International Development Policy

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords, I also add my thanks to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, for initiating this debate, and indeed for his lifelong, strong commitment to international development. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Singh of Wimbledon. He clearly brings great wisdom and experience to the work of this House, and as his maiden speech has shown today, we can look forward to many more interventions of that calibre from the noble Lord.

This is a timely opportunity to consider how best to implement international development objectives in what is, as many noble Lords have intimated, a rapidly changing and deteriorating international environment. Today, we are discussing these issues against the backdrop of faltering progress towards meeting the MDGs and in the knowledge that most of the world’s poorest countries will not meet the 2015 targets, as well as knowledge of the emerging and growing threats linked to climate change, food security, and a very disappointing record on aid.

One particular statistic has called into question whether the MDGs are actually able to reach the most marginalised, disadvantaged and hard-to-reach poor. We now know that 75 per cent of the world’s 1.3 billion poor people actually live in middle-income countries, and that in fact 20 years ago, 93 per cent of poor people lived in lower-income countries. We have seen a huge shift in that period. Does this evidence not then dictate that we need to focus more on poor people, not just on poor countries? We can tick the boxes when we use MDGs as our benchmarks, but social exclusion, environmental sustainability, and governance are just not factored in to the MDGs. The MDGs are formulated in terms of average progress, and fail to assess whether progress has been broad-based or indeed equitable. MDGs’ assessment processes tend to obscure what is happening within countries.

All the evidence shows that the most disadvantaged people—who have been referred to by many noble Lords today—are being left further and further behind. Social disparities are seriously holding back progress. With that MDG focus on aggregate progress, we will not deal with those intersecting inequalities which are so resistant to change, and when such uneven progress is being disguised by the process used by the MDGs. Meanwhile, as Ban Ki-Moon said recently,

“inequality eats away at social cohesion”.

All of this sits very well with both aspects of the debate: international development and the Dalits. The work of the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex and the Overseas Development Institute is very clear and very good indeed, and I recommend it.

In Latin America, for example, extreme poverty is much higher among indigenous and Afro-descendent populations compared with the white Latino population. The region’s poor earn only 3 per cent of the total regional income, and make up 25 per cent of the population. Remarkable progress has been made, however, by Governments in Brazil, Chile, and Malaysia.

Noble Lords have drawn attention to the plight of the Dalits, who are denied fundamental rights and opportunities. This evidence clearly makes the case for challenging discrimination which leads to entrenched poverty and indeed to terrible suffering. In Nigeria, only 4 per cent of mothers in the predominantly Muslim north-west are delivered in a health facility, compared with 73.9 per cent in the predominantly Christian south-east. In Kenya, minority ethnic groups have lower immunisation levels and higher under-fives mortality rates. A poor indigenous woman in Guatemala has one year of education compared with the national average of almost six years.

In every country and in every region, people are being denied their right to play their part in social and economic developments. This is on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and often location—if people live far away from the capital, it is much easier for their needs to be ignored. This is systematic social, economic, and political discrimination, and leaves people literally and metaphorically at the end of the road. This calls for an expansion in developing countries of, for instance, social protection, access to decent work, minimum wages, and many other opportunities which people need if they are to see real progress.

In 2000, the millennium summit identified the need for social justice. Does the Minister agree that dealing with inequalities is the key to realising that aspiration, of which we have somehow lost sight?

Global aid budgets are critical to the achievement of the MDGs. We are obviously very clear that the achievements of this Government in getting agreement across the whole party on overseas development are extremely important, but we want some clarity on the reduction in overseas development aid. A reduction of something like £1.17 billion seems to be on the cards. That is enough to vaccinate millions of children against deadly diseases and, for example, to cover the training of midwives, who would be able to save many lives. Will the Minister give some detail on which budget lines will be affected by this reduction in funding? Bilateral programmes depend on long-term sustainable financing. Incidentally, this is a core effectiveness principle which the Government have signed up to in Busan. Will the Minister give an assurance that bilateral funding for country programmes will not be reduced?

Will the Minister perhaps also indicate whether the World Bank allocation will be reduced? In the context of the Durban conference, will he clarify whether it is the intention to take money for climate change adaptation and mitigation? Will the Government give an assurance that this will be additional money and that it is not the intention to take the necessary resources from the DfID budget? Of course, the Labour Government made a very strong commitment to 90 per cent of funding for climate change being additional funding, with 10 per cent being not additional but focused on poverty reduction. Are the Government also prepared to agree to that arrangement?

My final point is on the prospect of a commitment to the financial transaction tax—referred to by my noble friend Lord Judd—which I think it has been proven does not have to be global. The FTT is seen increasingly as not only desirable but feasible. It has been endorsed by Bill Gates, by a clutch of Nobel peace laureates, by UNICEF and the UNDP, and by many other economists and others, as well as, as the Minister knows, the Liberal Democrat manifesto before the last election. Robert Peston has recently said that an FTT,

“would improve the functioning of capitalism”.

Does the Minister agree with this view? I look forward to her response.