Security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Debate
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Richard Foord
Main Page: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)Department Debates - View all Richard Foord's debates with the Department for International Development
Security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Richard Foord Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for securing the debate. He came from exactly the right position at the outset: it is about seeing the context from the perspective of the most vulnerable people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We all have our own statistics on the horror of what is going on. I have read that in 2022 more than 38,000 attacks against women and girls were reported in North Kivu province alone, and most of the women and girls were reported to be attacked by armed men and displaced men in camps for IDPs. What has been going on there is tragic.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about British policy. We should think about UK policy and the difference it can make. In 2018, the Conservative Government said that more than 2 million people had been lifted out of poverty in the DRC since 2005, thanks to UK international development aid. It is good that DFID in particular had a positive effect on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but we should also think about how sometimes our support is conditional. Aid conditionality is not always beneficial to people on the ground.
We also have to think about how we support the neighbouring countries. The sanctions imposed on Rwanda by the UK and US Governments in 2012 were very effective in halting support by the Rwandan Government for the M23 militia group. Since 2021 we have seen the re-emergence of M23, but so far there does not seem to have been quite the same effort to put the brakes on Rwandan support for M23 in the DRC.
I am conscious that we should be thinking not just about international development, for which the Minister is responsible, but about joined-up government. In April this year, the then Government defended their so-called Rwanda plan: a transfer of £380 million to Rwanda for the so-called economic transformation and integration fund. No thought at all seems to have been given to what effect the Rwandan Government were having in the DRC with their alleged sponsorship of M23: if hon. Members want evidence of that, they need only watch the BBC “Question Time” clip in which the then Home Office Minister of State revealed that he was not even aware that Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are different countries. Very plainly, some of the thinking in the Home Office was not joined up with the thinking in the FCDO or the thinking in relation to international development.
Finally, it is very positive to see that the new Government have already been thinking about peace in the DRC. I read that Lord Collins, the new Under-Secretary of State for Africa, went to Angola in August shortly after the signing of a ceasefire agreement between Rwanda and the DRC as part of the Luanda process, so we have seen some positive steps in UK policy and support in recent months.