Niger

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the Save the Children and Oxfam report on the crisis in east Africa and the call for early responses to warning signs, what they will do to ensure a similar crisis is averted in Niger.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, the Government are very concerned about the emerging crisis in Niger and have been monitoring the situation closely. The Secretary of State for International Development has announced emergency support to mitigate the impact of the crisis. This will reach 68,000 children in Niger, Chad and Mali and provide livestock support to 30,000 families.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her response. The warning signs of looming disaster were there in the Horn of Africa two years ago, but no action was taken and tens of thousands of Somalis starved to death and millions of people in east Africa were affected. Against that background, will the Government give active endorsement to the UN-supported charter to end extreme poverty, which identifies five specific actions that must be taken when we know that a crisis is predicted and preventable? We can and must stop the drought in west Africa and the Sahel turning into a famine. We must say never again and mean it.

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness is right that we must say never again and mean it, but I dispute that the Department for International Development was not leading on the response in the Horn of Africa. Credit has been given to the UK Government for that. The report from Oxfam and Save the Children to which her Question refers is extremely welcome. It indeed emphasises that the intention is to manage the risk, not the crisis. That is absolutely the right way to go about it: to intervene early and build resilience. That is why the Department for International Development did that in the Horn of Africa and is doing that across the Sahel.