Building Stability Overseas Strategy

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 6th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

To call attention to the Building Stability Overseas Strategy; and to move for Papers.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, nearly 50 years ago, John F Kennedy spoke a simple truth:

“The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution”.

He was speaking in the context of the Vietnam War. Since then, the United Kingdom has deployed its forces in the Falklands, Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq. In this century, we have seen the continuation of conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and, recently, Libya.

It is right that I start this debate by paying tribute to our men and women in uniform who do so much to defend our country’s interests. However, we should also note with relief that we live in a significantly safer world. Inter-state war has declined considerably since the end of the Second World War. It is estimated that 29 million people died in declared wars in the previous century. Civilian deaths caused by despotic Governments were on an even more horrifying scale. The Soviet Union and China alone account for nearly a million deaths. Joseph Stalin found that:

“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic”.

For us, that comment represented a collective failure of our humanity.

In recent years, civil wars, too, have become less numerous and less dangerous. According to the World Bank’s world development report, there were 21 active major civil wars in 1991-92, but since then the figure has steadily fallen to less than 10 each year since 2002. Thankfully, the toll of battle deaths has also diminished. In 1988 there were more than 200,000 deaths per year, whereas in 2008 there were some 50,000. In the post-World War 2 settlement it has been the creation of institutions that has most powerfully militated against conflict.

Despite the rise in sovereign states from around 50 to nearly 200, the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions and the international judicial system have worked to diminish the violent resolution of disputes. The international community has succeeded in building institutions to cover the three essential characteristics for maintaining international order: an overarching body to maintain peace and security; a legal settlement system to adjudicate disputes; and an enforcement mechanism to carry out the will of the community should all else fail.

However, there are still too many states within the international system which lack the resilient frameworks that might safeguard against violence, hence the continuation of conflict. In fragile states, the Government are often illegitimate or weak, the rule of law absent and public institutions are at best ineffective or at worst partisan. To this mixture add poverty, ethnic, religious or ideological strife and chronic underdevelopment. When conflict breaks out, its spillover has consequences for all other countries in the region too, with the internally displaced and many millions of refugees in other countries.

Conflict’s costs are borne disproportionately by women. A recent assessment shows that 80 per cent of those displaced are women and children. Some 75 per cent of the world’s refugees are hosted by neighbouring states, with consequent destabilisation there, too. It is in this context that we can think about how a middle-sized European power such as ours can achieve the security of its citizens, as well as play a significant role in reducing the fallout from violent conflict for others.

We have started in the right place, with our commitment to reaching 0.7 per cent of GNI in development assistance. Committing resources to others at a time of austerity at home is a difficult argument to put to the public, but it is the right one. It is incumbent on the Government to find the most effective mixture of soft, smart and hard power that Building Stability can exploit. I am enthusiastic about this strategy’s focus. It is predicated on a simple hypothesis: to work early on identifying areas of risk and, where we can, to work upstream to prevent conflict and maintain stability. Once a crisis has broken out, for whatever reasons, we should use our diplomatic and other resources for a rapid response to ameliorate the situation.

The strategy seems to hint at another important element: that of staying the course for the longer term. Too often when a crisis occurs, the attention span of both policy-makers and the public is too short. A classic example of this is Afghanistan in the late 1980s, where, once the mujaheddin had repulsed the Russians, our attention turned elsewhere. Civil war took hold, 4 million refugees became Pakistan’s problem, while Afghanistan was seized by the Taliban and hosted al-Qaeda, with the subsequent war which has cost lives and treasure.

The World Bank’s research shows that recurring civil wars have become a dominant form of armed conflict in the world today. Every civil war that has begun since 2003 was a resumption of a previous civil war: 90 per cent of conflicts initiated in this century were in countries that had already had a civil war. Peace is often not enduring: fighting has also continued after several recent political settlements, as we have seen in Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

With that in mind, let me turn to the work of the stabilisation unit which is the engine room for this strategy. Will the Minister assure me that while the strategic defence and security review, which establishes the roof under which the unit sits, is due to be reviewed or renewed every five years, the ongoing programme work of the stabilisation unit will have a longer horizon? Building stability is a long-term venture, which cannot be picked up and put down according to the vagaries of five-year electoral cycles. Partners tend to have little confidence in our staying the course with them if we are subject to changes in priorities every few years.

Sound analysis is also key to the effectiveness of the strategy. Above all, conflict is predicated on a failure to resolve political differences peaceably, whatever the root causes behind the political situations. As a former foreign affairs analyst, I know only too well that crises come in two forms: they often blow up where you could see them coming but were powerless to change things; or they blow up in places where, if you had anticipated them, you could have done something at an earlier stage. Improved intelligence and horizon scanning will no doubt improve our capabilities, but I want to know more about what criteria we would use to decide the level of our involvement.

Let me use the Middle East as an example. It seemed that in our desire to engage with the regime in Bahrain, we mistook assurances of reform for substance. As these assurances have evaporated like the morning mist—if only they had been as pure—we have been wrong-footed. In Syria, as in Libya, our previous Government courted regimes that are and have always been—there are no surprises here—every bit as venal as history had predicted. If our future analytical capabilities are to be more robust, which I hope they will be, I hope the Minister will take away the thought that henceforth our political and diplomatic priorities should be based on a longer-term strategic framework of alliances than those of the previous Government.

This brings me to the criteria for deciding which crises to respond to and how. I accept that in most cases this will depend on how much we can achieve multilaterally and bilaterally, and the extent to which our own interests are engaged. However, the lesson here must be that we need to lay the ground for multilateral action upstream, working with those who are willing at an earlier stage, in a preventive mode. It is in this area that the civilian stabilisation group can be most effective.

This pool of personnel with expertise in institution building, economic recovery, security sector reform and other practical state-building roles is commendable and I applaud its success in support of the National Transitional Council in Libya. However, one gets the impression that it is more of a reactive force than a preventive resource. I would argue that if it were to shift its focus to more preventive work, it would provide the skills and training for peacemaking and crisis management later in the day. Turning to skills and training, are the members of this group to be given regular skills updates and capability upgrades to keep them at the top of their game? Deployment is often too late to serve as a good training ground. Will resources be dedicated to this role specifically?

I also want to highlight the importance for the strategy’s success of recognising the role of women. I acknowledge the references to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and attempts to improve a gender focus. However, what is missing is a practical appreciation of how to mainstream gender. Women’s active and meaningful participation must be central to all post-conflict and peacebuilding processes. For example, the use of stabilisation response teams should acknowledge that at least one member of the SRT should have the knowledge and skills to address sexual and gender-based violence.

At a more strategic level, the BSOS steering board could take a proactive decision to promote government co-ordination in longer-term thinking about gender impacts on decisions. In Afghanistan, a decision was taken to draw down our commitment by the next election, a decision which I fear will not be conducive to stability. In the political calculations, was any effort made to think through the impact on Afghan women, who I fear will be hung out to dry in a Taliban-ruled Government of the future?

In Libya, where we have leverage here and now, what steps are we taking to encourage the National Transitional Council to work with women towards a new political settlement? Can the Minister tell us whether talks have been held with the group Women4Libya to see whether we can assist its campaign for rights? Can he also assure us that our generous support for UN Women will continue and that we will work with that organisation to ensure that UNSCR 1325 is given practical effect?

I welcome the strategy for its attempts to improve the effectiveness of our efforts and to redefine our priorities in the period ahead. I am the first to applaud a “whole-of-government approach”, as it is only when we pool our ample talent and our still-considerable resources that we can deliver best. My final concern, therefore, is one of accountability. When we have complex structures which are pulled together but remain autonomous, it becomes difficult to see where decision-making lies or where change can be effected. I would ask that one of the three contributing departments assumes overall responsibility for the strategy. We are talking here of work which will expend potentially billions of pounds, yet we cannot be sure whether we need to go to the FCO, the MoD or DfID for detailed scrutiny. My own preference would be for a named Minister to take ownership of the strategy—for a clear letter box to be identified and accounted for. I am delighted to see my noble friend representing the FCO in answering this debate, and I would be entirely happy for the FCO to be the lead department, but I am pragmatic in this regard as long as we have that accountability in a named Minister.

I am grateful for the opportunity to debate stability beyond our shores. In closing, let me recall to my noble friend the Minister the words of a Conservative Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, who said:

“War is never a solution; it is an aggravation”.

Let us hope in this House that we can redouble our efforts to avert it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, we are deeply grateful to my noble friend Lady Falkner of Margravine for initiating this debate. It has confirmed once again something that is obvious and known to us already, but I repeat it: the staggering accumulation and store of informed expertise and experience available in this House that can be marshalled and focused upon issues such as the one that we are discussing today. As always, for all of us it has been a fascinating and a learning experience to listen to the views of your Lordships, many of whom have been deeply involved in the practice, assessment and implementation of the issues in building stability overseas and meeting our international aims, interests and obligations. I thank my noble friend Lady Falkner, as we have all done, and all noble Lords who have taken part. I welcome the chance to comment on the Government’s strategy and on the statements that have been made, and to update the House on what the Government are doing to prevent and resolve conflict and promote stability overseas.

The opening sentence of my noble friend’s speech set the tone when she quoted President Kennedy in saying that the great issues of our times internationally are not susceptible to military solutions. There are great warriors around who are always telling us about defence expenditure and, as it were, measuring effectiveness by such expenditure, but that is the wrong measure—it is not the measure that counts any more. In this debate we are dealing with efforts, programmes and resources that are just as important in establishing what might be called “the new defence”. It is not just a question of moral rectitude, but of our national interest. The truth, as many who are sitting in this Chamber now know, is that the texture of international relations has changed beyond recognition in the past decade or so. That was fully recognised by the previous Government, it is recognised by this Government, and recognised perhaps a little more slowly by the media and commentators who tend to go on repeating the shibboleths and mantra of yesterday. However, there is a new world which we must now address and cope with, and develop the instruments to battle with. That is what we have been discussing today.

I announced in this House on 19 July the publication of the Building Stability Overseas Strategy, which was the first integrated cross-government strategy to address conflict issues, building on the work of the previous Government. The strategy took on board the lessons of the Arab spring and sets out three ambitious aims where the Government will concentrate our efforts. The first is early warning, where we will improve our ability to anticipate instability and potential triggers for conflict—a matter which my noble friend Lord Chidgey and many others raised. I will come to that in a little more detail in a moment. The second is rapid crisis prevention and response by taking fast, appropriate and effective action to prevent a crisis or stop it escalating. The third is investing in upstream prevention—again, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, and many other noble Lords—by helping to build strong, legitimate and robust societies in fragile countries, a phrase about which the noble Lord, Lord Desai, had one to two characteristically acute and somewhat critical comments to make, to which I will also come in a moment. The strategy makes clear how we will try to deliver these aims, across the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence, using our diplomatic, development and defence capabilities in an integrated way.

Many of your Lordships have raised the issue of how, being a tri-departmental operation—as it is under the building stability overseas board—this can be properly integrated and co-ordinated. I do not want to sound like an ancient mariner, but I have now been in and out of Whitehall for 41 years and engaged on many occasions, right back to the new style of government in 1970, in wondering whether we should co-ordinate or disperse more, delegate or gather together. It is a sort of cyclical process. The impulse to co-ordinate activities, particularly the impulse to appoint a Minister who is going to be responsible, can often end in tears. The Minister may feel that he is responsible. Somehow all the channels are opened around him or her and, in the end, they co-ordinate nothing.

One has to be a little worldly wise about co-ordination. The programme we have now, bringing together the three departments under the Building Stability Overseas Strategy, drawing on the resources of the Conflict Pool and delegating tasks to excellent organisations such as the stability unit is—we are entitled to say this with a little pride—working experimentally but extremely effectively as we go on into the new international landscape and events such as the Arab spring bring us new lessons and new ways of tackling these problems.

We have announced the substantial extra resources to underpin this strategy. By 2014-15 we will have increased to 30 per cent the proportion of UK official development assistance that supports conflict states and fragile states. The 100 per cent UK-funded Arab Partnership Initiative will expand to £110 million over the next four years, to provide support for political and economic reform in the Middle East and north Africa. The resources of the Conflict Pool, jointly operated by the FCO, MoD and DfID to fund our conflict prevention work, will increase over the spending review period to a total for the period, as one of your Lordships mentioned, of £1.125 billion. Through the Building Stability Overseas Strategy, the Government will prioritise those countries where risks are high, our interests most at stake and where we know we can have an impact. This involves—as your Lordships have emphasised—some difficult decisions about where to focus efforts and there is not always 20:20 vision about exactly how events will develop or what crises will spring up.

I should like to refer to some of your Lordships’ specific comments, which have been very valuable, in the time available. My noble friend Lady Falkner began this debate so well with the quote that I have already mentioned. She urged the stabilisation unit to have a long-term perspective and I totally agree about that. She asked how we decide about really difficult issues, such as Bahrain, where we have seen some deeply concerning developments, particularly the ongoing disturbances; or Syria, where we have tried repeatedly to get an effective resolution through the United Nations. Our latest efforts, as your Lordships know, have been blocked by Russia and China.

We urge the Government of Bahrain to meet all their human rights obligations and to uphold political freedoms, equal access to justice and the rule of law. These do not run contrary to security, but are integral to long-term stability. We believe that dialogue is the best way to bring long-term stability to Bahrain and we encourage the Bahraini authorities and opposition groups to show real leadership by engaging constructively with one another. Whether the latest news from Bahrain indicates some acceptance and realisation of the strong views of Britain and the rest of world I do not know, but one certainly hopes so.

My noble friend Lady Falkner also raised—as did several other speakers, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, in her comprehensive comments—the central question of the role of women in building stability overseas, including in Libya and many other areas. The Government have mainstreamed the importance of the role of women in conflict prevention through our national security strategy and our Building Stability Overseas Strategy. I repeat: mainstreamed. Women have a central role in building stability. In line with our national action plan for UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, we will continue to address violence against women and support women’s role in building peace. I do not think there is any ambiguity about that, barring only the concern we all have about the dangers of stereotyping, which I know many women feel strongly about. Barring only that, the commitment to upgrading and opening up the opportunities for women to play their proper and full role is unambiguous, determined and one that we will support with all possible resources.

The noble Lord, Lord Black, spoke about practical steps towards media and press freedom. These make a great deal of sense, particularly training journalists. I cannot comment precisely at this moment but it is certainly the basis for a good and sensible approach. The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, said we should tackle this area with vigour. I promise him that we are doing that and will continue to do so. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Warwick and Lady Kinnock, asked about evaluation and monitoring. How do we know that the system works? A lot of money is involved, as the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, rightly said. Let me put it this way: the strategy is clear, but investments must deliver results while providing value for the UK taxpayer. To ensure this, a new transparent cross-government reporting framework, subject to independent scrutiny, will be implemented to measure and compare the UK’s impact across the regions.

Aspects of our conflict prevention work are being examined by each of the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, the National Audit Office and the Independent Commission for Aid Impact. Focusing on upstream prevention is central to the strategy, but, ultimately, establishing the UK’s contribution to conflict prevention relies on counterfactual analysis—examining what level of conflict would have been likely without intervention, which is obviously a very difficult assessment to make. That, I hope, meets the concern about the very proper need for evaluation.

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, spoke about waters and rivers, a vital and central issue. I have a very long briefing note on the matter which I shall try to impart to him, though possibly not in this debate because I do not want to take all the time available. We understand that the analytical work being undertaken by the South Asia Water Initiative is already yielding benefits by brokering greater information-sharing between riparians on water, development of co-operative research and the development of a Ganga River Basin authority in India. Rivers drying to trickles and causing despair, or turning into raging torrents and causing floods, are obviously a central issue on the international scene.

My noble friend Lord Sheikh spoke with great authority on Nepal, where he has been recently. It was extremely helpful to have his views. As always, he gave support to a cause dear to my heart, which is the immense value of the Commonwealth network in promoting stability overseas and carrying forward all our programmes.

The noble Lord, Lord Desai, to whom I have already referred, made a critical remark about fragile countries. If the criteria are to be the rule of law and respect for property, I can hardly think of a single country where that does not apply, including possibly our own. He knows as I do that judging fragility is fraught with subjective standards and is often governed by, to use the words of Harold Macmillan, “events, dear boy, events” which no one foresaw beforehand.

My noble friend Lord Hussain asked whether we would help in Kashmir. It is our view that this matter must be handled between two great countries, India and Pakistan, and that remains all I have to say on that matter.

I have already mentioned upstream prevention and evaluation in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, who was quite right that the issue of corruption is central and must receive our full attention.

The noble Lord, Lord Stone, knows that I think that his initiatives and what he has already achieved with his colleagues are quite marvellous. We take the view that the private sector should take the lead in these matters, but with DfID’s support. I shall look again at his latest set of ideas, which I believe are totally constructive and to be supported in every possible and practical way.

I have not covered every point that was raised—there is never time—but I hope that I have responded to as many of the very important observations as has been possible. Since the launch of the BSOS, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—my own department—DfID and the MoD have been working across government and with NGOs and international partners to implement the strategy. Our actions for weeks and months ahead will include establishing an improved early warning system that can inform early action to help prepare for and prevent conflict; putting in place a new £20 million early action facility to speed up support for emerging crises; supporting multi-year programmes through the Conflict Pool; and engaging bilateral and multilateral partners and NGOs, whose support we must have to make real progress in reducing the risk of conflict globally.

We are committed to drawing in more external expertise and data to challenge, evaluate and strengthen our work. We also look forward to the recommendations from your Lordships’ Economic Affairs Committee inquiry into the economic impact and effectiveness of development aid, and to the forthcoming evaluations of the Conflict Pool by both the National Audit Office and the Independent Commission for Aid Impact. A vital element of delivering the BSOS will be working through the multilateral system, with the European Union, the Commonwealth network, our bilateral partners and civil society in all its multiple manifestations.

At the UN Security Council in September my right honourable friend William Hague emphasised the UK’s commitment to conflict prevention: at one end of the spectrum by supporting local upstream conflict prevention efforts, and at the other end, as a last resort, through coercive measures to prevent conflict. In Libya the United Nations Security Council mustered legitimate diplomatic and military pressure to prevent a regime from waging war against its people, and to deter its members from committing horrific crimes. Swift action prevented a major humanitarian catastrophe and saved thousands of civilian lives.

In Syria, as I have indicated, we believe that a response from the Security Council is overdue. We have been pressing for it, but it has been blocked in the way I have already described. The consequences of an action would weigh heavily on us if we turned a blind eye to killings, abuses and repression.

In the margins of the UN General Assembly a week or two ago, I had a number of bilateral meetings with ministers from states who had been through the most appalling periods of conflict, including Algeria, Iraq, and—further into the past, but still very difficult—Azerbaijan. What struck me was the determination of these states to move on from the past and to deploy economic resources as a way of consolidating peace and stability.

Our European Union partners also have a role to play, and we welcome the Foreign Affairs Council conclusions of 20 June this year, which set out the need for a more comprehensive EU approach to conflict prevention, including the strengthening of early warning and a greater emphasis on early action, such as mediation.

The strategy recognises the need to strengthen ties with partners, such as Brazil and South Africa. We shall invest greater diplomatic efforts in new prevention partnerships with these countries, and we are already reinvigorating relations with Commonwealth partners. The Commonwealth is an ever more relevant body that can add its collective voice and collective action to the great global challenges that we all face.

I leave your Lordships with the message that we can all play our parts, particularly the many experts who have spoken in this debate. Your Lordships have an important role in engaging with civil society, and with other parliamentarians through your networks, both in this country and overseas. Through these networks we can help to strengthen partnerships beyond government, supporting efforts to strengthen and develop effective conflict management and peacebuilding capacities. I thank noble Lords for this debate. I am sure that there are one or two questions that I have not covered, but I have covered quite a range. I will always be ready to write to any of your Lordships who have a particular point they want to pursue with me. I thank noble Lords again for an interesting and informed debate, which has raised many issues that can be carried forward greatly to the benefit of our nation and the wider world.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, it has been my privilege to move this Motion. It has been a fascinating debate, and we have certainly heard a diverse range of views, painting on a very wide canvas. I look forward to reading these speeches in more detail tomorrow, so that I can inform myself better.

In these foreign affairs debates we often have the pool of usual suspects. We all know each other and are enthusiasts for many of the same causes, so it has been particularly gratifying today to see additions to our pool with speakers who are not usually involved in this, from all Benches and from three political parties. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, and beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.