Sub-Saharan Africa (Report from the International Relations and Defence Committee)

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, this is a massive and impressive report. I for one am very proud to see this committee, which was born only in 2016—in the teeth, I remind your Lordships, of strong opposition, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, will vividly remember—taking such a lead under the excellent chairmanship of my noble friend Lady Anelay in reaching out to issues and areas that other committees do not reach and where much more illumination is vital for our future.

It really is time to piece together fresh approaches to a continent that is going to contain, as the report tells us, one-quarter of the world’s population—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Grand Committee now stands adjourned for five minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, as I was saying, it really is time to piece together fresh approaches to a continent that is going to contain a quarter of the world’s population and where the past 50 years of western intervention—especially the trillions of dollars poured into Africa by our American friends from the time of Chester Bowles onwards—have had such sadly limited success. If any of my observations seem to have a mildly critical tone, it is precisely because this report successfully opens up many important new perspectives and issues and acts as a powerful stimulant, so anything I say must be taken as further proof and praise of its value.

I have four points to make. First, the canvas is enormous. I understand completely why sub-Sahara was chosen: to limit the subject and avoid some of the labyrinthine complexities and turbulences of the Maghreb to the north. However, in the age of communications revolution and hyperconnectivity, I wonder whether the traditional geographical distinction is so valid. Modern violence and terror networks are increasingly intimately linked. The same ugly and destabilising forces as operate in the Middle East and along the Mediterranean shore—of course, they are the chief barrier to peaceful trade and development—poison politics across the Sahel states and have long since reached down into Nigeria with the Boko Haram horror, as we heard, and right down the east and west coasts of Africa. All in all, the huge sea of sand between north and south in Africa may mean less separation politically and in economic terms today than in the past.

Secondly, humanitarian aid is plainly needed more than ever, especially where terrorists and Islamic extremist violence have left and are leaving their wreckage. So trade concessions are needed—particularly the sort that encourage local enterprise and infant new industries. However, as has been said, we must be careful not to disrupt the rapidly growing trade cohesion in Africa, as exemplified by the new African Continental Free Trade Area and several other key networks that the report rightly lists and which are rapidly taking shape. Furthermore, we are gaining a new understanding of the mainsprings of development in Africa, which old aid views do not necessarily reflect. The wrong kinds of aid, measured just by volume and percentages, can easily hold back growth and do as much harm as good. Factors such as property ownership and remittances, on which the report held an evidence session, may be far more significant in development than was believed in the past.

Thirdly, there is no prosperity or development without peace. We need to know a lot more about what is happening across the whole belt of Sahel states, where violence rages from Niger through Mali right over to Somalia and the Horn of Africa on the east coast, and of course down to Mozambique. The report has an excellent chapter on peace and security across the region where, in Mali, the UK, working with the French, now has a fully mechanised long-range reconnaissance group, the Americans have a major drone base at Agadez and the UN struggles to keep the peace through MINUSMA along with some EU initiatives and the so-called G5 Sahel group of states.

Fourthly, there is the Chinese factor. Perhaps this should come first because it is now the biggest outside influence by far. The report looks at China’s activities, but there could perhaps be even more emphasis on the reality that the Chinese are everywhere in Africa, doing good in some areas but doing harm and arousing antagonism in others. I often think that if the Chinese would sometimes come off their anti-western high horse, they might learn a lot from the Brits on how to be most constructive over African development and reinforce the best trends instead of entrenching the bad ones. They are the largest funders of the African Union, but they own far too much of the debt of African nations for the health of the continent. Does not the whole problem of how and where to work with the Chinese need a thorough analysis and refocus across all involved departments here in Whitehall? I think I have heard other noble Lords say the same thing.

From here, I will strike a more jarring note. Everyone nowadays is calling for grand strategies of this kind or the other, especially in the field of foreign policy. I am afraid that the report is not immune from that tendency. However, in the fast-moving and fast-evolving age of digital revolution, the most beautifully crafted strategies are out of date before they begin. Anyway, the vast variety and changing character of Africa’s many regions, with all their totally diverse problems, fit into no single strategy. We have to be ready to work with different partners in shifting alliances in different areas. We have to work with the French very closely in some areas, and with the Japanese—whose enormous development programmes go quietly and expertly forward—in others; I am not sure that there is much about this in the report. We also have to work carefully and selectively with the Chinese.

We have to use different models, such as the CDC Group’s excellent approach to new enterprise encouragement and innovation, which my noble friend Lord Eccles has just been speaking about and which, incidentally, goes right back to the principles of the old CDC when it started 50 years ago. I had the privilege to be slightly involved.

We also have to work as closely as possible with the African Union itself. We have to focus on unique phenomena such as little Somaliland—I do not know whether that gets a mention—which works in smooth contrast to its violence-ravaged neighbour, Somalia. Frankly, I think it deserves more support and has lessons we ought to be learning in that region—for instance, how to deal with the extraordinary Djibouti situation, where we are not represented but the Chinese, the Americans, the French and many others are all building enormous military bases.

A prospering new Africa, cleansed of the poisons that still infect it but ready with a younger generation to leap-frog straight into the high-tech age—as in Kenya, for instance—and free, as far as possible, of hegemonic rivalries and ideologies is directly in our own national security and economic interest. Historical ties help us, and the modern Commonwealth network is very much alive and growing in ways only dimly understood by our media here, and indeed by our policymakers as well. But we also need a variety of imaginative, up-to-date and adaptable new approaches to meet fundamentally changed conditions across the whole continent. This report gives us a sharp and welcome push in that direction.