International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Lord Williams of Oystermouth Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Williams of Oystermouth (CB)]

My Lords, it would be all too easy to see this admirable and welcome Bill in terms simply of its financial implications. The truth is that its significance is a great deal broader. Many international voluntary agencies—I declare my interest as chair of the trustees of Christian Aid and patron of the Africa Prisons Project—are working, and will continue to work, not only to alleviate poverty and privation but actively to resist a culture of long-term dependency and structural dysfunctionality in developing economies. Our hope as aid agencies is to build up active, creative economies which are proper vehicles for people who need their dignity affirmed at least as much as they need their physical privations dealt with. Contrary to some people’s stereotypes, I can think of few, if any, aid agencies which would disagree with the definition offered by a leading local broadsheet earlier this week saying that aid works if it promotes self-sufficiency by laying the groundwork for investment, enterprise and growth.

We strive to tackle both the building of lasting capacity and to diagnose and campaign around the factors, global as well as local, that keep cycles of poverty and dependency alive. We are very grateful to those in government who have taken this on board in their response to the campaigns in recent years around, for example, tax transparency. When last year I visited some of our Christian Aid projects in South Sudan, what struck me most was the extraordinary resilience and vitality of small-scale co-operative projects, especially those run by women, whose education and empowerment is a major focus of our work. It was good to hear that flagged up by several previous speakers in the debate. The will and the ability, the strength of purpose and the sense of large responsibilities are all emphatically present in developing countries, and so often the real task is to work with the grain of this, listening hard to what local communities want and believe they can achieve. Once again, contrary to some stereotypes, it is simply not the case that there is an appetite for handouts in contexts such as this.

Yet South Sudan illustrates with painful clarity why this Bill matters. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, for foregrounding the needs of South Sudan. We at Christian Aid are privileged to work with our own Government and others to sustain capacity at the grass roots. But collapsing or non-existent infrastructure, the lack of real nation building at a number of levels, endemic problems with the diversion of funds to elites, constant instability with sporadic outbreaks of murderous violence, all mean that grass- roots work is deeply vulnerable.

In Juba last July I was shown the empty and shattered cashbox which was all that was left of one small women’s co-operative’s savings after the murderous disorders of the winter of 2013-14. Without the wider and longer-term commitment of our Government to support not only grass-roots work but nation building and the creation of a responsible political culture, smaller-scale projects will always be at the mercy of political and social instabilities, which need more resources than any voluntary body can summon up. I applaud wholeheartedly the emphasis given in the excellent opening speech of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, to this question of the long-term perspective, which we need to keep in mind, and what was said in support of that by the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker.

Intelligent and well directed government support is what saves many nations from becoming failed states. We hardly need reminding, in the light of the events of recent weeks, how readily instability leaks out from failed and failing states, with murderous effects elsewhere. The Bill offers the possibility of proper planning and consistent strategy. The commitment we are talking about today is a commitment to that task as well as the routine responses to crises and the building up of local self-sufficiency.

Another word for a commitment is a “treaty”. We have always regarded it as a matter of national honour to keep our treaty obligations. These are obligations of mutual defence and support. I believe that what we are being invited to do in taking the Bill forward is likewise a matter of our honour, our self-respect as a nation. We are making a treaty with those who inhabit a poorer and more risk-laden environment than ourselves, a treaty which recognises that what people need to be defended from is not just aggression from outside but chaos and need within. I am delighted to think that we are still a society willing to make and keep such commitments of honour. I believe, on the basis of the continuing generosity of so many supporters of our work at Christian Aid and that of other charities, that even in a time of financial stringency the people of the United Kingdom still care profoundly about behaving honourably towards their less fortunate neighbours.