Building Stability Overseas Strategy

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chidgey]

My Lords, in reviewing the impact of the Building Security Overseas Strategy, I think it is worth taking a step back to reconfirm the aims and objectives of the strategy, but first I join the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, in playing tribute to the drive and leadership of Andrew Mitchell, the former Secretary of State for DfID, which I was able to witness first hand as a member of the wider ministerial team that he created.

The BSOS fundamentally sets out the Government’s vision for co-ordinating their development, defence and diplomatic capabilities behind a progressive vision of stability that is,

“built on the consent of the population, is resilient and flexible in the face of shocks, and can evolve over time as the context changes”.

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, touched on the costs to a nation or community of conflict or civil war. The importance of the avoidance of conflict cannot be overestimated. It may take 20 or 30 years to recover a country’s GDP, but the impact of large numbers, thousands of people, who have been deliberately maimed can take at least a generation, if not two, to recover from with all the costs of caring for people who are not only unable to contribute to the economy but who are possibly unable to fend for themselves. This is a huge issue that should not be overlooked.

The BSOS aims to underpin the Government’s work on conflict prevention and in conflict-affected and fragile states. It is designed with several strategies underpinning the national security strategy, including counterterrorism and defence engagement. For BSOS implementation to be effective, DfID, FCO and MoD officials in Whitehall and in in-country posts need to understand and endorse the progressive definition of stability outlined in the BSOS. It is characterised, as Saferworld describes it, as,

“political systems which are representative and legitimate, capable of managing conflict and change peacefully, and societies in which human rights and the rule of law are respected, basic needs met, security established and opportunities for social and economic development are open to all”.

The Prime Minister, as co-chair of the high-level panel, has a golden opportunity to press these concepts in his meetings this week in London. I had the opportunity to be a parliamentary representative as the fourth high-level forum on aid effectiveness progressed until it finally came to a conclusion in Busan, and I witnessed the global agreement that was unanimously struck on aid effectiveness. All sections of the aid family—politicians, parliamentarians, civil society, charities and so on—came to that agreement. It is a fundamental shift in the dynamics of aid effectiveness and aid delivery, and here is an opportunity, with our Prime Minister as one of three, I think, co-chairs, to drive this forward.

The three mutually supporting pillars underpinning the BSOS—early warning, rapid crisis prevention and response and investing in upstream prevention—present the challenge of uniting three departments. The Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and DfID have their own policy objectives and organisational and working cultures behind the single vision set out in the BSOS. Although the departments acknowledge the need for a BSOS and herald it as key to their strategies, is not clear whether they have succeeded in establishing a joined-up government approach. It is not clear whether the necessary capacity and funding to carry out the actions described in the main pillars have been provided. The conflict prevention pool was designed to make funding available quickly to undertake work in deteriorating and insecure situations around the world where our national interests are at stake.

Unfortunately, the strategy has yet to be formulated at operational level or put into practice. The three pillars are being addressed separately by the departments. The MoD is seeking to form a team that will use all available assets to gather intelligence on the possible factors that will lead to conflict then, in conjunction with the FCO and DfID, it will tailor its actions to counter any threats to stability and the UK national interest. Foreign Office diplomacy will be used to adhere to the three pillars of the BSOS, while DfID will use development aid and the combined resources of the stabilisation unit to try to counter the triggers of instability ahead of actual conflict, deal with post-conflict threats and stop a slide back into instability and war.

My understanding is that, to a degree, these concepts are being implemented in Libya at present, excluding, of course, the upstream aspects because they are well done. In this regard, will the Minister tell your Lordships’ House in the context of BSOS what progress is being made with capacity building the Libyan security sector? What progress is being made with assistance in the development and management of the Libyan armed forces? What progress is being made with the delivery of capacity to provide border security in order to assist the Libyan Government gain the monopoly of control of the use of force within their country? What progress is being made in working with other agencies to develop a democratically accountable security sector with particular focus on the building of a viable and effective Libyan Ministry of Defence? What progress is being made with meeting the short-term objective of helping the Libyan authorities clear and secure unexploded ordnance? All these tasks are designed to provide impact in areas where the UK could have a strategic effect and assist the Libyan authorities to understand their security and defence problems and start to develop their own solutions. A UK defence advisory team of six was launched in April 2012, but at present is funded only until 2013. It appears that in Libya we are currently good at part of pillar two of BSOS—rapid crisis response—but have yet to get our act together on the others. We have neither the capacity nor the funding for upstream early warning or prevention.

The BSOS provides the overarching strategic framework for the Conflict Pool on which the Independent Commission for Aid Impact recently carried out a quite thorough review. It noted the lack of detail on how the integration of defence, diplomacy and development will be incorporated into the differing policy objectives and organisational cultures of the three departments. Will the Government elaborate on how the elements of this strategic framework will ensure that departments put their shared objectives outlined in the BSOS ahead of individual departmental objectives which may lead them in different directions?