Horn of Africa

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, I too welcome the fact that the Government have initiated this debate and I thank the Minister for his introduction. I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Harman. Having had a flat in her former constituency for quite a few years, I am certain that she will be very welcome in this House, and we are looking forward to hearing what she has to say.

While I think what the noble Lord had to say about Somaliland is worthy of consideration and thought, it is a difficult and delicate issue—but it has validity. A few points need to be drawn out. As quite a few noble Lords will know, Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council was in this House last week and gave a pretty depressing comment on the state of the world. The very starkest statistic was that in the last few years, the number of refugees and internally displaced people in the world has risen from 42 million to 120 million and, while that has happened, most of the developed countries have dramatically reduced their aid and support to exactly those people. So, as the problem has got worse, support from the international community has been reduced—and we wonder why conflicts escalate and resolutions do not appear.

I have some knowledge of Ethiopia, as I have visited several times, and I have also visited Sudan and South Sudan. I have not visited Somalia, Eritrea or Djibouti, but clearly the impact is very much felt whenever you visit the region in any case. I am grateful for the fact that Anneliese Dodds, the Development Minister, visited Ethiopia in August, and that the Minister was there just a week or two ago. I think that demonstrates that the Government are engaged. I have to point out, however—and he can correct me if my figures are wrong—that from a peak of £300 million a year of the UK’s aid budget to Ethiopia, we are currently down to about £83 million, and in the case of Somalia, from a peak of £250 million it is down to £92.7 million in the current year. That reinforces the point. I know that the Government are not in a position to reverse that, but they must not cut it any further, and I think we want to see that they are beginning to build it back, and this is an area of focus where it is urgently needed.

As the Minister said, it is a very complex region and the interconnections are very difficult, but he quite rightly made some positive comments about what those countries are trying to do. Somalia is definitely in a better place than it was a few years ago, but it is not out of the woods. Somaliland is a shining example in one sense, but there is an unresolved problem. Eritrea is still a worry. The point that I wish to make is that there are 120 million people or more living in Ethiopia and, in spite of some reverses in the last few years because of the internal conflicts, Ethiopia has achieved a huge amount since it got rid of the communist Government, in a whole variety of ways. The poverty indicators have dropped very sharply and health and education have improved, but it has slid, because of the conflict, in the last few years.

While the Prime Minister’s rhetoric may not be helpful, it is quite understandable that a country of 120 million people that is trying to build a successful economy and has no access to the sea, other than by agreement with Djibouti—which has its own problems—is looking for secure access. It used to have it when it possessed Eritrea. That is not a viable option, so it is understandable that it would look to Somaliland, with very close access to the sea and a stable environment.

It is equally understandable that Somalia is more than uncomfortable about that—it is very angry. My appeal to the Minister is from the point of view of the UK and the international community: this could surely be resolved by negotiation and agreement, but the starting point has to be that Ethiopia’s need for safe and secure access to the sea is a legitimate aspiration that it would be helpful if its neighbours could take a constructive attitude towards resolving. I can put it no more firmly than that. I cannot say what the answer should be, but it is an understandable wish and refusing to address it does not help us.

As the Minister said, we have the problem of the spillover from Sudan and South Sudan, with refugee camps in Ethiopia and probably the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet. The UK is the UN penholder on Sudan, so we have reasonable responsibility to help resolve that situation. Lowering the temperature, addressing the issues and getting the parties together is the only way that we will resolve this.

The consequences of climate change and the current famine are an added burden. We all know that this is the 40th anniversary of the famine, but it is important to remember that it was to some extent directly caused by the appalling Government of the time—part of it deliberately and the rest by neglect. Therefore, it is understandable that the Government who have succeeded them, even though they have changed in the last few years, are very sensitive to Ethiopian famine because they have done an awful lot to try to ensure that they can manage famine and stress from their own resources as well as international aid. Even when it is embarrassing for them, they are prepared to make a public statement that they are facing the prospect of famine and looking for practical support. We should acknowledge that, because it shows that we respect what they are trying to do and that we are there to try to help, rather than giving the terrible image of Africa as a completely failed continent that cannot cope, which is just not true. The scale of climate change and the extremity of some of the drought is beyond human control but not beyond management and resolution.

The UK Government’s engagement in the region has been positive and constructive but regrettably rather downgraded in recent years. That has been noticed. I was advised that the very sharp withdrawal from aid projects in Ethiopia led a Minister in the Ethiopian Government to say that they were not sure they wanted to work with the UK Government in future because they could not trust the continuity. I hope that this Government, whatever they do, do not stop and start— I hope they start and do not stop—because that is the worst way to handle aid and development co-operation on a mutually respectful basis.

There is a tendency for this to become an issue when there is a crisis—when the TV news cameras are in, when there is an appeal or whatever. That creates a rather negative image—not that it is not real—when surely this is about long-term solutions and building resilience and capacity. When I had the honour to chair the International Development Committee, I always used to say to people: “It is not the Foreign Aid Committee; it is the International Development Committee”. Sometimes aid is necessary in an emergency, but it needs to be backed up by sustained development programmes to build resilience and capacity to give countries the ability to tackle their problems in the long term. I appeal to the Government not just to respond to crises but to set in process programmes with long-term continuity. They do not always get the attention but they make the difference, which is really important.

As I have said before in this House, we need to rebuild the cross-party consensus that we had, because we have broken the connection between the British public and the importance and relevance of our overseas development programme, both in compassion and in our internal national interest. We need to rebuild that, because at the moment the attitude tends to be: “We have all these problems at home, so we really shouldn’t be addressing that”. But we will have more problems at home if we do not do so. We live in a shared, over- crowded and overstressed planet. We are part of the overstressing and have to be part of the solution too.

I appreciate the fact that two Ministers have been to Ethiopia in very short order. I hope that our relationship with Ethiopia and the neighbouring territories will continue and that our role as penholder on Sudan might help us push that forward. Can the Minister say to what extent the UK could help with mediation among the countries, in particular between Somaliland and Ethiopia, and give some leadership to the international community? We are not the single most important player, but we have been an important player and can be again. I hope we will recognise that these tensions can be resolved by good will. The rhetoric has been restrained; there has been a bit of tub-thumping, but they have just held back from escalating it to conflict. That could happen, but should not. This is no justification. Conflict will resolve nothing, just make a very bad situation a lot worse.