UN Mission in Mali: Armed Forces Deployment

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP) [V]]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. It is important that the House is kept fully informed on issues such as this. The Scottish National party firmly supports the deployment of UK personnel in supporting the UN mission in Mali. It is important that the UK continues to promote global justice and peace. I support the Minister from a humanitarian perspective and echo his point that international efforts to support law, order and security are also the best way to prevent unstable regions from becoming safe havens for terrorist groups. Many areas of concern in Mali need to be addressed by this international action, including food security, health and child protection. This conflict has led to displacement and death, and most disturbing are the UN reports that rape is being used as a weapon of war, with both women and young girls the target of these attacks. It is therefore conspicuous that while the UK is sending personnel to the area, which of course is most welcome, it is also cutting aid by 30%. These two issues cannot be considered separate when we are looking at the humanitarian response.



The Minister stated that the UK troops will support the Government’s development and diplomatic agenda

“as a force for good in the world”.

Will he explain how the cuts to aid described could impact the UN mission in Mali? Will he detail whether any civilian support has been cut on the ground, including to those working with victims of sexual violence? Given the increase in terrorist activity and instability in the region, what safeguards are being considered for the personnel who are being deployed? At what point will our troops be withdrawn, and what are the success criteria for that to happen?

Finally, I would like to pay tribute, on behalf of those on the SNP Benches, to all those serving in such missions, especially all those personnel who will be away from their loved ones over the Christmas period.

[James Heappey]

On the official development assistance point, rather a lot of MOD activity, which has huge humanitarian advantage, was not counted under the ODA definition. We are rather proud of the amount that we do that does not make it into the accounting against that budget.

I thank the hon. Lady for raising the importance of human security as part of this mission. I had the pleasure the other week of doing a roundtable with the Countess of Wessex and the vice-chief of the defence staff, using Mali as a case study for exactly how the UK should lead in human security, and the role of the MOD and our armed forces in that leadership. The hon. Lady will be pleased to know that within the deployment to MINUSMA are specialist human security officers, who will add immeasurably to the emotional intelligence of the deployment and a recognition of the needs of women and other minorities in the community, so that human security can be integral to the UK’s effort within MINUSMA.

The hon. Lady asks about the term of the mission and the success criteria. This is very different from Iraq and Afghanistan, where the circumstances for our withdrawal were principally around political intent in London. We have signed up for a three-year commitment to the UN MINUSMA mission. We have said that we will review that commitment after 18 months to check that we still think it is the right contribution for us to be making. It is a time-limited commitment to the UN and we leave at the end of it, just as we did very successfully from South Sudan earlier in the year.