Aid Reviews

Stuart Blair Donaldson Excerpts

Friday 2nd December 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Wharton]

DFID works closely with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and that includes work relating to climate change. We have many world-leading projects, such as Energy Africa, which delivers renewable energy to countless thousands of homes to help people in a number of countries on the African continent. DFID is a significant contributor to the Government’s commitments on our green agenda, and we will continue to contribute through, for example, international climate finance, in which the Department plays a leading role. We are committed to that agenda, and we will continue to drive it in a development context.

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

What assistance will DFID give multilateral and bilateral organisations to support data collection and aggregation, and, particularly on age and gender grounds, to monitor impact and effectiveness?

[James Wharton]

The hon. Gentleman has asked an important question. If we are to understand how best to target the resources that we deploy, we need to have the data that underpin those decisions. If we are to identify the challenges that will arise in some of the poorest parts of the world before they are necessarily apparent and before it is too late to respond, we need those data and an understanding of how to analyse them. DFID is a significant investor in that context, and we will continue to be so, because we recognise the difference that our investment makes not only to the people who benefit from the results that it helps to drive and the decisions that it helps to make, but to the value for money that is secured by what we do.

Developing Countries: Jobs and Livelihoods

Stuart Blair Donaldson Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mrs Moon. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) on securing this debate. It is not the first of his debates in which I have spoken in this place, and I am sure it will not be the last. I am delighted to contribute today.

As Members have said, goal 8 of the 2015 UN sustainable development goals makes promoting inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all a key objective for the world to achieve by 2030. Sustainable economic growth will require societies to create the conditions that allow people to have quality jobs that stimulate the economy while not harming the environment. Job opportunities and decent working conditions are also required for the whole working-age population. An adequate supply of jobs is the foundation of sustained and growing prosperity, inclusion and social cohesion. Where jobs are scarce or where livelihoods leave households in poverty, there is less growth, less security and less human and economic development.

In the current turbulent economic environment, job creation is one of the most pressing global development priorities. The aim to support employment and livelihoods with rising incomes, dignity and respect is a development goal that the Scottish National party would like to see at the heart of the UK’s development agenda. Jobs connect people to their society and the economy. Access to safe, productive and fairly remunerated work is a key vehicle for battling poverty.

As has been mentioned, the World Development Report 2013 found that:

“Worldwide, 200 million people, a disproportionate share of them youth, are unemployed and actively looking for work. An estimated 620 million youth, the majority of them women, are neither working nor looking for work. Just to keep employment rates constant, around 600 million new jobs will have to be created over a 15-year period.”

It also highlighted that the problem in many developing countries was that, although unemployment rates could be low, only a minority of workers were wage earners. More than 3 billion people are working worldwide, but almost half of them are farmers or self-employed. Most of the poor work long hours, but simply cannot make ends meet.

The SNP is committed to advancing Scotland’s place in the world as a responsible nation by building mutually beneficial links with other countries, as outlined in the Scottish Government’s international framework. Since 2007, the Scottish Government have doubled the international development fund to £9 million per annum and launched the climate justice fund, bringing the total spend on international development work since 2007 to over £86 million. The SNP has also highlighted Scotland’s commitment to the sustainable development goals.

Work funded by the Scottish Government has included projects focusing on job development and economic growth in Malawi. For over a decade, they have supported the Scotland Malawi Partnership and its sister organisation, the Malawi Scotland Partnership, which is based in Malawi. Through the two organisations, more than 94,000 Scots and 198,000 Malawians work in partnership together, and more than 300,000 Scots and 2 million Malawians benefit from those activities every year. The main focus of the Scotland Malawi Partnership is to work in dignified partnership with local people or Ubale, as they say in Chichewa. Scotland is playing an active and important role in helping to support jobs and livelihoods in Malawi by building markets for Malawian products.

Kilombero rice is a high-quality aromatic rice which the Malawi Government believe is an important export crop. For smallholder farmers it is an effective cash crop, which is popular among the urban population. The challenge is to assist more farmers to turn their smallholdings into effective, market-orientated, small businesses, which together can dramatically improve the livelihoods of people in northern Malawi.

JTS—Just Trading Scotland—is a Scottish fair trade importer. KASFA—Kaporo Smallholder Farmers Association—is a farmers’ association in northern Malawi. They have been working together, with support from the Scottish Government’s international development fund, to improve livelihoods and to strengthen communities. Since 2009, JTS has been working to establish a market for Kilombero rice, selling through civic society groups in Scotland: schools, churches and fair trade groups. This in turn has encouraged fine food distributor, Cotswold Fayre, and larger retailers like the Co-op to stock the product.

Howard Msukwa and Kenneth Mwakasungula, who are both rice farmers, visited Scotland last month to promote the launch of the rice in Co-operative food stores across Scotland and to tell people about the project’s success. The benefits of the scheme have been recognised by local rice farmers in Malawi. I had the pleasure of hearing both gentlemen speak at the Scotland Malawi Partnership road trip in Aberdeen.

Over the last five years, membership of the farming association in Malawi has grown from 2,500 to 6,700. Northern Malawi now has an effective farmers’ organisation that can deliver training and cost-effective farm inputs, and plays a vital role in community development. More farmers can send their children to secondary school and the first students are finding places in universities and colleges.

The key to success has been to link farm development work with establishing markets, which offers farmers an assured income. This encourages them to invest time and money to transform their farms. With altitude, climate and weather conditions ideal for cultivating coffee, Mzuzu coffee is another crop with a fast-growing reputation from one of the best coffee-growing regions in the world. In the 2014-15 Malawi “taste of harvest coffee” competition, Mzuzu took the top five positions. Interestingly, the first coffee plant in Malawi was introduced in the 1870s by John Buchanan from Scotland—it originated in the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, so there is a strong historical link.

The recently completed project by Scottish Government-funded TraCSS—Trading with Climate Smart Supply—aimed to stimulate sustainable economic growth in Malawi through development of agricultural value chains in a climate-smart and pro-poor way. The objective was to improve the competiveness of tea, coffee and pigeon pea value chains in an inclusive way to deliver improved smallholder incomes and to reduce natural resource degradation. One of the outcomes of the project was the distribution and implementation of the “Handbook for Sustainable Coffee Production in Malawi” through the Coffee Association of Malawi—CAMAL.

I am coming to the end of my time. The work of the Scottish Government and the Scotland Malawi Partnership demonstrates how Government aid and civic society can work to create markets for developing countries that will support jobs and livelihoods in the developing world.

UNHCR: Admission Pathways for Syrian Refugees

Stuart Blair Donaldson Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Crausby. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing this debate. She has spoken in detail about the excellent work of the UNHCR with regard to the resettlement of Syrian refugees and why the high-level meeting later this month on pathways to resettlement will be important for refocusing states on both the short-term humanitarian needs of refugees and their long-term integration. It is also important to recognise, as hon. Members have mentioned, the vital work that the UNHCR is doing on the ground in Syria, in utterly chaotic and hugely distressing circumstances. It is doing all it can in terrible conditions to ensure that victims of conflict have access to shelter, food and safety.

Family reunification will clearly be a prominent topic at the upcoming meeting. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) said, it is estimated that there are currently 26,000 unaccompanied child refugees in Europe. Our response as a country must be to ask how much we can do to help, rather than how little can we get away with doing. That is why I am particularly proud that in Scotland, people, charities and government at every level are doing everything they can to make Syrian refugees feel as welcome as possible.

Scotland has so far taken at least 400 refugees, with half of Scotland’s local authorities having welcomed individuals and families to their areas. The first Syrian families offered asylum in the north-east of Scotland arrived on the first day of this month—10 families arrived, with more to follow this summer. My home local authority, Aberdeenshire Council, has committed to sheltering 50 families. It has been working with community groups, faith groups, credit unions, universities and colleges to ensure that these vulnerable people are able to transition and settle as smoothly as possible. The proudly international city of Aberdeen has committed to taking 5% of the 2,000 refugees coming to Scotland over the next five years.

To further support refugees coming to Scotland, a refugee taskforce, chaired by the Scottish Minister for Europe and International Development, is overseeing arrangements for their arrival. That includes taking care of their immediate practical needs, such as arranging for them to obtain biometric residence permits and to open bank accounts, along with dealing with longer- term issues to facilitate integration, such as English language support. The Scottish Government have also recently announced amendments to existing legislation to enable Syrian refugees to benefit from student support in Scotland. I am proud that my former university, the University of Glasgow, along with other educational establishments in Scotland, is providing a variety of scholarships and fee waivers for Syrian refugees who come to Scotland.

Asylum seekers are particularly vulnerable and we must ensure that they are treated with dignity and respect at every stage of the asylum process. I have outlined, briefly, how Scotland is a caring and compassionate country. We welcome people seeking refuge from war and persecution, and we recognise the importance of supporting them to rebuild their lives and integrate into our diverse communities.

[Margaret Ferrier]

As my hon. Friend said, it is hugely important that refugees are welcomed into the UK and helped to integrate into our society and culture. Will he join me in congratulating the Scottish Government and the Scottish Book Trust on donating children’s books and toys to refugee families throughout Scotland, and in congratulating any similar initiatives throughout the UK as a whole?

[Stuart Blair Donaldson]

I will. My hon. Friend is completely right. Many groups are doing fantastic work like that. Charities in Scotland have been overwhelmed with offers of support from the public. If my email inbox is anything to go by, thousands of people across Scotland have offered their time and friendship to men, women and children who are desperately in need of compassion and solidarity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stuart Blair Donaldson Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

First, we are encouraging UN agencies to improve on value for money. Secondly, we are looking ahead to the world humanitarian summit in Istanbul next May, making sure that the international community and UN agencies have a better response to protracted crises, such as the one in Syria, where children are left with no education and people are left with no jobs. Those are the root causes of why migration is now taking place from that region.

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

T8. It has been more than a month since the sustainable development goals were agreed at the UN. When will the UK Government publish their plans for the implementation of the goals? What role will DFID play in co-ordination across Whitehall and the devolved Administrations?

[Justine Greening]

First, we can be proud of the work the UK did in shaping those goals—it was very much led by the Prime Minister and his participation in the high level panel, which was set up by the UN Secretary-General. The UK meets many of the goals, but we, too, wanted those goals to be universal. We will now work on them domestically.

Tropical Diseases

Stuart Blair Donaldson Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) for securing the debate on this important issue.

It is important to start on the progress made in combating malaria and NTDs. On the basis of reported cases for 2013, 55 countries are on track to reduce their malaria case incidence rates by 75%, in line with World Health Assembly targets for 2015. It is great to see that, in recent years, four countries have been certified by the World Health Organisation director general as having eliminated malaria: the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Turkmenistan and Armenia. In 2014, 13 countries reported zero cases of malaria within their borders and another six reported fewer than 10 cases. Between 2000 and 2015, incidences of malaria fell by 37% globally and during the same period malaria mortality rates decreased by 60%. An estimated 6.2 million malaria-related deaths have been averted globally since 2000.

That is progress, but there is obviously progress still to be made. According to the latest World Health Organisation estimates released in September 2015, this year will see 214 million cases of malaria and 438,000 deaths. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to carry a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden: the region is home to 89% of cases and 91% of deaths. Some 15 countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, account for 80% of cases and 78% of deaths. Since 2000, the decline in malaria incidence in those 15 countries has lagged behind that of other countries.

In areas with high malaria transmission, children under five are particularly susceptible to infection, illness and death, with more than two thirds of all malaria deaths occurring in that age group. However, between 2000 and 2015, the under-five malaria death rate fell by 65% globally, translating into an estimated 5.9 million children’s lives saved.

It is often the countries affected by neglected tropical diseases that are increasingly leading the fight to tackle them. In doing so, they are improving coverage rates and making strides towards elimination, with many already achieving elimination goals for individual diseases. In 2014, 126 cases of Guinea worm disease were reported, which is a staggering 99.99% drop since 1986. Only five cases have been reported so far in 2015. Of the 81 countries endemic for lymphatic filariasis, 25 no longer need mass drug administration, including 10 that have successfully eliminated transmission. Fewer than 4,000 new cases of human African trypanosomiasis—also known as sleeping sickness—were reported to the World Health Organisation last year, which is the lowest level in at least 75 years.

According to the UK coalition against neglected tropical diseases—and as the hon. Member for Stafford mentioned—NTDs affect 1.4 billion of the world’s poorest people through mortality, morbidity, disability and stigma. The 10 neglected tropical diseases mentioned in the London declaration of 2012 are reported on each year in the Uniting to Combat NTDs annual report. Its third report was published on 25 June 2015, with its key finding being that increased investment in combating NTDs is hugely economically beneficial for nations afflicted by such illnesses. It is also reassuring to note that more than 5.5 billion tablets have been donated, providing 3.5 billion treatments since the London declaration.

It was good to hear the hon. Member for Northampton South (David Mackintosh) raise leprosy. The report mentioned that leprosy is one of the diseases that is off track, which demonstrates that we need to do more to tackle NTDs and ensure that no NTD is neglected.

Taken together, the NTDs in the London declaration constitute a disability and mortality burden of the same order of magnitude as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria. However, the costs associated with reaching the WHO 2020 targets are relatively modest compared with those big three, and the benefits are enormous, providing a compelling case that the WHO road map is a highly cost-effective initiative, with far-reaching global health, societal and economic impacts.

Combating NTDs would unlock the productive and economic potential of hundreds of millions of people who would otherwise be kept out of work and school. As hon. Members have mentioned, sustainable development goal No. 3 is to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages. One of that goal’s targets is, by 2030, to end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and to combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases.

The delivery of malaria and NTD interventions is essential to achieving universal health coverage, ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing for those of all ages, particularly the vulnerable and marginalised. It also contributes strongly to reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, and provides the opportunity to treat childhood illnesses such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and acute malnutrition.

It is clear that combating malaria and NDTs will significantly help to achieve the sustainable development goals; indeed, the goals will help to combat malaria and NTDs. With that in mind, it would be great if the Minister told us how the action that DFID is taking to combat malaria and NTDs fits into its wider strategy to achieve the sustainable development goals.

Let me finish by commending the work of the University of Dundee, which the hon. Member for Stafford touched on, in tackling malaria, with the discovery of a new anti-malarial compound in June 2015. The imaginatively named DDD107498 has the potential to treat malaria patients, including those with malaria parasites resistant to current medications, in a single dose and to help to reduce the transmission of the parasite. The compound was identified through a collaboration between the University of Dundee’s drug discovery unit and Medicines for Malaria Venture. The discovery of that new anti-malarial agent, which has shown remarkable potency in multiple stages of the malaria lifecycle, is an exciting prospect in the hunt for viable new treatments. Once again, I thank the hon. Member for Stafford for securing the debate, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to some of the points raised.