. Our universities, NGOs, think tanks and the private sector have much experience and indeed expertise to offer. The Westminster Foundation works explicitly to help encourage democracy as it believes, as the strategy acknowledges, that democracy provides the best route to building accountable and responsive states that are able to promote social and economic development.

Of course it has long been the work of the British Council, on whose council I served for 10 years some years ago, to build engagement and trust for the UK through the mutual understanding of our values. Our universities have also had a key role to play in this in their links with overseas institutions, their welcoming of international students through scholarship programmes —some sadly no longer funded—and their education of the future leaders of many countries.

I have spoken on this issue previously but make no apology for referencing the vital role that educating and empowering women can play in building stability, as indeed did the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, and my noble friend Lord McConnell. For example, I draw noble Lords’ attention to the work of the Westminster Foundation in Sierra Leone, a country where concentrated action has had real impact. WFD helped build the capacity of elected women and women community leaders to take a greater role in political life following a decade of civil war.

Working with local organisations that have credibility is key to all this. It is what will make upstream prevention a truly worthwhile and effective strategy. People directly affected by conflict offer unparalleled insight into changing dynamics but this is of limited value if local institutions are not in place with legitimacy to respond. As bodies such as the Westminster Foundation are working to show us, partnering local civil society offers the best chance that interventions will be relevant, legitimate and sustainable.

So far so laudable, but I raise two related issues of concern. I do not feel they have been sufficiently addressed in this strategy and ask the Minister to comment. The first relates to evaluation. We are all feeling the impact of public funding cuts and will do so for some time to come. But we must see results when we spend substantial sums—I remind noble Lords that 30 per cent of UK official development assistance will go to conflict-affected states by 2014-15. We must also know that what we are spending represents value for money. The strategy makes only a passing promise of

“rigorous internal and external ... evaluation”,

and an annual progress report within the public statement about SDSR. That is about it and that is not good enough.

The strategy itself says that,

“the overall evidence base and conceptual foundations for engagement in fragile states remain patchy, underdeveloped and, in some areas, contested”.

Yet the strategy proposes to spend millions in high-risk situations and high-risk states. Given the financial climate I am not impressed by the strategy’s bland assertion that we need to be “realistic” about what we can achieve and about the pace of change. Can the Minister tell us about the evaluation to be put in place? Will we have the mechanisms to ensure that our money will be spent effectively? What are we learning from the evidence that currently exists on aid effectiveness in conflict situations?

My second question is a related one: the issue of corruption in conflicted-afflicted states. We know that corruption is endemic in fragile states. It is not limited to the Governments, and misappropriation of funds is widespread. Instability is one of the drivers for organised crime. Yet when outlining why we should put more of our money towards supporting these countries, the strategy has very little to say about what it will do about tackling corruption to ensure that money is spent effectively. Indeed, as the Select Committee on Economic Affairs observed last month, it is pretty well silent on this issue.

I am rather astonished by this. Guidance on applying the UK Bribery Act and supporting local efforts to tackle organised crime do not amount to a strategy to tackle corruption in fragile states. In the absence of any more detail in the strategy, my question to the Minister is whether our existing anti-corruption programme at country level is enough to support the delivery of this strategy and, if not, what are we going to do about it?