Millennium Development Goals

Alan Duncan Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Alan Duncan)]

I thank the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma)for calling a debate on a topic that has an important bearing on the lives of so many people around the world. There is little doubt that children who live without parental care or in situations of severe family abuse and neglect are the most vulnerable in any society.

Children in the poorest countries are particularly at risk, especially those living through conflict or humanitarian disasters. In most societies children with disabilities face particular difficulties, as do children living in institutional care. Girls are often the most vulnerable, which is why the UK Government are working closely with partners, such as the Nike Girl Hub, to improve the lives of many thousands of girls living in abject poverty worldwide.

UNICEF estimates that almost 18 million children worldwide have lost both parents and 153 million have lost one parent. Many of those children face real hardships. They are often left without protection and care. Some are fortunate enough to be able to live with relatives or friends, but many more end up on the streets, having to fend for themselves and eke out a living.

Supporting vulnerable girls and boys is an important priority in international development. The UK Government are helping to tackle it in a range of ways, including through specific programmes aimed at improving the lives of the most vulnerable, as well as through our work with others, including overseas Governments, the United Nations, the private sector and civil society.

I can answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar) in his intervention by making it clear that those who work on child rights and child protection receive training and tuition on those subjects. DFID tailors child protection programmes to the context of individual countries and includes child protection clauses in its grants to partners.

Hon. Members will be aware of international statutes that have a bearing on the issue of vulnerable children. The UN convention on the rights of the child and the International Labour Organisation’s convention on child labour provide a universally agreed set of non-negotiable standards and obligations on human rights for children that must be respected by Governments in all societies, and clear frameworks to hold Governments and others to account. The UK is not just a signatory to those conventions, but is actively working with others to ensure that the standards are put into practice and genuinely help to improve the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable people across the world.

In answer to the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall, I shall focus on four ways in which we are working to improve the lives of vulnerable children living without parental care. First, international evidence shows that cash transfer programmes are one of the most effective ways of reaching orphans and vulnerable children. In some cases, those are in the form of pensions, because many of the children live with their grandparents. For example, where one or both parents died from HIV/AIDS, such payments provide a vital source of income to help poor families care for children and stick together. In other cases, cash transfer programmes directly target the children themselves. For example, in Kenya, DFID is supporting the Government’s orphans and vulnerable children programme, which directly targets children without parental care, and is reaching more than 55,000 households. Over the past few years, it has resulted in a reduction in the proportion of those aged six to 13 doing paid work from one in 20 to one in 100. It has also helped to reduce the number of people living on less than a dollar a day from one third to one fifth.

In Zimbabwe, DFID is supporting the Zimbabwean Government’s national action plan for orphans and vulnerable children. It will help at least 25,000 children to secure their basic rights and meet essential needs, by providing money for food and school fees and helping orphans to access justice services.

Secondly, the UK is the second largest donor to the UN children’s fund—UNICEF—which works in 190 countries, helping the poorest and most vulnerable children in a huge range of areas, including health and education, child labour, trafficking, and recruitment into armed forces, and giving critical support to children in institutional care. In 2011, for example, UNICEF helped 19 million women and children with nutritional support after natural disasters, and helped 6 million of the most vulnerable children receive schooling in the aftermath of a disaster or humanitarian emergency.

Thirdly, as the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall rightly said, the millennium development goals are central to the UK’s development priorities, which we are ensuring include the poorest and most vulnerable children. For example, we support universal primary education, because we know that the high cost of education is the biggest deterrent to school attendance by the most marginalised children. By supporting countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Uganda to remove school fees we have seen a dramatic surge in school enrolment, helping more than 1 million extra children to go to school in each of those countries. Through the UK’s support to the World Food Programme’s “Food for Education” programme, we are helping to provide high-energy biscuits to 400,000 children in Afghan secondary schools and, therefore, an incentive for very poor children to attend school.

Children are often orphaned because of diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. The MDGs are vital in focusing the international community and Governments on tackling such killer diseases and, as a result, have prevented millions more children from losing their parents in the first place. The MDGs have helped to shape the quickest and biggest improvements in poverty reduction, child survival and school enrolment that the world has ever seen. The goals that follow the MDGs after 2015 must build on that success, while learning lessons from them.

I am aware that some people argue that the post-MDG goals should be a continuation of the current MDGs, while others say that the United Nations should completely rewrite them. The UK Government will play a role in helping to shape the new goals and will work to ensure that they meet the needs of the poorest. Our commitment comes right from the top; I am delighted that the Prime Minister will be co-chairing the high-level UN panel that is to lead the process. All may rest assured that he is personally committed to the new framework dealing with the needs of the most vulnerable and marginalised children.

Last, but certainly not least, our support to civil society partners is also vital to reach the most vulnerable children and communities. For example, through Save the Children, the Government are providing vital life-saving support to those affected by the humanitarian crisis in the Sahel. We are assisting Save the Children and other organisations to mobilise early support for the most vulnerable children. Last year, DFID’s funding helped Save the Children to reach 2.7 million people with emergency food, clean water and health care in east Africa.

Through War Child we are helping children in detention centres in Afghanistan; boys are often locked away just for petty theft, and girls are usually locked up for what is called running away or eloping. Conditions in many such centres are deeply shocking; children are often denied education and they are given little food or comfort. War Child’s interventions are helping to improve the justice system as well as conditions in the centres, and children are assisted to reconnect with their families and local communities when they leave the centres.

Our support to Plan International is helping more than 6,000 children who live and work on the streets in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to transform their lives. It provides safe shelters, basic education, health and sanitation facilities, information on issues such as sexual abuse, child labour and trafficking, and counselling for the most vulnerable and traumatised children.

In conclusion, the UK Government are acutely aware of the vulnerability of children around the world, in particular those without safeguards to protect them. We are doing a great deal on this agenda but, clearly, more needs to be done. We will continue to work with others to find effective ways of meeting the needs of those children. We are also fully aware that the post-MDG framework must include a focus on the world’s most marginalised people, including vulnerable children. I thank the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall for raising the issue in today’s debate. He has done a great service to an important cause in the field of development.

Question put and agreed to.