Millennium Development Goals

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, our thanks are due to the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, for her work in this field as well as for introducing the report and the debate in the way she has.

The report is welcome, not least for its references to the importance of agriculture—which has been neglected, I fear, in the current crop of millennium development goals—and inclusive growth as a necessary precondition for jobs and the reduction of poverty.

My experience of growing up in Africa as the grandson of two African farmers—we should never forget that women play a greater role in agriculture in Africa than do men—has taught me, as has my experience outside this House in Africa, that in order to bring about the “profound transformation” to end extreme poverty and improve livelihoods, to which the report refers, it is necessary to do what it suggests: to harness innovation and technology to this end. The high-level panel is to be commended for that.

I ask the Minister—I warmly welcome him, as does the rest of the House, to his place—what can we do, what can DfID do, to support higher education, our research councils, our scientific bodies and our private sector in order to promote science, technology and innovation in Africa to underpin agriculture and agricultural growth.

If this report is a Christmas tree—and it is—it needs science, energy and infrastructure in order to bring it alight. Only with that can Africa fulfil its potential and the lion join the tigers as an engine of growth and prosperity, not only for Africa and Asia but for the whole world.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to say that we are doing quite well.