Aid: Anti-Corruption Measures

Baroness Anelay of St Johns Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on securing this short debate. Of course, the Government have a statutory requirement to spend 0.7% of GNI on official development assistance. They have a duty to be accountable to the taxpayer for the appropriate and effective allocation of those funds to projects worldwide, but in the real world of delivering humanitarian aid, the challenges are to assess the extent and nature of corruption in the host country and how effectively we can still deliver aid to those in dire need; and to judge if it can ever be in British interests to refuse aid or withdraw it once granted.

In June last year, the International Development Committee in another place highlighted concerns over whether money spent outside DfID is subjected to the same rigorous evaluation as that spent by the department. The chair, Stephen Twigg, said that spreading ODA across government created potential for new partnerships in aid delivery, which can be useful but also risked undermining its quality. What steps have the Government taken to ensure coherence across government in delivering aid overseas which takes account of the need for anti-corruption work in recipient countries and with what success?

Action on this matter is vital because we know that the British public are not quite as committed to the 0.7% pledge as most of us in Parliament are. That was recognised by Matthew Rycroft, Permanent Secretary at DfID on his appointment last year. He said that when you ask people why they do not support the 0.7% pledge,

“they say they don’t think it works … Or they think the whole thing is corrupt and money never ends up where it should. Those are both … criticisms and we need to address them”.

What progress does the Minister believe DfID has made in addressing those criticisms over the past year?

The very nature of DfID’s work means that its officials operate in some of the most difficult and dangerous conditions around the world, as in South Sudan or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example. In South Sudan, civil war has raged for years and its Government seem to have no care for their peoples and treat the national treasury as a personal bank account. The level of corruption and disarray means that DfID cannot do capacity-building before allocating aid, as would be the “normal” way of its doing business. Cash transfers are used to provide health services and girls’ education that give them a minimum ability to function. The education is extremely basic, but it keeps girls at school and less likely to be married off at 11 years old. That is vital in a country with high levels of sexual and gender-based violence and early marriage. I hope the Government will continue to give full support to DfID’s programmes in South Sudan.

I also welcome our humanitarian presence in the DRC in the face of sporadic violence and continuous government corruption. Can my noble friend the Minister outline the anti-corruption work carried out by the UK there and how it co-operates with other international donors?

There is evidence that UK aid work in the DRC can succeed. When at the FCO, I visited La Pépinière in Kinshasa, an excellent DfID-supported project which focused on the economic empowerment of women and girls. Can my noble friend say what gender-specific projects are supported by DfID in the DRC today?

To add to all that, the DRC has now been hit by its worst ever outbreak of Ebola; it is the second-worst ever outbreak globally. Adding to the crisis, rebels in the region have begun attacking the clinics treating Ebola sufferers. What is the Government’s assessment of the aid they can give to those trying to contain the spread of the virus?

UK humanitarian work in countries such as South Sudan and the DRC demonstrates how important it is that international donors do not “walk away” but stay to deliver aid to those who need it and persist in both anti-corruption measures and capacity-building with host Governments who cannot, or will not, help their own peoples.