Baroness Cox
Main Page: Baroness Cox (Crossbench - Life peer)
Baroness Cox (CB) [V]
My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register and declare an interest as the founder of the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust—HART —which works with local partners abroad, all of whom experience acute suffering but are largely unhelped by the FCDO.
Time allows only three examples. In Nigeria, tens of thousands of civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been displaced by violence in the Middle Belt. Our local partner there, Reverend Canon Hassan John, told us that, for more than 10 years, “I am not aware of any assistance from the British Government in this central region.”
In Sudan, civilians in Blue Nile state face a risk of famine and a devastating lack of teachers and educational materials. Our local partner, Benjamin Banaba, told us, “Apart from HART in Blue Nile state there is no other indigenous, international or UN agency providing any educational or scholastic material. Your project is the only project that exists on the ground and everyone relies on it.”
Finally, it is eight months since the UK sent £1 million in aid to Nagorno-Karabakh—for all victims, I understand, not just Armenians. I have not seen any commitment from HMG to extend those funds, despite the ongoing suffering of ethnic Armenians, with mass displacement, kidnappings, killings and the destruction of their homes and vital infrastructure. HART’s partner, Vardan Tadevosyan, who directs the disability rehabilitation centre in Karabakh, has had to expand his work to help injured soldiers in the recent war, while many of his staff have been displaced and the number of patients is expected to double.
These situations sadly reflect the evidence-based concerns identified in the important book by Jonathan Foreman Aiding and Abetting: Foreign Aid Failures and the 0.7% Deception. Therefore, while I strongly oppose the reduction in the scale of foreign aid, I urge the FCDO to give greater priority to the problems I have identified, and to many others suffering in similar situations.