Sub-Saharan Africa (Report from the International Relations and Defence Committee)

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, the House, and indeed Africa, owes the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and the committee that produced this report a debt of gratitude for all the work that they put into it and for the good sense and wisdom that it contains. I am able to say that because I was not a member of the committee at the time, but the speeches that we have heard today reflect that.

I wish simply to underline to the Minister the importance of him responding in a way that demonstrates that there is a strategy. Where is the evidence of closer integrated relationships and working between the Ministry of Defence, the Department for International Trade and the FCDO? If there is no written strategy, where is the practical evidence on the ground of that closer working relationship? I am bound to say that I do not see it. Nor, in listening to speeches from Members from all sides of the House, do I hear any evidence of it existing and making a difference, both to African lives and to the good relationship between the peoples of Africa and the people of the United Kingdom.

One thing that struck me when I was a high commissioner in South Africa was the depth of civil society relationships, such as the relationship between the Mother’s Union in New Brighton in the Eastern Cape and the Mothers’ Union in Brighton in our country or between those integrating rugby in Gugulethu, a township in the Western Cape, and the Datchet Boys’ Rugby Club. I saw actual evidence of that commitment and engagement. If only we saw the same evidence of commitment and engagement on the part of the Government. Sadly, it is not there. It does not do any service to this country or this House in the absence of evidence of that relationship.

I want to make two or three points about one particular area that the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, has already referred to and which, importantly, is dealt with in recommendations 81 and 82 of the report, in relation to Cameroon. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who knows about these things, described the history of Britain in Africa as patchy. Frankly, it was nowhere more patchy than in the history of Cameroon, but I am bound to say that when you compare it to the legacies of Germany and France in Cameroon, there is a difference. The legacy of France, which continues, is one of exploitation while the legacy of Germany, which was inherited after the mandate, was, frankly, one of brutality.

However, I fear that Britain’s legacy in Cameroon is one of neglect; I am afraid that neglect continues to this day. We were promised that there would be attention to human rights in the partnership agreement between the UK and Cameroon on trade, but where is the evidence of that? We hear about trade but do not hear about human rights. What has been the British Government’s response to the most recent atrocities that occurred a matter of only days ago in Cameroon?

The report refers rightly to the role of women and girls as, all too often, victims of conflict. Just two weeks ago there were two such victims and I am going to name them, because naming is important. Sinclair Shaalanyuy, a young girl who was attending a summer school in Kumbo, was killed. Grace Titalabit, a mother attending a presbyterian church in Bali in north-west Cameroon, was killed in circumstances where the blame is quite clearly on the security forces of the Biya regime.

There is ample evidence, I am afraid, of atrocities time and again on the part of the Cameroonian security forces. What is our response to that? How are we engaging with France on this issue? Where is the evidence of our engagement—if it exists—producing any difference on the ground? How are we supporting civil society’s peacemaking efforts in Cameroon? How are we working with the churches in all that they seek to do in relation to peacekeeping and conflict resolution in that country? What resources are we applying to that?

How are we working across the piece in ways that protect civil society engagement? The report rightly refers to the importance of that engagement, just as it refers to the importance of diaspora engagement in relation to development. Just a matter of days ago, on 26 August, the Minister of territorial administration in Cameroon issued an order demanding that promoters and representatives of all foreign associations operating in Cameroon submit information about their operations and their relationship with Cameroonian civil society. I am afraid that was specifically designed to suppress and hold back the activities of civil society organisations promoting peacekeeping, conflict resolution and indeed development. It was aimed at the sort of organisations that are doing excellent work in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Cameroon.

As a result of those decrees and that activity against civil society, Médecins Sans Frontières has had to withdraw from Cameroon, and the threat exists to British organisations too. So how are we working with France on this issue? When was the last time that a Minister from the FCDO spoke with a French Minister on this issue, and what was the result? We must have evidence of that co-operation. The report specifically calls for co-operation generally in Africa—we want joint approaches and joined-up development efforts—but there is no evidence of it.

We have an opportunity to make a difference, but we will make that difference only if we see evidence of a strategy focused on unlocking the potential of Africa and recognising the warm and effective relationship that exists at every level of our society here in the United Kingdom with Africa and Africans, with the diaspora and, indeed, on the continent itself. It needs to be evidenced by a strategy and its implementation, so that we move from warm words and sentiment to reality.

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I was saying in response to the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, that the nine agreements we have signed with 16 countries in Africa represent bilateral trade worth £21.7 billion in 2019. There are also 12 trade envoys to Africa covering 15 countries, four of them Members of your Lordships’ House.

A number of noble Lords raised visas. We have designed our new visa system to support our business and trade ties with Africa. It treats people from every part of the world equally, welcoming them based not on the continent they come from but on their skills and the contribution they can make to the United Kingdom. I know that my honourable friend the Minister for Africa has had correspondence with your Lordships’ committee on this, including giving the reassurance that he raised many of the issues highlighted in your Lordships’ report with Ministers at the Home Office, but this is a new system. As we build it, we will of course keep reviewing it and ways that it could be improved to ensure it has the confidence of those we want to welcome to the UK. We would welcome continued feedback from your Lordships’ committee on this issue as we do that.

For growth to be sustainable, we must address security threats that could undermine it and harm our interests and those of our African partners. There remain pockets of violent conflict across Africa, and our second priority is to tackle them, working with affected countries, the African Union and the UN Security Council. We have expanded our diplomatic presence across the Sahel, one of the poorest regions on the planet and one suffering from growing insecurity and violent extremism. The noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, asked about that, particularly whether we have changed our shift to the Sahel in the light of recent events. Since 2018, we have significantly expanded our presence in the region, with resident ambassadors in Mauritania, Niger and Chad for the first time, and an increase in the size of our embassy in Mali. We have also increased staffing in London, set up an advisory hub in Dakar and appointed an envoy. We are playing a prominent role in the Sahel Coalition and the Sahel Alliance.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, and others raised peacekeeping. We provide 300 troops to MINUSMA, the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Mali, and four Chinook helicopters to the French counter-terrorism Operation Barkhane, as the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, noted. We also use our £12 million Conflict, Stability and Security Fund programme to build stability and bolster conflict resolution in Mali and the wider Sahel.

We are working to tackle terrorism in west Africa and the Lake Chad basin through a £12.6 million support package to counter Daesh in the region. We continue to support conflict resolution in Somalia and Sudan, and their transitions to democracy. In addition to pressing Somalia to hold rapid and credible elections, we are using our £24 million CSSF programme to seek to reduce current and future threats by focusing on building and delivering capability in its security sector, supporting stabilisation efforts and our efforts to counter al-Shabaab.

We are working with our partners and through the UN Security Council to end hostilities in Tigray. We have used our G7 presidency to amplify our calls for unfettered humanitarian access, a dialogue to resolve the conflict and accountability for atrocities. My noble friend Lady Helic mentioned some of these. Thanks in large part to her work in government, the UK is a global leader on tackling sexual violence in conflict. We have deployed the UK team of experts more than 90 times since 2012 to build the capacity of Governments, the UN and NGOs, including most recently in Tigray, to investigate crimes of conflict-related sexual violence and to hold perpetrators to account. This year, the UK will publish the three-year PSVI strategy, which will focus UK efforts on strengthening pathways to justice for all survivors and enhancing the support available to them, including tackling stigma.

Our third priority is to nurture open societies. That means supporting human rights and democratic values and supporting civil society groups to provide African-led solutions to the continent’s challenges. It means building institutions that can stave off authoritarianism and corruption, and it means supporting democratic values and institutions through diplomacy. In Kenya, for instance, we have supported the reform of the police and strengthened independent institutions such as the judiciary and elections commission. It also means holding those who violate human rights to account, including through our sanctions regimes. In Zimbabwe, we used our new autonomous sanctions regime to hold to account four security officials who were responsible for some of Zimbabwe’s worst human rights violations under the Mnangagwa Government.

Providing developmental support is our fourth priority. We are determined to end preventable deaths, improve sexual and reproductive health, and help more girls to receive 12 years of quality education. Between 2015 and 2020, more than 37 million young children, women and adolescent girls in Africa were reached through our nutrition programmes, and we supported more than 26 million people in Africa to gain access to clean water or better sanitation. Over the same period, we enabled an average of 25 million women and girls each year to access modern methods of family planning, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

We will continue to invest in stronger health systems towards saving the lives of mothers and children, including bilateral programmes in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, the DRC, Malawi, Uganda and Mozambique. Our bilateral programmes will be enhanced by multilateral investment and partnerships. The UK will continue to support the large-scale delivery of vaccines to children through GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, and scale up the prevention and treatment of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria through the Global Fund.

A number of noble Lords made points relating to Covid and the provision of vaccines. I am mindful that the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, has secured a debate on that very subject in your Lordships’ House tomorrow so I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I go into only some detail on it now; I will be responding to that debate and will be able to go into further detail with the extra time allowed there. We continue to support the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines in Africa, where we have contributed £548 million to COVAX. Forty-two African countries have received a total of 31 million doses through the initiative. Furthermore, the Prime Minister has announced that the UK will share 100 million vaccine doses by June next year. However, I will take back the point made by my friend Lady Fall about further discussions at UNGA and discuss it with colleagues.

In July, we hosted the Global Education Summit in partnership with Kenya, advancing our commitment to 12 years of quality education for all girls by 2030 and supporting education across Africa. This was an extraordinary demonstration of global solidarity, raising more than $4 billion to help the world’s most vulnerable children. The UK made our largest-ever pledge of £430 million to the Global Partnership for Education fund, maintaining our position as its top bilateral donor. However, we must acknowledge some of the difficult decisions that have been taken because of the economic impact of the pandemic.

Many noble Lords raised—as we have debated many times before—the need temporarily to reduce our development spending from 0.7% to 0.5% of GNI. This was a difficult decision, and the Prime Minister has committed to returning to 0.7% as soon as possible. However, we will still spend more than £10 billion around the world this year to fight poverty, tackle climate change and improve global health. We remain the third-largest G7 donor and will spend close to half our bilateral aid budget this year in Africa. We are targeting our support where human suffering is most acute. Our focus is on preventing deaths, getting girls into school, boosting science and technology and tackling climate change.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, asked some questions about VSO in the light of that. We have agreed funding with VSO for the V4D programme until the end of this financial year, and officials have started discussions with VSO on our future relationship.

A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Anelay, the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and the noble Lords, Lord Grocott, Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Collins of Highbury, raised the issue of remittances. The Government recognise the importance of remittances sent from the UK to low and middle-income countries. We are committed to achieving G20 and SDG targets, seeking to reduce the average cost of remittances to 3% of the total being sent and with no send costs in excess of 5%. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked about the decline in remittances. They declined by 1.6% globally in 2020, which is a fall but a lot less than was predicted earlier by the World Bank and others.

Our fifth priority is to help African countries to become low-carbon economies and shield them from the worst impacts of climate change. We are working with countries and the African Union to prioritise climate, nature and a green recovery from Covid-19, including through the African Union’s Green Recovery Action Plan, which was launched in July this year. We will use the COP 26 summit to address the disproportionate impact of climate change on Africa and turbocharge global action. We are pressing donor countries to live up to the $100 billion climate finance commitment made at the Paris climate summit. For our part, we have committed to doubling our climate finance to £11.6 billion. This is helping developing countries to pursue sustainable low-carbon futures.

Like my noble friends Lord Lilley and Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, we recognise the importance of reliable, affordable and clean energy to African nations’ development. Low levels of access to electricity present a major barrier to development and an opportunity to leap-frog to low-carbon economies, driven by renewable energy. That is why the UK launched the COP 26 Energy Transition Council, which will help to accelerate the transition from coal to clean energy across Africa. It will bring together the global political, financial and technical leadership in the power sector to seek to improve the international offer in support of an equitable transition from coal.

In the time available, I have given just a glimpse of the work we are doing across Africa. We have one of the largest diplomatic networks—

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

Before the Minister sits down, I hope he is going to address Cameroon.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am indeed. I was not yet winding up, simply saying that I have been able to give but a glimpse of the soft power work that we are doing across Africa. We have one of the largest diplomatic networks across the continent, strengthening partnerships with African countries and creating further people-to-people links. In working towards our goals, we will make the most of our considerable soft power assets, which were noted in your Lordships’ report and its recommendations. We have a rich array of creative, cultural and sporting links to build on, whether through scientific collaborations, tech start-ups, Africa Fashion Week London or BBC Africa.

The education sector is another vital link in this area. More than 30,000 African students are studying here in the UK. The British Council supports better knowledge of the English language through a number of programmes, including English Connects, which engaged with more than 1.3 million 18 to 35 year-olds through digital resources in the last academic year. Our Chevening programme, which was mentioned, has an extraordinary record of accomplishment in helping to educate future and current African leaders. We have increased funding for the programme and the 2019 intake of 1,100 was the largest ever.

A number of noble Lords talked about the importance of the diaspora communities here in the UK. We are looking to make better use of the knowledge and expertise of our African diaspora communities in strengthening our partnerships. Already, this approach has helped to identify trade and investment opportunities in countries such as Ghana and Nigeria. There are important ways in which the diaspora communities can build bridges with civil society and communities in their countries of descent to support action on priorities such as open societies and climate change. The noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, mentioned COP 26, and of course we want everybody in the United Kingdom to be engaged with that important summit.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, and my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford both raised China. As the Government’s response to your Lordships’ report made clear, the committee’s recommendations reflect the Government’s current approach. China is an important source of aid, trade and investment for many African nations. However, we are clear-eyed about the potential risks that this poses vis-à-vis issues such as debt sustainability and China’s economic and political influence. We take a nuanced and differentiated approach. We seek to maximise the positive impacts that China might have, especially in multilateral fora, while working to mitigate any risks. We distinguish carefully between the threats and opportunities China poses in Africa, and proactively engage where doing so is in the national interest and supports our Africa objectives.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, also raised the case of Leah Sharibu. We remain deeply concerned about Leah’s welfare. Our officials in Abuja raised her case with the Nigerian Government in March this year. The Nigerian Government have provided assurances that they are doing all they can to secure her release, and the release of all those still held in captivity.

Cameroon was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and others. The Government remain deeply concerned about the situation in the northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon. We are aware of reports of human rights abuses in those regions and have made representations to the authorities about the importance of timely and transparent investigations into such reports. Indeed, we regularly raise our concerns about the crisis with the Government of Cameroon at the highest levels. The Minister for Africa visited Cameroon in March this year, met both President Biya and Prime Minister Ngute and set out the UK’s commitment to supporting a peaceful resolution.

The UK has also shared our experience of conflict resolution with the Government of Cameroon, and we work in conjunction with international partners, including France, as the noble Lord said, to raise the crisis in multilateral fora. During my honourable friend’s visit in March, he met the American, French and Swiss representatives to share assessments of the crisis. We also welcome the active conflict resolution role that can be played by faith leaders, both locally and globally, and welcomed the visit by the Vatican’s Foreign Minister, Cardinal Parolin, in June.

The noble Lord, Lord Boateng, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, asked about trade in the light of all this. The UK-Cameroon economic partnership agreement ensures continuity of our trading arrangements, but the Government’s approach is clear: using trade to support development is not mutually exclusive to the rule of law, protecting human rights and democratic principles. We continue to press the Government of Cameroon to uphold these important principles, which underpin the economic partnership agreement.

I am now, however, running out of time, and must conclude—