Afghanistan

Baroness D'Souza Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness D’Souza (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, for securing this debate. I declare an interest as co-founder of the school in Kabul.

Afghanistan has been a heavily aid-dependent country for many decades. The withholding of multilateral aid and assistance funds affects not only the vulnerable groups in Afghanistan but a sizeable percentage of the entire population. The urgent need is for bulk food aid and efficient distribution mechanisms. Neither of these can be guaranteed, but given that there are still small independent NGOs working, often at village level, can the Government spell out what plans they have to recruit organisations such as Afghanaid to assist in the delivery of food to rural areas? The major food tonnage will, I guess, come from the World Food Programme, but has the UK any official presence in Afghanistan to ensure that the remaining longstanding and reliable NGOs are part of the delivery teams, given that they have a good knowledge of where the urgent need is?

Meanwhile, it has to be acknowledged that the massive inputs of aid and humanitarian assistance since 2001, and earlier, have not had a significant impact on poverty reduction. There is growing awareness that humanitarian assistance alone will not support the Afghan people immediately or in the near future. Now might, therefore, be an opportune time to see what lessons can truly be learned and what kind of coherent strategy might be devised to make development assistance work. Thankfully, a new initiative, the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub, has been set up to adapt and innovate in aid delivery. Its focus will be on working with Afghan people and other experts to provide evidence-based insights and ideas on appropriate aid provision for Afghans.

Given that G20 leaders from around the world have agreed to limited co-operation with the Taliban on aid delivery, it is in the interest of the UK and the international community to strive to get it right this time. I ask the Minister to support these kinds of initiatives by allocating funds, facilitating access and, above all, adopting the results of this collaborative approach.