Women in the Commonwealth: Trade and Investment

Debate between Theo Clarke and Mark Garnier

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Theo Clarke]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I was very pleased that our Prime Minister made a commitment to support 12 years of quality education for girls around the world. Later in my speech, I will tackle some of the barriers that women face in developing countries.

Empowering women in the economy and closing gender gaps in the world of work is key to achieving the 2030 agenda for sustainable development and the sustainable development goals, particularly goal 5 on gender equality. The Commonwealth is an especially unique forum that the UK can leverage to further promote gender equality and bolster women’s economic empowerment in developing countries. With 54 countries and more than 2.4 billion people, the Commonwealth offers a more unified and structured network, sharing historical ties, values and language, and allows the UK to amplify its commitment to gender equality.

Commonwealth countries are more likely to trade and invest with each other than with the rest of the world. Collectively, Commonwealth members are less protectionist than other countries. Reduced trade costs and similarities in business, regulatory and administrative systems underpin the “Commonwealth advantage”. According to the International Monetary Fund’s forecasts, nine out of the top 25 fastest-growing economies are members of the Commonwealth, which demonstrates the trade potential of the group.

The UK chocolate industry is worth at least £4 billion each year, yet most cocoa farmers live in abject poverty. A typical farmer, such as those in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, which account for 60% of the world’s cocoa production, earns less than 75p a day. That is well below the World Bank’s extreme poverty line of approximately £1.40 per day. When visiting farmers in west Africa, I was struck to learn that only 25% of women cocoa farmers own their land, and and that on average they work about a third more than men when childcare and domestic chores are taken into account.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point about how we can help people in extreme poverty in those countries. A problem, however, is that if we create new tariffs across the world for things such as cocoa, we may unwittingly allow greater competition against the farmers she describes, inadvertently undercutting their salaries rather than helping them into prosperity through trade.

[Theo Clarke]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Now that we have left the European Union, we have an opportunity to look at global Britain and our standing in the world. As he says, it is important that we do not undercut farmers in developing countries.

This year, the Fairtrade Foundation launched a campaign called “She Deserves” to achieve living incomes for cocoa farmers in west Africa, particularly women. I was very pleased to see people in Parliament, in Stafford and across Britain supporting Fairtrade fortnight earlier this month.

I will share with colleagues an example of a Fairtrade project that has made a real difference to people’s lives. The ABOCFA co-operative, which I visited last year, is the only organic Fairtrade-certified cocoa co-operative in Ghana. It has a total membership of 924 and produces more than 1,000 megatonnes of raw organic cocoa beans. The co-operative has signed a five-year memorandum of understanding with its current buyer, Tony’s Chocolonely—its products are stocked in British supermarkets—to supply it with Fairtrade-certified raw beans from last year’s season. As a nation of chocolate lovers, particularly in the west midlands, which of course is the home of Cadbury’s, the UK consumes more chocolate per person than any other European country. The UK could play a very powerful role in bringing about change to ensure that those farmers have a dignified life and receive a proper living income.

During the 2018 CHOGM in the UK, Commonwealth countries launched the Commonwealth connectivity agenda for trade and investment, which was a commitment to increase opportunities for women to trade internationally and to break down gender barriers in all sectors. The UK Government should be congratulated on the great work that they have already done on trade and investment and gender equality. I am thinking specifically of the SheTrades Commonwealth initiative, which was announced at CHOGM in 2018. I urge the Government to set out a five-step action plan as part of global Britain to scale up our efforts to promote the economic empowerment of women through trade and investment in the Commonwealth.

First, on female economic empowerment, I urge the Government to increase their investment in the SheTrades Commonwealth initiative. Following the successful UK-Africa investment summit, the Government have already announced £3.5 million of UK aid to support SheTrades, on top of the initial £7 million pledged in 2018 by the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). I very much welcome the commitment, but the Government should go further to build on success and should increase their commitment. SheTrades has shown how investing in women has a clear multiplier effect. Results show that women entrepreneurs, on average, employ more women and invest more in community projects.

How do women do in international trade? The International Trade Centre’s large-scale survey looked at the extent of the challenge, and estimated that only one out of five exporting companies is women-led. That disparity occurs not only in developing countries but across Europe. Women-led enterprises are generally concentrated in less dynamic sectors than male-led ones, and women-led enterprises are involved in both import and export. In employment, job segregation means that women tend to work in lower paid jobs.

What are the reasons for that disadvantage? Women face unequal access to finance, skills, property and business networks, and some of those disadvantages can be explained by the fact that women often run smaller businesses and have other gender-specific barriers to entry. I have seen at first hand in numerous developing countries how financial innovation can be used to make credit facilities more accessible to women living in poor and rural communities. Lack of access to reliable and feasible loans is one of the major barriers to entry for women wanting to become economically independent.

Village savings and loan associations harness the existing social structure in villages to bring together people to make a financial contribution and save money as a community. That is a good example of funds being used as credit facilities and of a way for female entrepreneurs to get funding in locations where there are no traditional banking facilities. In Uganda, for example, more than 15,000 such savings groups have been established, and local people have now benefited from financial training. That is a good example of why savings groups are a key tool to promote female economic empowerment, so I hope the Government look at supporting such initiatives throughout the Commonwealth.

We need to reform the business, policy and legal ecosystem to ensure that it is not stifling female entrepreneurship and participation in trade. We need much better data to understand the barriers that prevent women from trading in the first place—what it is that is holding them back. We need to ensure that women have a voice when policies are being designed and implemented. It is also critical to acknowledge the work of the private sector, which has an important role to play in mentoring and training women to supply chain diversity programmes. All companies must be encouraged to create concrete opportunities for female entrepreneurs.

Secondly, the UK should champion an MBA scholarship initiative for 500 young women entrepreneurs and business leaders of the future from Commonwealth developing countries. That would give an opportunity for young female entrepreneurs to further their skills and to grow their businesses.

Thirdly, I congratulate CDC on its excellent commitment to close the economic gap between men and women. Forums such as the gender-smart investing summit in London have been successful in promoting collaboration between development finance institutions and encouraging them to work together. CDC is also encouraging women to be more economically active.

To give a specific example, the Chemi & Cotex company in Tanzania manufactures the leading brand of toothpaste in east Africa. I was impressed to learn that women now make up nearly 50% of its workforce. All the women who head up the sales branches join the company in junior roles and develop their skills within the business. That type of outreach programme is vital to help women to participate fully in the local economy. We must leverage the power of female entrepreneurship and continue to promote gender equality.

Fourthly, the UK should organise a business forum that brings together women entrepreneurs from across the Commonwealth. It would be a great opportunity for women entrepreneurs to share best practice and to forge networks, but also a chance to reflect on and take stock of the progress that we have made with different trade and gender initiatives, to determine the next steps for the future, and to reflect on the 2017 WTO Buenos Aires declaration on trade and women’s economic empowerment.

Finally, the UK should appoint a new special envoy on women’s economic empowerment in the Commonwealth to work at international level across the Department for International Development, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Trade. That would be an extremely powerful way to champion gender equality further. The new envoy could work with the new WTO working group on women and trade, which is expected to be agreed at the upcoming WTO ministerial conference in June of this year. It would allow an opportunity for a co-ordinated and harmonised UK approach truly to unleash the potential of women entrepreneurship in Commonwealth developing countries.

I believe that 2020 is an important year for women’s economic empowerment. It marks 25 years since the adoption of the Beijing declaration and platform for action, while little more than two years has passed since 127 countries launched the 2017 WTO Buenos Aires declaration on trade and women’s economic empowerment. Ahead of the June CHOGM in Rwanda, the issue must continue to be high on the agenda of the various economic groupings in the Commonwealth, from the G20 and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement to APEC, or Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation. The UK has made a strong commitment to the trade and gender equality agenda, and I hope that in 2020 the UK Government will continue to build on the success of the African investment summit, scaling up that ambition even further.

Flooding

Debate between Theo Clarke and Mark Garnier

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

Like just about every Member who has spoken, I am standing up on behalf of the 110 homes in my constituency that have been flooded, the 55 business that have been affected and the 200 homes that have been evacuated over the past two or three weeks as the storms have passed through. It is unbelievably unpleasant to suddenly find one’s home being flooded. It was particularly unfortunate for a couple who moved into a new house on the first Saturday of the storms, only to find themselves flooded by the Sunday.

Before I get to the meat of my speech, I want to speak up for the people who put themselves at risk when they come out to help us and keep us safe. The Environment Agency is made up of an extraordinary bunch of people who work incredibly hard, including in my constituency, and do so with efficiency and kindness for the local population who are seeing their homes flooded. They go around with the most extraordinary gentle efficiency, making people feel both relaxed and helped at the same time.

The Severn Area Rescue Association is a team of volunteers who cover the whole of the River Severn area. They go out in appalling conditions, risking their lives to keep all of us safe. I have an enormous amount of respect for SARA. Of course, we also have all those people who are professionally involved—the police, the Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service, and of course the local council—all of whom look after us very well.

I also say a big thank you to the Ministers who have been involved. I know that there has been a lot of criticism over the past few weeks, including that the Prime Minister has not been involved, but I want to give my experience of engaging with the Government through this crisis. Not only has the Secretary of State been in touch with me on a regular basis, but the floods Minister was in my constituency, up to her knees in floodwater, within 24 hours of the floods hitting. I am incredibly grateful for their support and for the Bellwin funding.

My main town of Bewdley epitomises the problems with flood defences across the country. On the western bank, there are £11 million-worth of demountable flood barriers, which were put in by one of the finest leaders of the Labour party, Mr Tony Blair, in 2001. My community is eternally grateful to the former right hon. Member for Sedgefield. The barriers have done an amazing job and they protect the better part of 300 houses.

On the eastern side—the Wribbenhall side—there are 27 or so homes in Beales Corner that up until now have been protected by temporary flood barriers. After the last floods, property-level flood barriers were put in place, and this is the first time they have been tested. What we tend to forget is that temporary flood barriers are incredibly dangerous. On the first Tuesday of these events, I was out at 11 o’clock at night watching the local services get ready to clear up when the barriers were expected to break down. Even if they stand fast, the barriers are on tarmac, which is not waterproof, so water comes up behind them. Two or three floods ago, somebody managed to nick the pump that was pumping the water out. It is unbelievable that somebody would do that during this type of event.

The point is that the economics do not quite stack up. While we have spent £11 million protecting 300 or so houses on one side of the river, on the other side it is not deemed worth while spending £5 million to protect 20 or 30 houses and keep the whole town open, without losing the use of the bridge. There is some strange mathematics that goes on to work out whether it is worth investing this money. I fear that more value is put on a London property, where the real estate value is some 10 times that in Bewdley, than properties in other parts of the country. However, we must never forget that even though the calculations are based on the real estate value, the true value of a house is that it provides a home for an individual. We must remember that it is a family’s home; it is not a bit of real estate. We must get this right.

We need to have another look and consider what should happen. I am very keen to have a lessons-learned exercise.

[Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I pay tribute to the emergency services for all they have done. People who live in my constituency have been very affected by flooding in recent weeks. Constituents I met over the weekend believe that flooding has been exacerbated by farmers not being allowed to clear ditches and spread the contents on their fields because, ludicrously, it is deemed by the EU to be waste product. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should use the opportunity of Brexit and leaving the EU to look at this important matter again?

I think we should also learn lessons from other constituencies that have flood control centres. We do not have one in Stafford, but I am interested to hear from colleagues what we can learn in my constituency—