Aid Reviews

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Friday 2nd December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

I can certainly give that assurance and will write to the noble Baroness with the details. I already have a letter for her in my in-tray on the CDC, so I will add a paragraph to that, if I may.

[Lord Boateng]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund. Does the Minister agree with me that the surest route out of poverty is jobs, that the surest defence of peace is jobs and that the surest guard against forced migration is jobs? Will he therefore give the House the reassurance that bilateral programmes, like the one that used to exist in Burundi and others in fragile areas such as the Great Lakes, Somalia, Somaliland and South Sudan, will continue to be supported under this review, because they are making a huge difference?

[Lord Bates]

I pay tribute to the work the noble Lord has done for the organisations he is involved with in promoting that. Economic development is at the heart of eradicating extreme poverty. We cannot do it through aid flows alone: there has to be the wider context.

The lifting of people out of poverty, including the 50% reduction in the number in extreme poverty, has come largely through major economies such as those of India, China, and Brazil increasing trade and economic development. The same applies to sub-Saharan Africa.