Somalia

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am not prepared with a suitable Shakespearean quote to follow the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), but I want to pick up on his last point about humanitarian assistance. Somalia, of course, was the country worst hit by the famine in the horn of Africa. Just as one cannot deal with the famine without looking at the underlying security issues, one cannot approach the security issues without taking into account the famine and the circumstances that led to it.

I want to make a couple of points on the famine in the horn of Africa. It has been said time and again that it was both predictable and predicted. I am sure that Members will have seen the excellent report recently produced by Save the Children and Oxfam, which concluded:

“There were clear early warning signs many months in advance, yet there was insufficient response until it was far too late.”

There was a failure to respond at many levels—by international organisations, international agencies, countries throughout the world and countries in the region. The UK Government were one of the first to respond, and their role was very positive, but together the world community did not act, in spite of the repeated warnings that many Members will have read and heard about over the past year.

The question must be: why was there such a failure to act in time when there were such clear warnings? Several features had their role to play, including a lack of flexibility among the system in place to respond to the crisis and, in Somalia in particular, the non-existence of state organisations and a lack of security for NGOs and other actors, but the report from Oxfam and Save the Children makes another important point: when such information from early warnings systems is produced, action has to be based upon those early warnings, and it has to take place at that point, not when one is certain that there is going to be a crisis. If we wait until there is certainty, we will find that the crisis is well upon us and much harder to deal with.

Governments and NGOs have a difficult issue to deal with in their approach to crises. The resources of countries and NGOs are of course limited, and I can well foresee the criticism that would be made if emergency supplies were put in place and then not fully utilised, but we must accept the conclusion is that, if necessary, a risk must be taken by making early preparations to avert such famines. That is why the proposals in the recent humanitarian emergency response review, the Ashdown report, are relevant. Its recommendations on stockpiles of supplies and the means to deliver them have to be considered and put in place in Somalia and elsewhere, so I should be interested to know how the Government will apply the report’s conclusions in their approach to the conference in a couple of weeks’ time.

We are focused on Somalia, but there are increased warnings of another hunger crisis breaking out elsewhere in Africa, in the Sahel region. This debate is of course about Somalia, but it is noticeable and concerning that many features that are described as contributing to the potential crisis in the Sahel are similar to those that we heard about a couple of years ago in relation to the crisis in the horn of Africa. We are told that there were late and poor rains in 2011, that food prices are now too high for people to afford at markets and that instability is arising both from internal factors and from the knock-on effects of developments elsewhere in Africa. I should therefore be interested to know also how the Government will ensure that the international community responds in advance of any crisis in the Sahel.

That point relates to the Somalia issue, because, as we have seen in the horn of Africa, famine can destabilise a much wider area than the one most badly affected. Given that we face also a worrying increase in the tension between South Sudan and Sudan, we in the world community could well be faced with a massive area, stretching from west to east Africa, of hunger, disease and instability, which, as well as damaging the countries and peoples directly affected, is bound to have effects on neighbouring countries, including those that have recently made substantial economic, developmental and political progress.

Those are big issues, and there are limits to what the UK can do. This country has been a major provider of emergency aid under this and the previous Governments, but we have to get the world to mobilise and to focus consistently on the issues. The Save the Children and Oxfam report makes the point that one reason for the international community’s lack of response to the developing crisis in the horn of Africa might have been other events, such as the Arab spring, the global recession, and the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and I am sure that that is right, but there are certainly as many—if not more—crises affecting the world now as there were two years ago, so there has to be some way of providing a continued focus on the long-term solutions that are required to prevent such crises from developing in the first place.

I do not have time to develop all the points that I would have made. However, we need to consider the kind of proposals that were outlined in the Save the Children and Oxfam report, such as the proposal for a charter to end extreme hunger. That would look at longer-term solutions to ensure, above all, that countries have resilience so that when crises and natural disasters happen, they can respond internally without having to rely on emergency assistance on every occasion. There is obviously also a need to resolve the security issues.

Finally, the role of the African Union is extremely important. It should not be seen just as a proxy by which richer, western powers can get forces in on the cheap; it must be something much more than that. At the end of the day, African countries, leaders, peoples and organisations, such as the African Union, will have to provide the long-term support to deal with immediate security crises and other crises. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what further support the UK can give the African Union, both in its organisation and for specific missions, so that it has the ability to respond to crises, such as those that we are seeing in the horn of Africa and that we may see in western Africa. Clearly, it will not provide the sort of development assistance that comes from richer and more developed countries, but its role can be important, and should become increasingly important, in providing security, technical and political support. I hope that it will have the full support of the UK Government as it develops that role.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I am extremely grateful to you for taking note of the time constraints, Mr Lazarowicz.