Africa: Post-conflict Stabilisation

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is absolutely right to draw attention to the positive role of the churches in many conflict situations in Africa. I had much to do with various church initiatives in South Africa and Namibia during the 1980s, and I am confident that the history of South Africa and Namibia would have been very different without them. Obviously Madiba had a great role, but the underpinning and foundations were laid across the racial barriers by the South African Council of Churches and the council of churches of Namibia, with Protestants and Catholics working together.

I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, on his initiative, and my noble friend Lord McConnell on his magnificent maiden speech. He shares a passion for Africa with the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, with whom I worked on a number of initiatives. His hands-on experience as a civil engineer in Africa is the foundation of his own commitment.

My first experience of the region that I can recall was reading, as a young diplomat, the dispatch of our ambassador in Ethiopia, Mr Galbraith, at the inaugural meeting of the Organisation of African Unity in about May 1963. He concluded as follows:

“The aged Lion of Judah is sitting on the fence with both ears to the ground as the wind of change is howling around the Horn of Africa”.

Haile Selassie gave way to Mengistu. For many in Africa, the wind of change was an ill wind that brought dictatorship, although often with the very best of intentions. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is in his place. From the work that he has done in Eritrea, we have seen the decline of noble aspirations and the current reality. As I said, the ill wind brought dictatorship, and it brought corruption and civil war. There are some glorious exceptions around Africa today, such as Ghana and South Africa, but on the whole power has corrupted massively and gone unchecked. There is the roll call of disasters and dictators from Rwanda through to Sudan and the Congo. There was a recent debt write-off of $10.8 million in the Congo, but there are still very dubious practices there. In Kenya and Uganda the story is better, but there is still a need in those countries for post-conflict reconciliation.

The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, made a strong plea for evaluating aid effectiveness. Obviously, for the region money is necessary but insufficient, and institutional reform is important but insufficient. There is a need for a spirit and practice of give and take and togetherness, which often the churches have been able to provide, together with good governance, accountability and transparency, and the rule of law with honest and competent judges—something that we in Europe often take for granted. Alas, fewer lawyers from the region are now trained in the UK. However, the importance of good governance, transparency and accountability is increasingly recognised by international agencies, including DfID, although there is some concern that DfID may be too inflexible in giving some of its grants.

A number of us, led by the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Jay, have expressed concern about the reduction in the FCO stabilisation fund, and there is a fear that there will be further cuts in that budget when the autumn cuts come. As we heard in last week’s statement, the government-funded Westminster Foundation for Democracy lost about £400 million. At parliamentary level, there is the work done by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association internationally and by its UK branch. Much has been done in the new Commonwealth country of Rwanda. Immediately after the genocide of 1994, I had the privilege of chairing two reconciliation conferences and saw some of the inheritance of the Government of Rwanda. Yet, given that inheritance and in spite of concerns about press freedom, the direction of travel is pretty good.

Equally, great work has been done by the CPA UK branch in Uganda and Somaliland, although the latter is not part of the Commonwealth. Good work has also been done in Kenya, although it is sad that Kenyan Members of Parliament have this week voted themselves to be the highest-paid Members of Parliament in the world. One fears that, following the general election that will take place there in 2012, there will again be a real danger of post-election conflict. Much needs to be done by their Government to prevent that.

Below the official level of DfID and other EU contributors is the work of British NGOs and others at both the micro and macro levels, which is often ignored. I give two examples from organisations of which I am a patron. At the micro level, the Christian International Peace Service is a small specialist peace-making organisation specialising in, and living and working at, the grass-roots level. Its work in north-east Uganda began in 1991 following the growing conflict between the Iteso and Karimojong tribes. That conflict peaked between 1984 and 2005. The organisation has a small team which lives at the economic level of the people and works in the buffer zone between the two tribes, creating mixed settlements totalling 25,000, and providing stability, enabling people to become self-supporting. By placing team members in difficult areas, it has shown that reconciliation is possible. Already, the support and co-operation of the authorities in both districts has led to real progress. There have been more than 20 intermarriages, which is remarkable, yet the organisation receives no official funds—not even from our high commission in Kampala.

The other, perhaps better known, group is Concordis International, which is working in Sudan and therefore has relevance to the wider east African region. Its work is vital as we now approach the referendum in the south. Concordis has been working on cross-border relations between north and south, which remain a crucial component of peaceful co-existence. The organisation is a British, Cambridge-based peace-building NGO, with offices in Khartoum and Juba, working to support a peaceful and stable transition through the potentially turbulent years ahead. It has a major EU-funded focus on relations between tribes and communities on either side of the north-south Sudanese border, and works on current issues which will continue to be faced after the referendum and which have been exacerbated by years of conflict in the border area.

Concordis has a similar programme in Kenya. It currently has a research project to be completed by August 2010, laying the groundwork for a five-year grant-making programme by the United States Institute of Peace for peace-building in the north-south border areas, and there will be a future development along the same lines. I cite these two bodies, of which I am a patron, as examples of the many NGOs which are doing sterling work in those areas.

Finally, it is easy to be disheartened by the negative features of developments in central and eastern Africa. Sometimes there are two steps forward and one step back. However, there are some encouraging signs of hope, even in the Horn of Africa. Somalia is the classic failed state. I have helped to conduct two seminars in Somaliland, the former British protectorate, where, with all the difficulties that it has of being one of the poorest areas in the world, there is a working democracy. Somaliland has a desire to work more closely with Britain, and the CPA has responded to that. There are also some signs of hope with the work of the CPA in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. I hope that, as a House, we will be prepared to pay a real tribute to the work of the very many British and other non-governmental organisations which are deeply and personally involved in the vital work of reconciliation and peace-building in the area.