Conflict, Stability and Security Fund

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the projects supported by the Conflict, Security and Stability Fund established in 2015.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the timing of this QSD in the dinner break this evening—it was not planned in this way but the timing of our debate coincides with the inquiry by the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, which has recently been taking evidence from a variety of organisations and from the Government on the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund. In opening tonight’s debate and in posing questions to the Government, I want to say something briefly about the history that lies behind this fund, something about the importance of strategy, and something about the importance of detail and accountability.

The last Labour Government discovered, perhaps because of their international interventions, the vital importance of integrating work on diplomacy, defence and development. The Conflict Pool was established some nine or 10 years ago to bring together some—albeit a very small part—of the spending of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development. At the same time as that work was going on in the United Kingdom, the UK Government were also promoting internationally the need for a more integrated and resolute approach to post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding. I spent two very enjoyable years working on that agenda as this country’s special representative on peacebuilding. I therefore welcomed the initiatives of the new Conservative Government in 2010 and 2011, when the then Prime Minister established the National Security Council and the National Security Adviser to better integrate, co-ordinate and lead the Government’s global peacekeeping, peacebuilding and conflict prevention interventions.

I certainly welcomed the decision of the then Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, who committed 30% of our ODA to combating conflict and fragility. I think we all welcomed the Building Stability Overseas Strategy in 2011, although it is interesting to note how much has changed since then. The foreword to that 2011 strategy was signed by then Foreign Secretary William Hague—now the noble Lord, Lord Hague—Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell, and Dr Liam Fox, who has now returned to the Cabinet but at that time was briefly the Defence Secretary. It opens with the sentence:

“The Arab Spring has demonstrated just how uncertain the world can be”.

It certainly did and has done ever since. The strategy was strong as it contained three key pillars, and one was about security and stabilisation but the other two were about prevention. The strategy was widely welcomed by all sectors and by all parties in your Lordships’ House and in the other place. It was shortly followed by the World Bank’s report that advocated an international integration of strategy between the World Bank, the UN and other agencies.

All that was very positive. In changing times with the dangerous development of conflict in so many places, the UK has upped its commitment and increased its spending to 50% of ODA, even within the new commitment to 0.7% of our GNI to overseas development assistance. The Conflict, Stability and Security Fund comes out of that commitment. More than £1 billion is now integrated and agreed by government as a whole, involving not just the MoD, DfID and the FCO but other government departments that have a role in conflict prevention and security. This has happened against a backdrop of a strong international commitment to goal 16 of the sustainable development goals on peace and justice. The importance of peace, stability and justice in securing development is recognised, as is the fact that it is not possible to have sustainable peace without development or sustainable development without peace. Therefore, five years on, I wonder why we do not have a more up-to-date strategy and a more transparent fund, and I have questions for the Minister about that.

The Building Stability Overseas Strategy had three pillars and said more about prevention than about security and stability. However, since BSOS was agreed, we have seen five years of conflict in Syria and many ups and downs in countries such as Egypt and Libya, which experienced hope, then despair and now have so much instability. We have seen wars emerge, subside and occasionally come back again in the Central African Republic and other parts of Africa. We have seen massive political change in Myanmar and peace agreements in the Philippines and Colombia, although the latter may be in question, at least for a short time. We have seen the emergence of, at the very least, a worry or a threat for those countries bordering Russia, particularly Ukraine. Yet the Building Stability Overseas Strategy has never been updated and is not mentioned in the national security strategy. It was not mentioned in the Statement by the Minister, Mr Ben Gummer MP, back in July, when he announced this year’s allocations from the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund. That Statement was repeated in your Lordships’ House. It was not mentioned in Her Majesty’s Government’s evidence to the Joint Committee’s inquiry on the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund.

Partly because there are real concerns about the direction of government policy and partly because so much has changed since 2011, I am at a loss to understand why we do not have an up-to-date strategy underpinning this fund. There seems to be no update and no reference point for this huge spending to which the United Kingdom is now rightly committed. My first questions are therefore about that. Will the Building Stability Overseas Strategy be updated at some stage? If not, why not? If so, when will that happen? Will that updated strategy be underpinned by the United Nations commitment through goal 16 to a greater understanding of the relationship between peace and development? Do we retain that commitment to upstream conflict prevention, which is so important in conflicts around the world?

Many announcements have been made this year on how the fund will be spent. We are committing more than £188 million to the Middle East and north Africa, more than £116 million to south Asia, more than £86 million to Africa, more than £53 million to eastern Europe and central Asia, more than £17 million to the western Balkans, more than £10 million to the Americas and just under £7 million to south-east Asia. However, there is no detail anywhere on where this money is going, either last year or this year. Many people have welcomed this new fund and the fact that the larger contracts can provide more stable and better planned interventions. They welcome the fact that many of these contracts are for at least two years rather than just one year, which was the situation under many of the old contracts of the Conflict Pool. They welcome the increased flexibility that seems to be happening in discussions with embassies around the world and they certainly welcome the greater interdepartmental working. However, they do not welcome the fact that the two-year contracts are still too short term. They do not welcome the fact that the country strategies are not published any more and therefore it is hard to plan proper interventions. People worry that there is no clear commitment to upstream conflict prevention and building local civil capacity in these programmes. Therefore, in relation to the fund, will the Government publish the details of expenditure in particular countries on particular projects? If not, why not? If they will do so, will they publish how many there are, where they are and what the money is being spent on? Will they publish the country strategies, even if redacted? We understand that this is not straightforward if important confidential information is involved. Will the priorities for local spending and the prioritisation of local capacity building be properly recognised in those strategies?

I sit as a judge on the international peacebuilding awards for local peacebuilders. We meet again this month to make our annual decisions. The great work that is going on around the world by local civil society organisations in terribly difficult circumstances should be supported by this country, not just that of the big NGOs and the big private contractors, which do so much good work for us. The new Secretary of State says that she is committed to accountability and transparency. Therefore, I hope that she will put this fund at the top of her agenda.