Poverty in the Developing World

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

To call attention to those living in extreme poverty in the developing world; and to move for papers.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to call attention to those living in extreme poverty in the developing world. I also welcome in advance the contributions that will be made to this debate from a wide range of noble Lords; I look forward to hearing from them.

There were a number of reasons for calling for this debate at this time. Next week, an innovative campaign will be supported by a number of noble Lords called Live Below the Line. I will say something about that later. Next month, the annual G8 summit will meet, and last month the strategic review of UK aid was published by the coalition Government. Those would be reasons enough to hold a debate at this time, but there are also 1.4 billion individual reasons for having a debate on extreme poverty in the developing world. It is surely a disgrace and a moral outrage that, more than one decade into the 21st century, the existence of those 1.4 billion reasons to debate extreme poverty is still with us.

Extreme poverty is not about choosing between a hot meal and a cold meal; it is not about choosing between a hot drink and a cold drink; it is not about choosing between going to the cinema or having a night in with a DVD; it is not about choosing between a day out with the kids or buying them some clothes. Extreme poverty is about not having those or, sometimes, any choices at all. The daily reality of extreme poverty is that if your relatives become sick overnight you may have to choose in the morning between feeding your children that day or finding the relative medical care. It is about having more than one, perhaps many, talented children and having to choose which of them completes primary school or enters secondary school. It is about, when you need a drink, being faced with the choice of drinking contaminated water and risking disease. It is because of those choices—that absence of choice—that extreme poverty should appear on our agenda today.

The World Bank estimates, and others now accept, that 1.4 billion people live on less than £1 a day across the world. Of those, as documented by Paul Collier and others, perhaps 1 billion—the bottom billion—experience that extreme poverty in conditions where their situation may be permanent. They could be trapped in conflict or in landlocked states where, through the misuse of natural resources or poor governance, they are sent into a cycle of despair and permanent poverty that needs international as well as national action to tackle it.

Next week, some members of this House will take part in an innovative campaign organised by the Global Poverty Project—an organisation on whose advisory board I am pleased to sit—called Live Below the Line. The Global Poverty Project seeks to abolish extreme poverty within a generation. It wishes to keep alive the spirit of the Make Poverty History campaign of 2005 but to deepen and widen that movement for change to involve many more people the world over in a movement that will finally eradicate extreme poverty. Live Below the Line is an awareness and fund-raising campaign. It involves a number of partners with the Global Poverty Project. It is supported by the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for International Development, the shadow Secretary of State for International Development and many others.

I am delighted to be supporting the campaign. I am not too delighted by the prospect of living on less than £1 a day for food and drink for five days, starting on Saturday. I suspect that soup, some good old Scottish recipes and tap water are likely to be the order of the day for me over my May bank holiday weekend. I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise funds for the Global Poverty Project and for an organisation called Positive Women, which is successfully carrying out projects for women—who, as I think we all now recognise, are the real change-makers in the developing world—in Swaziland, supporting income-generation projects and projects on education and the encouragement of rights, and wishes to expand that work into Malawi, a country dear to my heart and which would benefit from its work. Both of those charities are small, growing and have low overheads, and I am delighted to give them my support. I suspect that it would be improper for me to encourage noble Lords to sponsor me in this effort, but I ask them to pay particular attention to the letter that the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, and I circulated to all noble Lords during the Easter recess.

I want to address three points in particular. The first is the need for continued and sustained international action; the second is the UK’s aid review; and the third concerns conflict. Over the past decade or so, the UK has certainly led the way internationally on international aid and development. There is now cross-party support in this country for the target of 0.7 per cent of national income going to overseas development assistance. We must continue not just to stick to that commitment here in the United Kingdom but to take a lead in the international arena. A decade ago, the world met at the millennium summit and said clearly and unanimously:

“We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty … We resolve further:

To halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of the world’s people whose income is less than one dollar a day”.

The MDGs that resulted from that summit covered education, schooling, health and vaccination, maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS, the environment, economic growth and jobs. Crucially, millennium development goal 1 was that commitment to halve extreme poverty by 2015. The world may be on course to achieve that, but that trajectory is now threatened by the financial crisis of 2008 and the economic conditions facing much of the developed world today. I would argue that now is not the time to withdraw from that commitment or to stand back; now is the time to step up and ensure that, out of the current economic conditions, we create a fair world and one which is better ready to meet the real challenges of the 21st century.

The G8 in 2005 responded positively to the Make Poverty History campaign, probably the first truly global campaign, which argued for a significant increase in international aid and the cancellation of debt. Arising from the decisions made that summer was, first, the multilateral debt relief initiative, which saw the cancellation of debt for countries that were budgeting properly and had good financial plans for the future, and a promise of £50 billion extra aid to the poorest countries of the world. There was great hope at the time, particularly in Scotland where I was First Minister, that the events at Gleneagles had been a step change in the way the world would come together to tackle extreme poverty. But it has to be noted today that the commitments made then are not being met by all those who stepped up to the mark in July 2005, particularly in the European Union. Too many member states are not just withdrawing from those commitments but are indeed reducing their commitments to those in need elsewhere.

I do not think that that is acceptable, for the reason that the tackling of extreme poverty is not hopeless. We know that aid works and that, in the past decade alone, 50 million more African children now go to school and more than 5 million child deaths have been avoided by the kind of investment we have seen being made by the international community in African nations the length and breadth of the continent. We have seen improvements in governance and institutions—not enough, but there are improvements. We see constant improvements in levels of vaccination and maternity care and constant improvements in the provision of clean water.

We know that the long-term solutions are indeed those of better aid, better quality aid and greater quantities of it, as well as fairer trade through changes in the trade rules and the encouragement of fairer trade practices and better governance. We know what the solutions are and there is no reason why, if we pull together, we cannot achieve the goal through these different mechanisms and policies. Over the past fortnight we have seen publicity about food waste, which in this country alone amounts to £10 billion every year. Across the world, some £37 billion is spent on bottled water each year. We know that the resources exist for us to help tackle this problem in a sustained way.

My first point today is that the poor, particularly the extremely poor in the developing world, must not pay for the excesses of the rich and for the failure of governance that has occurred in the developed world over the past decade and more. Another point that I think the UK should raise at the G8 summit is the issue of tax avoidance. Tax revenues are the most sustainable source of development finance. It has been estimated by Christian Aid and others that some £160 billion could be raised in the developing world if measures were taken by the international community to tackle tax avoidance, ensure greater transparency of company profits, and thus increase taxation revenues. I hope that the UK Government might respond to that and other points in advance of and at both the G8 and the G20 summits this year.

I welcome the UK Government’s aid review. It is right that, after a decade of such investment in international aid by the United Kingdom, we should review the specific projects and the organisations that are being supported. I welcome the Government’s commitment to the 0.7 per cent target. I welcome the commitment to educating girls. I welcome the commitment to tackle conflict. I also welcome the contribution being made to a number of countries, not least Malawi in which, as I said earlier, I have a particular interest.

I would also like the Minister to respond today to a few points in areas of concern that arise out of the strategy that we have not had a chance to debate in the Chamber before now. First, with the increasing commitment to health initiatives which I understand have immediate short-term benefits, does that mean the deprioritisation of commitments to education, which in my view is the most significant long-term investment we can make for growth and tackling poverty, as well as good health, in the developing world? Can the Minister give us some reassurance that those countries that will miss out on UK aid as a result of the review will continue to receive support from the European Union, and that we will play our part in ensuring that that aid is used effectively in places like Burundi, which as it emerges from conflict is at a crucial stage in its development?

In relation to conflict, I mentioned Burundi as one of the best examples of the impact of conflict in the developing world. The change and the difference in Burundi and Burkina Faso over the past 20 years are marked. These countries, which were at a relatively similar stage and trajectory of development, have seen a huge gap develop between them as a result of the impact of conflict in Burundi. It has happened in other countries too. We know that conflict, and particularly civil war within a country, can knock back development by around 20 years. So it is my view that tackling conflict, conflict resolution, building a sustainable peace, may be the most difficult but is certainly the most significant and important development challenge of our time. Because it is hard and difficult, we need to try even harder. I would welcome some information from the Minister today on when the Government’s stabilisation strategy might be coming forward, and when we will get a chance to debate the way ahead.

It is certainly the case that if you live in a conflict afflicted country, you are three times more likely to be affected by HIV/AIDS and that in our world today, some 26 million people are still displaced as a result of conflict despite the fact that cross-border conflicts have reduced in number. Life expectancy is lower, child deaths are higher, and of course unemployment is higher and growing businesses is much more difficult. If we are to meet the MDGs, we must first address the causes of conflict. For humanitarian reasons as well as for our interdependent interests, helping to develop stable and successful states has to be a priority in our development work.

Living below the line is a daily reality for 1.4 billion people the world over. Next week, some of us will experience just a little part of that existence. We will not have to live properly below the line in the way that hundreds of millions have to all over the world, but we will bring something to the level of awareness in this country and, hopefully, something to the charities we are supporting. I welcome the opportunity to debate these issues today and I look forward to the contributions of other Members. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her responses. We look forward to further clarification of any points that have not been addressed in her closing remarks. This has been an excellent debate. Contributions from several noble Baronesses and others on the importance of women and girls’ empowerment and education have brought that issue to the forefront. My colleagues in Positive Women, for which I am raising funds next week, will be delighted to hear that. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and others mentioned the importance of going beyond Governments to civil society and faith groups to ensure that our aid and development work goes as far and as deep as possible.

We were all inspired by the captivating speech of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, which brought home to us the critical importance of these issues for the people affected by them, not for the institutions or Governments. The whole debate has been not only a call to action but also an inspiration to those like the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, and I who, over the next week, will live below the line on less than £1 a day. When the noble Baroness and I first debated together back in 1987 in an STV studio in Scotland, we could not have imagined that today we would be speaking on the same subject with the same passion and with the same outcomes in mind. It is good to have been able to take part in this debate on those terms.

We look forward to the challenge, and we hope that the hundreds of people who will join us next week have been inspired by the unity of purpose and call to action that the House of Lords has displayed today. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.