Africa: Population Growth

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Lord is right to highlight that over 60% of people on the African continent are under 25 and, as I said previously, we expect to see a great deal of population growth in the region. We are working hard to ensure that there is better access to healthcare. On education, in particular, between 2010 and 2015 we supported 11.4 million children and young people to gain a decent education, more than 5 million of whom were girls. We have a specific project—the Girls’ Education Challenge—which currently supports marginalised girls to benefit from a quality education and to acquire know-how for work and life. This will give them a second chance to learn, and we are specifically targeting it on highly marginalised girls.

[Lord Chidgey (LD)]

My Lords, according to the new UN hunger report, the rise in global hunger for the third year in a row is due to the impact of climate shocks, conflicts and economic breakdown. The worst forms of malnutrition are highest in Africa and when I last visited Malawi the irreversible stunting among young children was close to 40%. Will the Government heed the UN’s warning that ending malnutrition requires immediate action to help vulnerable communities? Will they implement the recommendations of the UN’s 2018 Global Nutrition Report, building on the success of bringing stunting down from 36% per year on average in 2000 to just 22% last year?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that we must do what we can to prevent child stunting. We are investing significant amounts in global healthcare, focusing on delivering the sustainable development goals.

Zimbabwe: Asylum Seekers

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that the Government have expressed serious concerns and we continue to call for the Government of Zimbabwe to uphold the rule of law and human rights and promote free and fair elections under that protection of the constitution and international human rights law. I reiterate that when we return somebody to their country of origin, we seek to do so only when we and the courts have considered it safe.

[Lord Chidgey (LD)]

My Lords, the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission has reported that not only did the police and military target members of the MDC, the opposition party, and civil society organisations, their offices were broken into and their membership files downloaded. Subsequently, beatings were carried out and arrests made late at night. What assessment have the Government made of this escalation in premeditated human rights abuses, particularly—as the noble Lord mentioned—in regard to factoring in opposition party membership when assessing asylum seekers’ claims in this country?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord has hit on something that the Government acknowledge—there are risks to certain people who oppose the ruling ZANU-PF Government. That does not extend to all people, but when determining an asylum claim, all things are taken into consideration and no one will be returned if it is not safe to return them.

South Sudan

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chidgey (LD)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Curry, on securing this debate on the crisis in South Sudan. I also congratulate the noble Earl on his contribution and the breadth of knowledge with which he has informed this debate—that goes for the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, as well.

I had the opportunity to visit the southern part of Sudan shortly before independence was declared in Juba in July 2011. The parliamentary delegation of which I was a part visited Juba and Khartoum, meeting the soon-to-be President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, and his staff, and members of President Bashir’s Cabinet in Khartoum.

Noble Lords will recall that, at that time, just prior to the referendum on South Sudan’s independence, there was a massive relocation of population from north to south. Sudanese families were uprooted from the urban environment around Khartoum and transported to the mostly rural areas in the south. Flotillas of Nile barges were deployed to ship these new refugees down to Juba, with around 1,000 people on each barge. It was a moving experience to hear so many people singing together, announcing their impending arrival before each barge came into view, unaware of what awaited them.

Juba then was, and by all accounts still is, a bankrupt and broken city. It had no formal commercial trading base. There are no banks—just a simple cash economy. Our delegation’s organiser had to carry around a cash float sufficient to meet all our travel and accommodation costs in a Tesco plastic bag—I do not know how many thousands of dollars she carried; I did not like to ask—until we found a secure cupboard which relieved the responsibility, courtesy of the UK mission.

The urbanised refugee families from the north were confronted with the prospect of becoming tenant smallholder farmers. They were provided with hand implements, allocated a patch of land and invited to get on with it. The plight of children orphaned by the upheaval was dreadful.

Our delegation was taken to a temporary childcare centre, funded and run by volunteers. They cared for the children they found abandoned in the Juba city markets. With there not being enough money to provide accommodation, the children had to be returned to the market each night and take their chances sleeping under the stalls. By the time the girls were 11, they were coerced into prostitution in the market brothels. Before the boys reached 11, they had generally disappeared.

As if this was not enough for an impoverished, destitute population to cope with, in a country with barely any infrastructure, no civil administration and no formal governance, in 2013—as noble Lords have mentioned—it was plunged into civil war. It was a vicious civil war initiated by leaders with no concern for the fate of the people whom they professed to lead.

Just this week, yet another peace agreement was signed. South Sudan’s UN ambassador, Akuei Bona Malwal, said that the declaration included other warring parties and that they had all pledged to work together to bring peace to the country. I must thank his excellency the ambassador for South Sudan, who sent me a copy of the agreement via the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, which is encouraging. Unfortunately, during the photocopying process, I believe that they have managed to miss out one of the pages which is probably the most important. There we are: it is in my hand; we have the agreement.

Security Council members have welcomed this sign of progress after more than four years of a bloody conflict that has seen thousands killed and more than 4 million displaced from their homes or made refugees. The fighting has caused a humanitarian catastrophe, with more than 7 million South Sudanese requiring humanitarian assistance this year.

The radio station Voice of America, in Washington, reported that Security Council member, Equatorial Guinea’s UN ambassador, Job Obiang Esono Mbengono, had said that the peace declaration was a step on the right path but they were cautious when it came to optimism, since it was not the first time that the parties had reached agreements and not respected them.

The Ethiopian envoy Tekeda Alemu said that the coming days will be critical and that what matters now is for the parties to honour their commitment and implement the ceasefire, but what are the prospects of it lasting? We have already heard this afternoon that the ceasefire has been broken. One far-sighted commentator said that this civil war will last until both sides come to the conclusion that neither side can win.

In the meantime, the people of South Sudan continue to suffer. In the meantime, 7.5 million people need humanitarian assistance, 6 million people—half the population—are severely food-insecure, 1.8 million people have sought refuge in neighbouring countries, making Bidi in Uganda the world’s largest refugee camp, and there are at least 4.2 million IDPs. There are outbreaks of cholera, kala-azar and measles, and during six months of 2016 there were 2 million cases of malaria alone. Three-quarters of school-aged girls are not in school, an adolescent girl is three times more likely to die in childbirth than to complete primary school, and one in five girls among displaced communities has experienced rape or sexual assault since the conflict started.

Despite the signing of the cessation of hostilities agreement, conflict has intensified in parts of Unity and Central Equatoria states. Government forces are seeking to dislodge opposition forces ahead of the rainy season. On 31 May, the Security Council adopted Resolution 2418, renewing the sanctions regime until 15 July, by which time the fighting should have stopped and the parties should have come to a viable agreement. If they have not, the Security Council will consider applying targeted sanctions to six identifiable individuals. Nevertheless, will the Government’s approach to conflict resolution focus not solely on the high-level peace process but look at the root causes? Will the Government strongly and publicly support humanitarian responses to refugees in Sudan and neighbouring countries? Will they acknowledge that more should be done to ensure that South Sudan leaders holding British citizenship are held accountable in an investigation into arms deals between a UK company and South Sudan? Will they support Uganda in providing a safe haven for Sudanese refugees, given that only 21% of the UNHCR’s call for some $674 million in 2017 has been funded?

Sub-Saharan Africa: Public Services and Governance

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

When the opportunity came, after the former President Mugabe left office, one of the first there was Rory Stewart when he was a joint Foreign Office and DfID Minister. I know that the new Africa Minister, Harriett Baldwin, will be looking to make a visit early on. It is precisely the type of country that has been locked into instability for too long, and yet has immense potential in terms of education and its natural resources, which can be liberated.

[Lord Chidgey (LD)]

Is the Minister aware that there appears to be a growing consensus among international donors that development is stalling in sub-Saharan Africa because of a failure of governance and weak institutions? Does the Minister agree that ODA should prioritise institutional reform over good governance, providing the capacity to deliver change, following the fundamental principles of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness set out as long ago as 2005?