Clean Water and Sanitation (Africa)

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hurd]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He has skilfully brought us back to the national interest that we consistently need to focus on. There is a great deal of quite justified concern about migration from Africa. It is principally economic, but also driven by other factors. The drivers for why people move—of course, people have always moved in Africa, since time began—include land, access to water, and natural resources. Therefore, the more we can do to help people feel they can rely on resources and get access to those services in their area, the less risk there is that they will move.

The 60 million people are our additional commitment—they are in addition to the 60 million in the previous Parliament. I reassure the House—because it is the focus of the debate—that we will maintain an extremely strong focus on Africa and on meeting the needs of women and adolescent girls. Building on experience from countries such as South Sudan, Malawi and Tanzania, we will develop programmes that deliver improved nutrition as well as water and sanitation. It is becoming increasingly clear to me and the team I am working with that we must make more linkages across areas. Water and nutrition are an obvious case where work and thinking need to be integrated more.

Through our health programming we will continue to work with our partners to ensure that all healthcare facilities have safe water and adequate toilets and handwashing facilities. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire has been passionate and eloquent on that point, on the basis of her many visits.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hurd]

I am delighted to give way to another latecomer.

[Fiona Bruce]

It is heartening to hear about the Government’s commitment, and the figures that the Minister has given. Does he agree that it is critical that the UK should use its global influence to work with the Governments of other countries and ensure that they make a commitment to informing and educating their populations about how the connection with water can improve health and hygiene? There is a great deal to be done on that account.

[Mr Hurd]

I am delighted that another highly valued member of the International Development Committee has joined us. That is a hugely important point, and there are two elements to it: one is the role that the UK can play in influencing other international donors and Governments to step up—because we have taken a lead and others need to step up, in a crowded environment where there are many pressures on time and money. However, there is also a conversation to be had in countries that we try to help—about priorities and capacity. As I elaborated on when I was speaking about Ethiopia, we now have some quite rich experience of how to help with the thinking, within Governments, about the priority to be given to this agenda.

I want briefly to mention water resource management, which the hon. Member for Strangford raised. It is a critical aspect of the matter, and we will continue to invest in water resource management, to ensure that water and sanitation services are sustainable. Those investments also help countries to reduce the impact of floods and droughts. It is worth noting that water insecurity in Africa is estimated to cost about 5% of GDP, and we think that unlocking investment in water, together with improved governance, could help more than 2 billion people to lead healthier and more prosperous lives.

The whole agenda of how water is managed is critical and it needs to be part of the debate—as does the need for evidence. That may not have come through strongly enough, but what we do must be based on solid evidence. That is why we are one of the largest funders of research in the sector, with flagship programmes including the Sanitation and Hygiene Applied Research for Equity programme, which is showing how sanitation can be improved most effectively.

We are keen to drive innovation in this area, wherever it comes from. The hon. Member for Strangford mentioned the statistic, which may or may not be true, although it sounds right, that in some areas more people have access to a mobile phone than to clean water. Our challenge is how to use that mobile phone technology as part of the solution. Part of the problem is the fact that often no one knows when water pumps fall into disrepair, and we are piloting work on building sensors into the pumps to provide real-time information on which ones are down and in need of attention. We are keen to see how the digital technology that is transforming all aspects of our life can help in that context.

I want to close by talking about our role in convening, encouraging and bringing people together. I am quite serious when I say that the pressures on the development budget are intense, because of all the problems around the world, such as El Niño, Syria and the humanitarian crises everywhere. There are lots of people competing to assert priorities, and powerful lobbies saying “We need more; we need to jump higher.” That is the reality of our world. The sanitation and water for all initiative was set up to develop political momentum and to secure financial commitments from countries and the private sector. We play an important role in that process; we think it is valuable and we will use it to hold others to account on their commitments, and to enable them to hold us to account on the achievement of our ambitions.

There has been clarity in the debate about the importance we should attach to helping millions more people to access the most basic necessities, which we take for granted. We can see all the development benefits that will accrue through doing that. In our view it is clearly in our national interest and we can see the consequences of failure. The evidence makes it clear that focusing aid money on delivering water and sanitation gives value for money, because of the changes it brings about. I hope that I have provided assurance to the hon. Member for Strangford in particular—who deserves credit for securing the debate—that the Government remain extremely committed to the agenda, to meeting the manifesto target, and to maintaining British leadership in this area.