Food Security and Famine Prevention (Africa)

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman puts his finger on the key issue: the deep insecurity and ungoverned space in Somalia. I underline our strong admiration and support for the brave people who go in to try to deliver life-saving aid and support there. An announcement was made last week by the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia on political developments and their intention to hold elections of some sort in a year’s time. He will also know of the work done in the Kampala accords earlier this year, not least by President Museveni. I do not hide from the hon. Gentleman the very great difficulties in achieving what he underlined needs to be achieved. All this emphasises the importance of the work on resilience. The hon. Member for Lewisham East mentioned the humanitarian and emergency response review that we commissioned, which was carried out so well by Lord Ashdown. The Government have adopted all the points that he made in that report, lock, stock and barrel, and in some cases we will go further.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is very often the world’s poorest people who are most dependent on the free services provided by ecosystems and that therefore, economic development of any sort that undermines those ecosystems or is un-green will not only not help those people, but actively harm them? Will he continue to put an increasing focus, as I know he is, on tackling the environmental causes of some of the base poverty we see in the world today?