Building Stability Overseas Strategy

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Thursday 6th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stone of Blackheath]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, for this debate and for her ever-present energy and smile in the House. I recall debating here as early as 1999 the idea of detecting areas of potential conflict. Then we suggested devising a plan for more subtle, non-military interventions before, or even during, a conflict and certainly after a conflict. In fact, more than 10 years ago, we were talking in this House about building stability overseas. Now that this has become a BSO strategy, with an agreement to draw on external expertise and cross-governmental co-operation, the next step should be to find pragmatic, large-scale projects that are already under way. They should be monitored and, if they are successful, could be replicated across the world under the strategy being suggested.

In February this year, I reported on an example of such an intervention. It started three years ago in the Middle East—in the Palestinian West Bank and in Jordan. We called it Moon Valley. I must declare an interest as I have been involved, unpaid, in this project from its inception. It is a perfect example of a conflict zone which at this moment has the potential to erupt into a major war or settle into progressive stability. The Moon Valley project has opened the way to allow, in the future, thousands of Palestinian farmers access to the international market for food and agricultural products.

The project has had great support from external expertise; Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury’s and the Co-operative Group in this country, Whole Foods in America and Carrefour in Europe have been supportive. It is a good example of cross-governmental co-operation. The Foreign Office has been helping, particularly the consul-general in east Jerusalem, as has the Department for International Development, both locally on the ground in the region and here in London.

Our perception is that the creation of stronger local enterprises, with firm backward linkages to the poor, creating jobs, opportunity and prosperity, are essential for the prevention part of this strategy. It is obvious that such a strengthening of well led, well managed, inclusive businesses is not going to happen automatically in these more conflict-prone regions, where investors will be more risk-averse. When such regions have benefited from the old-style aid handouts that were driven by political rather than economic reasons, this type of intervention creates a culture of aid and political dependency, which can be antithetical to social and economic development. That type of aid does not build strong, local, civil society institutions, such as business associations and unions. Instead it creates monopolistic regimes that specialise in bidding for and squandering aid.

Moon Valley, on the other hand, has created trade. It is transferring technology and skills. It is planning to build a much greater capacity involving thousands of small farmers while still improving quality and reliability. Since February, to help this happen, DfID has sponsored a programme whereby an experienced NGO—Technoserve—is working with Oxfam and DAI, completing research into the entire agribusiness sector in the West Bank and Gaza. It will show that helpful interventions such as these can build a vital industry on an even greater scale and benefit tens of thousands of Palestinians. This kind of mindful intervention can drive the development of high-quality, export-oriented businesses, which operate on sound business practices, foster inclusion and enable people to influence the development of their own community and have a say in the future of their own country.

It is exciting that since this initiative, interest in food from Palestine is being shown, not only by European retailers and supermarkets in America but, as my noble friend Lord McConnell suggested, by neighbours—that is, interested parties in the Gulf. All these countries and companies now have a growing need for a future supply of large quantities of high-quality food products; and there is a desire for them to be from Palestinian farmers, to help their cause. In some cases, parties are prepared to offer the possibility of providing up-front cash, in pre-orders, to allow us to scale up the venture to millions of pounds a year. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, is familiar with this project and has been very supportive in the past.

Now, with this new BSOS strategy, I call on the Government, through the Minister, to organise high-level missions to various countries. The delegation would comprise representatives of our Government, together with Palestinians who are developing the agriculture in the West Bank and some of the experts who have been involved from Technoserve and Moon Valley. The quartet can also provide helpful support, and the Israeli Government have said that they can provide secure and reliable passage for the products’ transportation. We would go together to several regions to put forward a plan and agree a strategy for Palestinian agriculture to become a reliable and viable source of high-quality food products on a worthwhile scale. In this way, this could become a model for other BSOS projects planned for the future in other countries, particularly the Middle East and north Africa.