International Development Committee Report (Afghanistan)

Debate between Lord Bruce of Bennachie and Richard Burden

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

DFID has played an active part in the Chicago and Tokyo conferences, and we have of course made our own commitments beyond that period, so we set an example. Ironically, DFID’s ability to provide leadership might be strengthened post-2014, when we are freed from engagement in military activity, as it will become apparent that the UK Government’s overwhelming priority is to provide development support. That will help the leadership provided by DFID across the world.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that because the Committee tries to be realistic and pretty sober about the situation in Afghanistan, we sometimes receive the response that we are suggesting that nothing has been achieved? After our last visit, the front cover of our report featured a picture of some girls who would not have been in school were it not, in part, for the efforts that have been made. It is important that we focus our activity where we can have an impact. That does not mean that we should focus on areas that are easy; empowering women is not easy in Afghanistan. It is important that we do not oversell or over-claim and that we target our efforts on crucial areas where we can make an impact.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I absolutely agree, although I would add a word of caution. We visited the same school in June as we did five years ago and we were unable to visit a girls’ class, because that was thought to be inappropriate. That shows the negative changes, but at least the girls were still being taught, which is important. We also visited Bamyan, where we were told that there was a rising number of undergraduate women at the university and that fathers were actively pushing their daughters to take university education. That demonstrates that the situation is patchy, with progress in some areas and push-back in others. The job of DFID and the international community is to support the progress and to help resist the push-back, in co-operation with Afghans themselves.

In conclusion, it is important that people understand that the evidence that we have received shows that most Afghans do not want the Taliban back. They want a better Afghanistan that they have some ability to determine, and people need livelihoods and to be free from violence and extortion. Our report says that now that we have gone so far, walking away prematurely, as some people suggest, would be a betrayal of the sacrifice of our armed forces, as well as of the Afghan people. Having intervened, we have a moral and practical obligation to walk beside the ordinary people of Afghanistan, as long as we can improve their quality of life on their terms.

Question put and agreed to.

Future of CDC

Debate between Lord Bruce of Bennachie and Richard Burden

Thursday 14th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Malcolm Bruce]

Absolutely, and I obviously hope the Secretary of State can give us that assurance.

In a sense, the organisation needs to be a trailblazer for what an investment model in developing countries ought to be, and a role model not only for other DFIs, but for the well-intentioned private sector. We have concluded that there is scope for clarification at the very least and for the maximum transparency.

We were as shocked as the Secretary of State that despite the sale of Actis, the fund manager, for £373,000 and the fact that the Government were apparently entitled to 80% of the proceeds, not a penny had been paid by the time the Committee took evidence. I know that he was anxious to vent his spleen about that when he gave evidence to us. I do not know whether he will be able to give any indication today of whether the Government can sell their share and, if they do so, whether we will get a fair rate of return—after all, that will be reinvested for the benefit of poor people.

Perhaps the Committee’s most significant recommendation was that the investment model for CDC should be changed. I know that the Government have not entirely accepted our recommendations, but I think that they acknowledge the strength of their principle and the spirit. We recognise that the fund of funds model could unlock a substantial amount and that it does attract investment. Particularly if the report’s recommendations are taken on board, that could be focused in a way that gives real, sustainable, long-term benefits to poor people in poor countries.

We felt that some of the money needed to go into more direct, riskier and more pro-poor investment. That means not that it should be thrown away or invested irresponsibly, but that lower rates of return should be acceptable or that a mix of grants and loans should be applied. We suggested the name “CDC Frontier” to indicate that the body would be operating slightly more experimentally.

One point about our recommendation of having two separate businesses was that because the fund of funds has been very successful at attracting and unlocking substantial extra funding—it has provided very good leverage—we were concerned that a more risk-associated set of investments in the same fund might frighten off some investors who have contributed. I hope that the Secretary of State will reassure us and that his response shows that he has taken our concern on board. As long as the Department and the way in which CDC is established are able to reassure those people, the Committee will be content if our specific model is not adopted. I hope that the Secretary of State understands that the proposal was not a gimmick, but a genuine attempt to ensure that we had the balance of the changing nature of the business right and that we did not have a higher-risk aspect undermining the area with a proven track record.

The Committee felt that there should be some agreement on the sort of sectors within which CDC should operate, but the Government did not entirely accept that recommendation. I appreciate the reason behind the absence of the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy). He is a valued member of our Committee and has real expertise in agricultural development in east Africa. He was rightly exercised by the view that most countries in which we have the greatest commitment to pro-poor development are rural, and agricultural productivity is a major cause of poverty. The Committee accepts that the world is changing. We have produced a report on urban poverty and increasing urbanisation, so we do not see development as something that happens just in remote parts of rural Africa, which is sometimes the public image. However, it is true that in both the sub-continent and Africa, a high proportion of the poorest people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, yet the productivity of agriculture is frankly abysmal in many cases.

When the Committee recently visited east Africa, some of us spent a night in a village in the heart of rural Burundi—

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

rose—

[Malcolm Bruce]

I will not take any interventions on that point. There is an internal issue in the Committee.

In Burundi, we witnessed for ourselves some of the poorest of the planet’s poor people struggling. I was going to say that they were on the edge, but they were beyond the edge—they were not operating at survival levels. If it were not for the intervention of non-governmental organisations, I do not think that they would have survived. It was estimated that their per-capita income was 20p a day. Apart from very basic and poor living conditions—no electricity, one tap for 4,000 people and pit latrines, although not for everybody—we saw exhausted soil, diseased plants and minimal yields that were inadequate even for self-sufficient farming, never mind cash-cropping.

The hon. Member for Stafford, as someone who knew a little more about agriculture than other Committee members, said that it should be possible to perform a soil analysis, to work out nutritional benefits and to advise on disease-resistant plants, and possibly to increase the yield of the agricultural holdings by up to eight to 10 times. That would be a massive return, so we felt that CDC should be part of the process of tackling that problem. We would like to think that it would consider investing in improving agricultural outputs in such poor countries.