Africa: Post-conflict Stabilisation

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, I declare my interest as an adviser to the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative in Rwanda and other charitable foundations working in this area. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, for initiating and securing this debate. I was aware of his passion for both this subject and these regions in advance of entering the House. I share that passion; I believe strongly that peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction are the greatest, most important and, unfortunately, the most difficult development challenges of our time.

In making my maiden speech today, I am conscious of the history and constitutional importance of the House, and of the emerging debate on its future and further reform. I will respect the former and make a contribution to the latter. I hope that, as former First Minister of Scotland, a Member of the Scottish Parliament for Motherwell and Wishaw, and the first MSP who has not previously served in Westminster to join this House, I can bring a helpful perspective to that debate. Many noble Lords have welcomed me to the House and to Westminster in recent weeks. I am very grateful for the welcome I have received. I have friends on all sides of the House and I look forward to working with them in the years to come.

I am particularly proud to have recorded the name of the farm where I grew up—Glenscorrodale—in the title which I received last Monday. There is a real pride and pleasure for me in recognising Glenscorrodale, the successful sheep farm that my father built, and from where he represented Scotland in international sheepdog trials. But perhaps more significantly for me, as I was never meant to be a farmer, the farm was also where my mother built a successful business—a tea room that was nationally recognised and received awards. This was quite an achievement for a farmer’s wife who had left school with an ambition to be a domestic science teacher, which she never realised because of family illnesses at that time. Indeed, I believe there may even be Members of this House to whom I served tea on the farm. One or two have mentioned that I showed early skills at that time in dealing diplomatically with difficult situations.

I thank the staff of the House for their guidance and assistance over recent weeks. I look forward to relying on their experience and knowledge to help me make an effective contribution. I am particularly looking forward to questioning the other Lord Wallace—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who was my Deputy First Minister in the Scottish devolved Government. I had to defend him as Deputy First Minister on many occasions, as he did for me. It will be interesting, now that he is serving in another coalition, to have the opportunity to ask him questions. There will be many watching that with a smile. Having led a coalition Government for nearly six years—longer than any other person in British politics today—I will use that experience to advise constructively and hold accountable the new coalition Government here. I hope that, in this House, I can also help UK institutions to understand better today’s United Kingdom as a whole—a multinational, multicultural country where our diversity strengthens rather than weakens our communities.

I was interested to learn that the first Scottish life Peer under the 1876 Act, Baron Blackburn, was a mathematics graduate. My earlier career before entering Parliament was as a mathematics teacher. My lifelong passion for education is one of the reasons why I have an interest in post-conflict reconstruction and peace-building. There is no doubt in my mind—and in this I share the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox—that access to education is fundamental to sustainable development and peace.

As the former Prime Minister’s special representative on peace-building from 2008 to 2010, I had the opportunity to visit, among others, the countries of the Great Lakes region last year. I met former combatants in our highly successful demobilisation and reintegration camp in Rwanda. I met some incredible UN peacekeepers from India, a long way from home, deep inside the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. I met an inspiring youth leader who had sheltered more than 20,000 youngsters in his youth club in Bujumbura in Burundi, and ordinary people still living in a camp for internally displaced persons three years after the establishment of peace in northern Uganda. In these countries there is real progress today, as other noble Lords have noted. Many of those working for local and national Governments, NGOs, the UN, the World Bank, the European Union and individual country donors do a terrific job.

However, all—and I mean all—could do so much more. Levels of poverty, sexual violence and ill health are unacceptable for far too many of the people who live in these countries and the other countries of the wider region. We need to learn from success, but also from failure. We need to understand that building a functioning democratic state under the rule of law and with a growing economy takes time. Politicians are good and bad everywhere. Patience and persistence can be essential in peace-building. We need to understand that development is the mortar of peace. I welcome our new Government’s commitment to maintaining progress towards the 0.7 per cent target for international aid. However, as the UN’s summit on progress towards the millennium development goals takes place in September, supporting our Prime Minister to urge other leaders to keep their promises is a responsibility for all.

The previous Government in the UK made considerable progress in leading the debate on UN peace-building missions and their effectiveness. The UN has also supported the development of the African Union, as has the UK in recent years. I know from recent discussions with the current chair of the African Union—Malawi’s President, Bingu wa Mutharika—that, while its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, had a principle of non-interference, the AU has firmly established its principle of non-indifference. For me, the future of conflict prevention, post-conflict stabilisation and peace-building in Africa lies inside Africa itself. I hope that our Government will continue to help to build the capacity of the African Union and the regional organisations to realise that vision.

Finally, it is undoubtedly the case that the post-conflict efforts of the UN, the World Bank, the EU and many others have too often lacked coherence, been too little too late and underestimated the importance of capacity-building and national ownership. This year—in a review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, a review of the international efforts to build capacity in fragile states, the establishment of the new women’s agency at the UN and the MDG summit in December—there will be real opportunities to improve on this past performance. In Rwanda in particular, but also recently in Uganda, Burundi and the DRC, there have been signs of hope. Let us build on them and help to build a safer and more prosperous world for us all.