Poverty in the Developing World

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich]

I extend my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, not only for opening this debate but for his support for the global poverty campaign alongside the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin. I also thank him for introducing a new form of words. We often have debates about development, but they rarely focus so directly on the people who have to suffer extreme poverty. In one sense, we are trying to discern the invisible, because we can never see or analyse the most extreme forms of poverty. By its nature, it occurs out of reach of any government service, in semi-desert, rocky plateaus, forests and corners of shanty towns. Many years ago, I was in villages in northern Chad on the edge of the Sahara. I can be pretty certain that, with conflict and other factors intervening, those families will have somehow survived without any formal health and social services ever since.

Even NGOs, which seem ubiquitous in most poor countries, do not venture into some areas because of difficulty of access or civil war. I remember one field worker telling me that you cannot start a project with nothing at all if there is no one with skills to develop or opportunities to expand. I have always believed that because of the number of schemes in poor countries that fail altogether despite good intentions. There are too many shipwrecks of good will where money has been poured into holes in the sand or mantraps of corruption. I shall mention Southern Sudan in a moment. I know that the Government are concerned about this as part of their review.

On the other hand, some of the best development work can occur during a crisis and comes under a humanitarian heading. In times of conflict or when people are forced to live together in acute poverty, the UN relief agencies have been able to sustain life and livelihoods even in the most precarious conditions. We have heard examples from the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths. In these circumstances, how do we decide where to spend money effectively? I know that that is another preoccupation of the Government. Donors tend to use standard measurements of poverty such as the LDCs—the least developed countries—as listed on the human development index. However, poverty is not confined to the LDCs; it can occur in any country, which is why—thank heaven—we have kept India in the DfID portfolio.

Many of the very poor in our own society are again out of reach, some because they are escaping from the law, the Inland Revenue or some other persecutor. Many immigrant families are out of reach because they officially do not exist. Poverty has always been hard to define. In last year’s human development report, the UNDP introduced a multidimensional poverty index instead of using the normal national or international poverty standards. This index uses the main dimensions of health, education and living standards, but it includes household indicators such as floor space and personal assets as well as fuel, water and sanitation. By this standard, which does not take account of human rights, there are 1.75 billion poor—almost one in four people in the world. Out of 169 countries, the UNDP lists Mozambique, Burundi, Niger, Congo and Zimbabwe as the five very poorest. So what do the Government think about the multidimensional poverty index? Does the Minister know whether DfID is using it and, if so, why has it decided to take Burundi and up to 15 other countries off its own list of countries receiving bilateral aid? How has it made those calculations?

Today’s poorest may be found among the 40 million or so migrants and displaced people all over the world: people who are stateless and have nothing—no possessions, no food and no water—without the help of charity or international relief agencies. The most vivid examples are those fleeing from Libya even today, risking everything to reach Italy by sea. Does the Minister support the new European Parliament resolution of 5 April on migration, which calls on the EU to create a new instrument for these refugees and draws attention to the disproportionate burden carried by certain member states?

Bereavement is another form of poverty. Suddenly someone dies in the family. A UCL study published in the Lancet estimated that 12 per cent of all male deaths in the world resulted from violence, while 14 per cent were from traffic accidents, and maternal conditions were the cause of 15 per cent of all female deaths. Having visited south Sudan, as the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, mentioned, I shall share some more statistics from that country, which is to become independent in July. Only half of all deliveries are attended by a trained health worker in Sudan; in the south by itself, only 10 per cent of births are attended. About 2,000 women in every 100,000 giving birth die in childbirth, and one in 10 babies still die from the effects of poverty. In some areas, the averages are much worse. This is because of the lack not only of food and resources but of education, which makes it impossible for the poor to attain good health and food security. Only 8 per cent of women in the south of Sudan can read and write.

The inability of outsiders such as us to help is also a problem. After the peace agreement five years ago, concerted attempts were made to introduce a basic package of health services. The Minister might know that the main channel of aid, the Multi Donor Trust Fund, ran into a host of difficulties and unacceptable delays, partly owing to the World Bank’s strict procurement rules. Basic health was to be introduced through a partnership between NGOs and the World Bank, known as the Umbrella Program for Health System Development. What happened to that programme, which was designed to support sub-contracted, performance-based public health in the south, to which so many international donors such as us have contributed? Even now, less than one-third of the people of south Sudan are reached by health services. Was it the lack of local capacity, which is so often blamed, or the excess of academic zeal and donor muddle, which usually gets away with it?

Finally, I congratulate the Government on their latest efforts to create a more honest, open and accountable environment for international development. I trust that, as the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, said, the Chancellor will take to heart some of Christian Aid’s recommendations on tax transparency when he attends the G20 meeting.