EU and Sudan: EUC Report

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the committee for taking the initiative in writing and preparing this excellent report. Indeed, we welcome the opportunity to take stock this evening of where we are now in the wake of the excellent assessment made by the committee on the challenges faced by Sudan and the role of the European Union in efforts to build peace, security, governance and developments. These objectives, as many noble Lords have said, apply to both Sudan and South Sudan, which both face uncertainty and potentially increasing tension and conflict created by a raft of unresolved contentious issues.

While the focus this evening has been mostly on South Sudan, we should urge the European Union and all donors to be vigilant and be careful not to neglect the need to respond to the destabilising effect of South Sudan’s independence on the north, where the economy is in serious trouble after two decades of mismanagement in Khartoum by the NIF—with huge military expenditure, corruption and cronyism. Add to this a potential 37 per cent decline in oil revenues and inflation at 15 per cent and rising. Foreign exchange reserves are at an extremely low level and very painful cuts are hurting the people of Sudan. Behind all this is a gigantic $38 billion of external debt.

There are clear reasons for remaining engaged with the Republic of Sudan and for the EU to persevere with what is described as a “comprehensive approach” approved by Foreign Ministers at the Council in Brussels in June.

The EU has had and does have a central and important role to play. EU funding has for many years been crucial in Sudan, especially in South Sudan, in terms of the support given to grassroots human rights organisations—the programme in Khartoum has been and is excellent—and work on food security issues in the south and east. ECHO, the humanitarian office of the EU, continues to provide a critical lifeline to Darfur and to the south. The EU provides a balanced set of incentives to both Sudan and South Sudan to settle their differences peacefully and focus on development. So far, as noble Lords have intimated, those incentives have not persuaded either country to settle their differences. However, it is important that they know and understand that these incentives are there, and there should be intensified efforts to support the urgent need to encourage dialogue and co-operation.

The place to do this is clearly through African Union’s Thabo Mbeki panel. I know that a number of noble Lords have referred to this and made disparaging comments about it. It is a difficult situation, but it is the only show in town. There is no prospect of dialogue and discussion other than through the African Union. It is the only place where the two sides are likely to go for that dialogue. Thabo Mbeki, in my judgment, has been doing a very good job of ensuring that discussions take place. He has done that in very difficult circumstances. It is not ideal, but it is the best hope that we have of brokering agreements between the north and the south on, for instance, oil revenue, citizenship, borders and Abyei. Another option is the joint Africa-EU strategy, which has the potential to provide the space for some political dialogue.

In just a few weeks, the people of South Sudan will mark the anniversary of their vote last year to secede from the north. As two members of the APG who are here today have said, when we went to South Sudan, we met with enormous hope and expectation. We have memories of people who could not even say “referendum” without breaking out into a huge grin of happiness and satisfaction. They believed; the expectations were high. They told us that there would be new roads, clinics, jobs, food and schools for their kids. Most of all, they looked forward to peace and security at last.

It is therefore unthinkable that donors, including the EU, cannot now effectively respond to support a Government who need to tackle chronic poverty and make some progress to reaching the millennium development goals, which are currently way out of reach. The scale of the challenge is daunting and the statistics truly shocking. Save the Children has highlighted that South Sudan, as other noble Lords have said, has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world.

Access to services is rare. The women die of haemorrhage, infection, obstructed labour and, indeed, of unsafe abortion. There is widespread malnutrition among children, which leads to stunting and lifelong underdevelopment. South Sudan has one of the lowest routine immunisation coverage rates on earth; only about 10 per cent of children are fully vaccinated. The women of South Sudan are among the poorest and most marginalised of the world; 92 per cent of them are illiterate. This is deplorable. In human development terms, it is as bad as you can get and it demands a focus on human, social and economic capacity to develop infrastructure, social services and public services.

Last month, the EU held a workshop in Juba where the discussion was about how to streamline effective measures designed to ensure that EU assistance can be effective. The workshop was organised by the EU special representative, Dame Rosalind Marsden, who, as I understand it, was somewhat criticised by the committee for not actually living in Sudan.

[Noble Lords]

No!

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

No? Good. This was not in the report but I was told that in an exchange she was made to feel that there was some criticism of her on that score. Clearly, if that was not the case—

[Lord Teverson]

Perhaps I can make it clear that that was absolutely not the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

Thank you very much for clarifying that, because it would be extremely unusual for any country representative or envoy to live in the country which they follow. I would say that Dame Rosalind Marsden is doing a very good job as a special representative and has enormous respect among the Sudanese and, indeed, others in the European Union.

All the EU member states’ missions in Juba attended that workshop, as did representatives from the Government of South Sudan, the UN and the World Bank. This is part of a concerted effort by the EU and by other players to encourage joint programming by member states of the European Union and by other donors who need to co-ordinate, certainly better than has been the case. One thing we know, for instance, is that the education ministry is currently dealing with 17 different bilateral donors, as well as countless NGOs. This takes time and is extremely difficult when you do not have the computers, the staff or the capacity to manage being inundated in this way by requests and pressure from so many donors. That workshop was the first time that partners had come together in this way—in this Room, we would say “And about time too”.

The strategic plan is now to join EU donor teams together, which will assist with efforts to tackle humanitarian needs. Several areas will of course need to be prioritised; as noble Lords have said, there is justice, the rule of law, education and urban development. One area which I think was not mentioned is the rural economy, which has become a major priority for the European Union. The EU will participate in the pledging conference due to be held in Washington DC later this month and play a lead role on the agricultural sector in that meeting.

The noble Lord, Lord Jay, mentioned the NGO report; I, too, certainly recommend Getting it Right from the Start as very interesting reading. It recommends substantial support for small-scale agriculture and pastoral production, which is extremely important in Sudan, and called for targeted support for access to areas of the country where large numbers of returnees are settling, making huge demands on the population living there. The report also calls on the EU and others to provide long-term, predictable funding, as noble Lords have said, for the Government and for NGOs as well, which are of course heavily involved in the current provision of basic services in South Sudan. Another key issue is the need for all systems to promote equitable social and economic development.

Currently, Jonglei gets roughly a third as much per capita as Western Bahr El Gazal, while grappling with a food-insecure population nearly six times as large. These discrepancies need to be tackled. Adjustments to redress inequalities should be encouraged in order to respond to references in the comprehensive peace agreement and the transitional constitution to,

“historical injustices and inequality between different regions of Sudan”.

They called for wealth to be shared without discrimination on any grounds.

A very important EU contribution will be to develop trade opportunities with South Sudan and to continue free access to EU markets under the “Everything But Arms” arrangement with the least developed countries. That is already under way. South Sudan is a litmus test of how donors manage to get development right. However, it is important that we understand the right of the Government to own the whole process. We tend to talk as though donors own the process of managing a Government who may face difficult issues of capacity. Nevertheless, there is a particular tendency to feel this pressure from donors. I have certainly seen this in many years of following international development in fragile states. President Salva Kiir said recently:

“How we spend money as a government, and how our development partners spend money in our countries, is critically important to our success, given the scale of need across our nation”.

Another critical issue that deserves more than lip service is the need to support South Sudan civil society in its efforts to participate in the decisions. I also strongly emphasise the need for much more investment in the South Sudan Parliament. Last week, MPs were here as guests of the CPA. I met two MPs from South Sudan, who told me that they do not have offices, a library or any computers. They have no access at all to information, yet they are supposed to manage these complex and challenging issues. It is critical that this newly elected Parliament is given the means to work efficiently so that it can hold the Government to account, particularly when the Parliament scrutinises budgets, for example.

Currently, the increased flow of funds into the economy in South Sudan, as a result of taking all the oil revenue from the southern oil fields, is not being properly accounted for, as others have remarked on. This could be put down to corruption; we are very quick to do that. However, surely the sheer lack of functioning institutions is a major factor. Anyone who has been to a developing country without such institutions understands that there is corruption but there is also an inability to manage very complex fiscal and budgetary issues.

I believe very strongly that the collective importance of the EU will be critical at this time. As it says in the report, the issue of the ICC arrest warrant resulted in Sudan refusing to ratify the Cotonou partnership agreement in 2010. The legal framework for co-operation with the EU was therefore denied to South Sudan. The agreement is the only legally binding instrument that includes an ICC clause. The EU Council and the ACP council should be commended for their efforts to ensure that South Sudan can access that funding. In July the EU Council agreed to give €190 million of uncommitted funds from the ninth and previous European development funds to meet the needs of the most vulnerable populations in both the north and the south. Additional funds amounting to €200 million have already been allocated in the context of the 2011-13 development plan drawn up by the Government in Juba. A decision has been taken with the ACP. It is very good to see the combined efforts of the council—of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific—and the EU to adopt what they are calling a flexible approach, which will allow South Sudan to become a party to the Cotonou agreement and the 10th EDF funds. I know that this was an issue that particularly exercised the committee during the discussions that took place.

South Sudan has lost a lot of time because of the donor-pooled funds by the World Bank. They have lost a lot of time when strategic planning was difficult for them. Of the £800 million allocated at the time of the CPA agreement, only one-third had been spent by July this year. It is terrible that the money has been there and has not been spent. It was mainly because of the over-rigorous and ridiculously stringent conditions imposed on the disbursements of the funding.

I visited Sudan a number of times over many years, and I cannot but help feel and share the joy and anticipation felt by the people who have known decades of such terrible war and suffering. What we know now is that countless thousands have been displaced and the conflicts for decades have caused such misery. The two countries now face seemingly intractable problems, but the opportunities for supporting positive progress towards peace, development and accountable governance are also significant and we should not be so pessimistic as to rule that out. The call now has to be for the two Governments to change their approach and for civil society and Parliaments to hold their Governments to account. I know that the EU is seen as central to those efforts, and to support it, UNMIS and the AU High-Level Implementation Panel. We should support the EU premise that the provision of basic services can help reduce the risk of conflicts driven by competition over resources. Similarly, the EU believes that providing services in areas under pressure from large numbers of returnees will reduce further potential for conflict.

Finally, the new and excellent UN representative, Hilde Johnson, based in Juba, has said:

“If there is one important lesson to learn from the negotiations that ended Africa's longest civil war, it is the need for international engagement—continuous, coordinated and forceful”.