Building Stability Overseas Strategy

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Thursday 6th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chidgey]

My Lords, I, too, welcome this debate and congratulate my noble friend Lady Falkner on securing it. I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, who reminds those of us who take a great interest in the affairs of the developing world of the stark reality of the impact that instability and conflict have on developing communities in terms of poverty, sickness and the denial of basic rights of education and a reasonable life. This affects many communities, and not just African countries such as Sudan or the Congo. Afghanistan is a classic case in point. We should not forget the terrible situation that existed in the Balkans. Therefore, I welcome the debate and I welcome very much the Government’s paper, Building Stability Overseas Strategy, about which I wish to make some detailed remarks.

Part one concentrates on the reasons why we should engage in conflict prevention and why stability matters. As recent international events have clearly shown, there is little to disagree with in this assessment. Part two of the paper, however, is where the meat of the argument, discussion or analysis—whichever way you want to put it—lies, dealing, as it does, with the concept of early warning, improving our ability to anticipate instability and conflict triggers. It deals with rapid crisis prevention and response, improving the ability to take fast, appropriate and effective action to prevent crises developing, spreading or escalating. The final section deals with investing in upstream prevention, building strong institutions and robust societies in fragile countries able to withstand and manage tensions and shocks, reducing the potential for instability and conflict. That should be underpinned—it must be added—by democratic accountability, locally and nationally.

Within the concept of early warning, the production of a watch list of fragile states and an early warning report based on a Cabinet Office six-monthly review of countries at risk, and assessed by the building security overseas steering group for overall efficacy, are all appropriate measures. There is no question of that. They do, however, suggest that previously departments of state went about conflict prevention in a more ad hoc and unco-ordinated manner. The danger is that these high-level initiatives will not be followed by positive action at working level. In the context of early warning there is a need to ensure that evidence gained from these initiatives is acted on in a timely manner. For example, the UNPD produces a monthly early warning report, which originates in the field, on countries at risk. Rarely is it acted upon in a timescale that prevents further deterioration of a situation. To quote senior officials,

“there is often too much process and not enough progress”.

Therefore, my first concern that I ask the Minister to address relates to the processes that will be established to ensure that departments, particularly DfID, are recording and then working on indicators produced by the early warning report and annual horizon scan. Too often these outputs are read and then just filed while existing planned programmes continue stubbornly on their way unaltered and unaffected.

As regards crisis prevention and response, the BSOS recognises the speed at which events can change and stresses the UK’s comparative advantages in adaptability, speedy action and whole-government approach. That is very worthy. The creation of a £20 million annual early action facility within the Conflict Pool seems to underline this. Given the anticipated greater use of stabilisation response teams, as first deployed in Libya earlier this year, can the Minister provide details of the composition, training and availability of personnel for these SRTs? Are they to comprise serving civil servants from government departments and military personnel drawn from the MoD? Will they be held on the strength of the Stabilisation Unit or will they be called on as required? How are their training, availability and fitness for deployment to be monitored? Will deployable civilian experts or civilian stabilisation groups be deployed or will it be a combination of both? Again, how will they be recruited and trained? Is the Minister confident that the core team at the Stabilisation Unit is of sufficient size and has the right expertise to deal with rapidly changing scenarios, and that the right mix of DfID, MoD, FCO and Cabinet Office staff will be maintained? In this regard, are these civil servants and military personnel to be “double hatted” to ensure that we get value for money in periods of calm between crises?

The Minister will be aware that in its responses to the BSOS document Saferworld suggested that the Government could build on their multilateral aid review and the BSOS by evaluating the impact that multilateral institutions have on prospects for promoting peace and sustainable security. Saferworld has also suggested that the scope of the Government’s analysis of multilateral institutions should be expanded beyond those with which the UK has an aid relationship; for example, to the UNSC, the African Union and the OSCE. What is the Government’s assessment of the usefulness of such measures, and are they considering implementing them?

A number of noble Lords have mentioned investing in upstream prevention. Upstream conflict prevention requires, in part, developing a thorough understanding of what generates conflict within or between communities. As Saferworld points out, responses need to address both underlying drivers of conflict and the factors that lead to it becoming violent. The BSOS considers that work to prevent conflict is most likely to succeed when it marshals diplomatic effort with development programmes and defence engagement around a shared integrated strategy.

The Government are providing more resources for upstream prevention through the Conflict Pool, which provides joined-up delivery across DfID, the MoD and the FCO. Stronger results focus and improved programme management will be introduced as part of this process. As I understand it, some £1.25 billion worth of funding will be provided for the BSOS, which will include investing in partnerships beyond fragile-state Governments in, for example, key groups such as local government, the private sector, faith groups, civil society and the media, as previous speakers have discussed.

The to-do list includes work to reduce corruption and enhance the role of women. It also includes ensuring that the defence engagement strategy sets out clearly how a commitment to direct more non-operational defence engagement to conflict prevention will be implemented. The BSOS also provides an opportunity to set out the Government’s analysis of how the broader international aid effectiveness agenda impacts on conflict and fragility and how it can promote dialogue on ways in which aid can support peace and stability in fragile states.

As many noble Lords will know, the Government have been co-chairing the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding that will feed into the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan. The UK is seen as a world leader in this area and in many other international initiatives that are taking place. Do the Government agree that a vital aspect of their programme and that of the Building Security Overseas Strategy is investing in the development of democracy in fragile states, investing in strengthening Parliaments and in their capacity to hold Executives to account, and in monitoring the delivery and effectiveness of aid projects?

With regard to the overall extremely worthy, not to say challenging, to-do list, can the Minister elaborate on how engagement with civil society and faith groups and how efforts to reduce corruption will be undertaken in practical terms? What procedures are envisaged for facing host Government opposition and observing key, defined and stubborn local ownership practices? How will they be monitored and evaluated?

We seek clarification of the monitoring and evaluation and results framework that the BSOS will use to assess the long-term impact of actions taken to prevent conflict upstream. These actions frequently concern changes in institutional and individual policies, along with attitudes of behaviour, which are very difficult to measure. How do the Government plan to overcome these problems?

In its response to the BSOS report, Saferworld stresses that a key aspect of evaluating upstream conflict prevention should be the measurement of public perceptions of safety and security in conflict-affected and fragile states. It also sees a need to include an assessment of how well conflict-affected communities have been included in the planning, implementation and monitoring of the UK’s conflict-prevention work. The BSOS does not set out how measurement of upstream conflict-prevention efforts or its rapid crisis-prevention and response activities will be achieved. It will be helpful to know what criteria and what indicators will be used, and which organisation in London and in the field will be responsible for this onerous and costly responsibility.

Finally, the successful implementation of the BSOS will require the closest possible co-operation between key departments—the FCO, DfID and the MoD. This will not just happen. The creation of the National Security Council will provide that umbrella but that will not in itself ensure that the three departments adopt a common approach. It can happen only through making sure that key players establish working relationships and come to appreciate the different cultures and skills that the other departments can bring to the table.

There have already been some very good reports on the outcomes of joint exercises, which have brought together the three departments to work together on resolving problems that require military, diplomatic, humanitarian and aid interventions. I trust that Ministers will now ensure that there are more such opportunities for the departments to work together on such exercises to maximise the chances of success when we have to deal with real situations in the real world.