Zimbabwe

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I will certainly take that point away and bring it to the attention of colleagues; it is very important. We do our utmost to ensure that our bilateral aid, for example, does not go through the Government of Zimbabwe or their agencies directly. We work primarily through multilateral organisations, notably United Nations agencies. The noble Lord is absolutely right: the economic crisis in Zimbabwe is very serious indeed. We are disappointed that the staff-monitored programme agreed with the IMF has gone off-track. Our focus at the moment is on mitigating the worst impacts of the economic crisis and concentrating on the most vulnerable Zimbabweans.

[Lord Chidgey (LD)]

My Lords, the US ambassador to Zimbabwe, Brian Nichols, has stated that the Government must implement a market-based agricultural policy, fully liberalising the trade in grains and paying farmers on a par with the cost of imports. He added that the Grain Marketing Board was allocating subsidised grain to millers, who were selling it on the black market in neighbouring countries. This corruption costs the Zimbabweans in both food and treasure. What measures are the UK Government taking to support the US plans for a market-based economy and to make sure that UK aid is not lost through corruption?

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord makes some extremely important points. As I mentioned, DfID Zimbabwe operates under a strict funding policy whereby no UK aid money passes directly through the Government of Zimbabwe. We work through multilateral organisations, notably UN agencies, international NGOs and the private sector, to deliver our UK aid projects. Apart from immediate aid, it is important that we also focus on enabling Zimbabweans to help themselves in the longer term on a more sustainable basis. In particular, DfID has two programmes supporting agriculture in that sense, enabling infrastructure to be developed.