Global Poverty

Mary Macleod Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. I will have a look at that report. On her first point about the role of women, I am coming to that directly in my remarks.

Doing the right thing with British aid is not just about saving money: it is about being honest and open about where our funding is going. Knowledge gives people the power to hold others—be they individuals, organisations or Governments—to account. That is why I have launched a new UK aid transparency guarantee that will help to make aid transparent not only to people in the UK but to those in recipient countries.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Mitchell]

I am going to make a bit of progress, and then I will of course give way.

Building up civil society in the developing world is crucial to enabling citizens to hold their own political leaders to account. The transparency guarantee will help to create millions of independent aid watchdogs—people around the world who can see where aid is supposed to be going and shout if it does not get there. From January, we will publish full details of DFID projects and programmes on our website so that everyone can have access to information about where our funding is going and what it is intended to achieve. The simple act of publishing information can reduce the amount of corruption and waste, improve the quality of public services and increase public sector accountability.

I wish to make two further points about Britain’s bilateral aid programme. First, where it is relevant, in every country where DFID is active we will pay particular attention to the fight against malaria. It will be the responsibility of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, whose involvement, expertise and knowledge in the matter is well known to the House. It is simply unconscionable that in this day and age, thousands of children and adults die every day from that completely preventable disease. If there were an outbreak of malaria in Europe it would immediately be stopped in its tracks. Reducing the burden of malaria in the developing world and focusing on the areas of highest infection will be an essential part of our programmes.

Secondly, we must extend far further choice for women over whether and when they have children. It is outrageous that today in sub-Saharan Africa, only 15% of women have access to modern methods of contraception. I simply lay this fact before the House: every year, 20 million women have unsafe abortions, and 70,000 of them, many still girls, die as a result. Some 215 million women around the world who want to use modern contraception do not have access to it. No statistic could more eloquently underline the importance of allowing women to choose whether to have children, and we will pursue that argument vigorously and single-mindedly.

I invite the House to consider the further point that in Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, a population of 3 million in 1960 has grown to nearly 16 million today, and expert opinion judges that it will rise to nearly 60 million in the next 40 years. It is a country that suffers deeply from political, economic, climate and food insecurity. As I said last week in Washington, Britain will place women at the heart of our whole agenda for international development.

That subject is closely related to the Prime Minister’s insistence at the G8 last weekend on combined action on maternal and child mortality. As he made clear in Muskoka, a woman’s chances of dying in pregnancy and childbirth are one in 8,200 in the UK, whereas in Sierra Leone they are a stark one in eight. The resources agreed at the G8, including a significant contribution from the United Kingdom, should lead to an additional 1.3 million lives being saved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) on their excellent maiden speeches. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), whom I met at the beginning of her 10-year journey. I think I will remember her class P for ever.

There has been much talk since the emergency Budget about austerity and hardship, and it will be a tough few years for many as we deal with the excesses of the past and move our country back on to the road to recovery. As a developed nation with a Government who are committed to the principles of responsibility, freedom and fairness, we cannot turn our backs, even in these difficult times, on those in greater need than ourselves.

As we are talking about the ongoing challenges caused by global poverty, it will be useful to define poverty. The World Bank says that people who live on less than $1.25 a day in developing countries are living in poverty. That is the level of income deemed necessary to fulfil basic human needs in the developing world, where some 1.4 billion people have been living below that poverty line. We need to address that. The concept of poverty is brought to life more vividly by this World Bank description:

“Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom.”

None of us can listen to that description without feeling a call to action and a need to do all we can to address the unfair balance that is suffered by people purely because of the lottery of where they were born.

Many people have talked about the eight millennium development goals, which represent the human and basic needs that every individual around the world should be able to enjoy, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) has described those goals. The confirmation of the goals was a real step forward in international efforts to combat global poverty, but, as the Secretary of State said this morning, measurable outcomes of the goals are needed to make them effective.

It is fair to say that progress has been made, with some countries achieving many of the targets, but others are not on track to achieve any. Key successes include the significant progress towards eradicating poverty, the major progress on getting children into school, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, and the reduction in child deaths owing to HIV/AIDS, malaria and other infectious diseases. However, the report on the goals concedes that progress has been severely challenged, particularly given the global economic crisis of the past few years. Without a major push forward, many of those goals are likely to be missed. We need to address that.

There is considerable regional variation, with areas such as eastern Asia benefiting most from the continued economic growth in China and India. In contrast, sub-Saharan Africa suffered from low levels of economic growth and faced significant challenges to reaching targets. Even within countries, there are major differentials between rural and urban areas, which we must address. We have to get aid to where it is really needed.

There has been some criticism of the implementation of the G8-backed funds, which some believe have at times been hijacked to pay for natural disasters. Although worthy, that use of the money might not have a direct impact on the achievement of development goals. Others have criticised the distribution of funds, suggesting that elements of cronyism can be detected in the allocation of funds. Some feel that not enough has been done to tackle corruption in the countries receiving aid and to ensure that aid gets to the right places. However, despite increases in international development aid over the following years, in 2007 a total of $103.7 billion was committed, which represented only 0.28% of developed countries’ GNP. We still have some way to go to achieve our goal, but I welcome the announcement made by the Prime Minister at this week’s G8 summit in Canada. He confirmed the UK’s commitment to 0.7% of GNP being spent on international aid, and said it was an

“opportunity to exercise leadership on behalf of the poorest.”

I have been fortunate, in my time as an ambassador for ActionAid and as part of the Leaders’ Quest programme, to have visited many countries that suffer extremes of poverty. They include China, India, Mozambique, South Africa, and I also visited Rwanda with the Secretary of State. Although seeing the difficulties that people face every day can be distressing, more often than not I have found it to be an uplifting experience and have been inspired by those who have so little.

Sometimes, not only money but connections make a difference. I found that with the school twinning exercise that I organised between Kayonza modern secondary school in Rwanda and Brentford school for girls in my constituency. Many of the people I have met have been full of hope and optimism for the future, just looking for a way to help themselves get out of the situation that they have found themselves in through no fault of their own. The famous Chinese proverb states:

“Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime.”

In the same way, providing support for building skills and education is critical to creating the self-sustaining cycle that will break developing countries out of poverty.

As I said, it is not sufficient just to provide effective aid internationally. We also need to ensure that there are fair global policies in place to ensure access to finance and remove trade barriers so that developing countries are able to compete in the global marketplace. Alison Evans, the director of the Overseas Development Institute, put this succinctly when she said:

“Think aid, think smart aid but also think beyond aid.”

It is critical that Governments from the developed world play their role in ensuring fair practices to support developing nations. I visited sugar plantation farmers in Mozambique who were desperate to be able to trade with us to create a strong, stable and sustainable economy for the long term in their country. They pleaded with us to remove EU tariff barriers so that they could achieve that.

In my constituency of Brentford and Isleworth is a company called Microloan Foundation. We have heard already from my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) about the role that microfinance can play. What Microloan Foundation does is a real example of how we can provide loans to people in rural areas to enable them to set up their own self-sustaining businesses. Peter Ryan, the founder of Microloan Foundation, said:

“The challenge of building the operation from the ‘ground up’ has resulted in the creation of a social model which, coupled with strong business management, is beginning to yield exceptionally good results.”

This week, the company launched its Pennies for Life campaign, and I encourage everyone to join it. People who sign up pay an extra lp every time they buy something, and that money helps to support this microfinance initiative. This is a great success story.

Finally, I believe that, even in these difficult times, as a developed country we must do our utmost to maintain our commitment to eradicating the causes of global poverty. In so doing, we will all benefit from a safer and more secure world.

I applaud the UN’s efforts to focus the hearts and minds of the developing nations on making progress towards reducing global poverty, and the role that the millennium development goals have played in that regard.

As we move forward, I believe that we need to focus on the best way to translate the MDGs into bottom-up, practical projects that achieve the shared objectives as well as value for money in terms of aid spent. I endorse what the Government are doing with their aim of transparency and their desire to address the causes of poverty.

We have an important role to play in reducing extreme poverty globally, and in creating a world that is more stable, more just and more secure.