Building Stability Overseas Strategy

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Thursday 6th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, I join in the thanks that have been expressed to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, for securing and introducing this debate. It is good to be able to welcome a joint paper from three government departments. I hope that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will study this in relation to our military exports.

I suspect that the work of producing this paper may have been more important than the document itself. The paper has a wide focus on the whole world, so it can seldom be specific. However, in just one paragraph, 3.5, it mentions that by 2025—that is, in 14 years’ time—2.8 billion people in 48 countries will be facing water shortages. The signs are already obvious. The Aral Sea, for example, is largely dry. The Jordan is reduced to a trickle, while the Dead Sea has receded by several hundred yards. I saw this myself last year. In China, the Yellow River now seldom reaches the sea and some Pacific islands have to rely on imported bottled water. All these examples are mainly caused by human activity.

At the same time, the world’s population is rising steadily and will do so for some years before it is likely to level off. Climate generally seems to be getting more extreme so that some areas have serious and disastrous droughts while others suffer typhoons, hurricanes and floods. The stresses and tensions over resources are likely to get worse.

If one looks at eight of the world’s major rivers, all flow through two states and many traverse three or four. The fresh water in them is crucial for human consumption and for food production, as well as for other uses. In some regions there are already consultative processes for discussing water use and allocation but in others nothing is set up. Already the Euphrates and Tigris are causing much concern. In Turkey, more irrigation and more hydro-electricity are planned. Downstream in Syria and Iraq, some former farmland is turning to desert, whose production cannot be balanced by just increasing irrigation.

The report, rather charmingly, speaks about “investing in upstream prevention”. Will the Government take this both seriously and literally? Will they discuss with the major riparian states the need to establish dialogue and consultation on whole-river strategies for co-operation? Is this something that the Commonwealth could usefully promote among its members, not only in Africa but also, and especially, in the context of détente between India and Pakistan? The report is helpful in setting down what we mean by conflict and suggesting that this becomes problematic only when it turns violent. Some countries, which might otherwise be quite prosperous, such as Colombia, have a tradition of civil war.

The report goes on to mention frozen conflicts. In my experience, in Moldova, Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh, the conflicts frozen following ceasefires almost always have an external as well as an internal dimension. I suggest that interested external parties should not be called upon to act as mediators. Will the Government concentrate greater effort on resolving frozen conflicts, especially when British NGOs are already involved? This also makes sense because the unresolved conflicts cause poverty and make people migrate, as we have seen, for example, from Armenia, Moldova and Kosovo, the last of which we debated on 15 September.

The report ticks many important boxes, such as the role of women, reducing corruption, justice and law enforcement, or political reform in the Arab states. It speaks of helping to build strong, legitimate institutions able to manage tensions, and it mentions the EU, the OSCE, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States. Of those, nearly all have their own internal weaknesses. They have nevertheless made a start, and regional groups for preventing war and other disasters should be encouraged everywhere.

I conclude by posing a more fundamental question. In Britain, we still have memories of the days of Empire, when our sea-power enabled us to impose our will in most parts of the world. In today’s circumstances, should we not adopt a narrower focus and select those regions where we can best contribute to preventing violence and promoting good government and economic prosperity? Would we not be more effective by concentrating our efforts on, say, south-east Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and perhaps the Horn of Africa? We have historic responsibilities arising from the Middle East but also much local knowledge and expertise. Progress towards resolving the long outstanding issues of Israel and Palestine would be a huge benefit to our interests, not least in reducing the motives for terrorism and in helping the Arab spring to produce worthwhile fruit. Progress, I believe, is likely to depend on work with the many shades of political and public opinion as much as on negotiation between the elites in government in the various countries.