UN Sustainable Development Goals
Debate between Lord Boateng and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton(10 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
That is not exactly what I said. I am very proud that we reached 0.7%. I had some disagreements with this Government before I joined but politics is a team enterprise; when you decide to join a Government, you accept Cabinet collective responsibility and you accept you are going to work with that team and the policies they have. I am proud that, with 0.5% and a growing economy, we are seeing more money going to overseas development. Now that the refugee crisis is abating—I mentioned Africa—we will see, in our budgets, an increase from £600 million to over £1.2 billion, and we are committed, when the fiscal rules allow, to get back to the 0.7% that we historically achieved.
Lord Boateng (Lab)
My Lords, the biggest threat to the SDGs in Africa is conflict and internal instability. In the Sahel, this has increased ever since the disastrous Libyan incursion that the Foreign Secretary will remember very well. What steps does he personally intend to take to enhance security and democracy in sub-Saharan Africa, and will that include aid to civil society organisations?
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)
The noble Lord is quite right that if you look at the SDGs and poverty more generally, half of the poorest people in the world are now in fragile states. If we cannot help to fix fragile and conflict-affected states, we will not meet the SDGs. If you look across the Sahel, there have been a number of coups and wars and a lot of instability, so I do not think there is a single answer to this, but one of the issues, when we look at aid and development and how we help these countries, is how making sure that they have adequate security is essential. Often in this House, or in the other place, we say that defence is the first duty of a Government, but when it comes to aid, we set up a whole series of different things that we think countries ought to achieve. We must help them with their fundamental and basic security, and that is something we are committed to doing.