Sudan

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Stephen O'Brien

Thursday 28th April 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Stephen O'Brien)]

I am delighted to have the opportunity to respond to this extraordinarily authoritative and informative debate. I congratulate all Members who have taken part in a debate that will, I hope, allow those who read the proceedings to benefit and learn from it, too. It is a timely and important debate, given the scale of the challenge faced by the peoples of Sudan today and of north and south Sudan tomorrow. There are many opportunities for the UK, one of the many nations that can contribute to the future, to help to bring about the best benefits.

I begin in complete sincerity by thanking the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) for doing whatever was necessary to persuade the Backbench Business Committee to nominate this topic for debate, and for his interesting, thought-provoking and, above all, comprehensive introduction. It gave us the hooks on which the rest of the debate has been able to hang. He did that very ably and I am pleased to acknowledge expressly the inspiration that he has derived from his leadership of the Parliamentary Friends of CAFOD and the advantage that he has taken of the knowledge with which it has supplied him. I hope that I will be able to do justice to what has been a comprehensive debate. Many points have been raised and I will seek to address as many as I possibly can. I will attempt to address any points that I cannot address today either through further meetings with the Associate Parliamentary Group for Sudan or by letter.

It is important to recognise that, as the British Parliament, we have taken and continue to take an extremely close interest in both the interests and the future of the peoples of Sudan, which will become two separate countries—north and south Sudan—from 9 July. That interest is genuine and important, and the debate is timely and is welcomed by many interested parties. Many people will want to consider what we have had to say in today’s proceedings, so, rather than immediately address in detail some of the issues that have been raised, it would be helpful to set out some of the context that has informed how the British Government and DFID in particular have decided upon their policy towards Sudan, and how we hope to support the growth of the new nation state of south Sudan.

The UK has four key Government objectives for the people of Sudan and their constitutional manifestation. First, we are working towards a peaceful conclusion to the comprehensive peace agreement, including the transition to two countries in July. Secondly, we are committed to an inclusive peace with justice in Darfur. We have focused on many other aspects of Sudan recently, but it is vital that we do not lose sight of the paramount importance of our concerns about Darfur, because they continue to this day. Thirdly, we are working to ensure national and regional stability for Sudan. Fourthly, we will support the development of democratic and accountable Governments, delivering a more equitable distribution of Sudan’s resources—a point that has been touched on ably today—in the hope and, I would say, expectation of an improvement in the human rights situation in Sudan. Although that is not an explicit linkage, it is certainly something whereby, by working hard to get one aspect right, we would expect to have influence on the other and to see it develop.

In the context of the overall promise—which the coalition Government have been able to confirm and maintain, and which has been welcomed and supported broadly throughout the House—to spend 0.7% of gross national income on official development assistance by 2013 and to ring-fence that money, the UK has committed more than £280 million in Sudan this year. Of that, £140 million will be provided through DFID in its African context. We have offices in various countries. We have an office in Juba as well as the one that has been established for some years in Khartoum. The further £140 million will be in the assessed contributions to the two peacekeeping missions in Sudan—United Nations Mission in Sudan and United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur. My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) mentioned that he had spoken to a member of the African Union, which supplied forces to UNAMID. That shows how much that is a joint UN and African Union mission in Darfur, and it is vital that that be maintained.

The UNMIS mission has just been renewed up to 9 July, which I think was supported broadly throughout the House. The issue was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), whom I should like to congratulate on an outstanding and authoritative speech, which was made with great knowledge. He made the strong point that we need to look beyond UNMIS on 9 July to what will succeed it. I give him the categorical assurance that we in the UK Government are determined to do whatever possible to continue to promote influence so that there is a successor approach to that broad peacekeeping and peacebuilding opportunity. That nation state needs to find a firm footing and the ability to have the confidence that it will not be set off track.

We read last week about recent incidents of various killings—what has been called south-south violence—and those who are perpetrating them are doing so in an insurgency role and are often, allegedly, dispossessed ex-generals with various interests. Those are areas in which we have to make sure that there is an ability to resist the undermining of the important process of going forward in a positive way that meets the enormous aspirations that were articulated by many people when they queued to vote in the referendum with such unity of purpose, which was an interesting phrase used by the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz). If we can harness the unity of purpose that delivered the referendum result, we can have great hope for the way in which south Sudan will be able to develop its resources in order to build an economy upon which it will be able to sustain the interests of its people.

In addition to the two lots of £140 million this year—the assessed contribution and the direct bilateral aid that we have identified—a further £8.3 million will be provided for conflict prevention projects and to support the Assessment and Evaluation Commission. After this financial year, as we announced following the DFID bilateral aid review, we will provide £140 million a year for the next four years up to 2014-15, which is one year beyond the four-year envelope that we have announced for others. Sudan, therefore, has already been singled out for special treatment to achieve the greater predictability and certainty that has been called for by many Members who have spoken in today’s debate. That support will be for both countries, north and south.

Our four-year strategy will focus on transition from humanitarian programmes to support for durable and sustainable livelihoods in conflict-affected areas. It will encourage peacebuilding between the north and the south, in the east, in Darfur, and between Sudan and its neighbours. It will support increased democratic and accountable governance, operational and fiscal decentralisation, and a reduction in the incidence of corruption. That was another point that was made forcefully, and rightly so, by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds. The strategy will also focus on more equitable and sustainable development through a better use of the national budget, including a shift from military expenditure to more productive use of resources, and a focus on economic diversification and employment. I will address directly the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham. His comments led us to stretch our terms of debate to the issue of trade and badging what we do from the UK. I will come back to that point because it is important that we deal with it.

It is clear that poverty indicators are generally worse in south Sudan. We have come to the conclusion that, as a rule of thumb, at this stage about 65% of the funding—about £90 million out of that £140 million—will be focused on the south. The remaining 35% of our funding—around £50 million—will focus on the north of Sudan, including Darfur, the east and the three areas known as Abyei, South Kordofan and the Blue Nile.

[Mr Ellwood]

I do not wish to interrupt or pre-empt what the Minister might say about the accountability of the spending. He talks about corruption. There is an argument that, if we put no money into Africa—absolutely zero aid—it would prompt many of these corrupt organisations to become far more transparent and utilise the money they have far better. I do not agree fully with that argument. However, I am concerned. The money we are providing is part of a £44 billion package of aid that goes to the whole continent of Africa every single year. The amount of money that is generated by mineral exports is $393 billion a year. That is a huge amount. We know that that money does not reach the front line because of corrupt Governments. I would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on how we can prevent that money from being wasted and ending up in places such as Dubai, rather than going to the front line, where we would like to see it.

[Mr O'Brien]

Let me absolutely categorically assure my hon. Friend that, as far as we are concerned, corruption is completely unacceptable. To the extent that we have knowledge of corruption and can prove it, we have a completely zero tolerance approach to it. We have a much more explicit understanding of the issue and a lot more work has been done on identifying how to stop the opportunities for corruption, given that it has become endemic in some countries during some parts of the processes.

I will come on to transparency, but I hope that my hon. Friend will take some assurance from the review on bilateral and multilateral aid that has taken place during the previous 12 months. The various multilaterals were scored according to how well they were doing, including in relation to transparency. On the receiving Governments, we have pledged an aid transparency guarantee and have said that we will put all expenditures above £500 on the net, which DFID is now doing.

We also want to help to empower civil society organisations in receiving countries, so that they can see at a grass-roots level what is meant to be coming to their country. They should then be able to make demands upwards into their systems. We need to encourage democratic institution building, so that the process is no longer something done to them as peoples. Such organisations should be able to demand that those who are politically accountable to them say what they are doing with the money that is supposed to have come their way. If we can get that transaction transparency at both ends, that is precisely where we hope to be able to improve the situation considerably.

On the example my hon. Friend gave that we should perhaps go to year zero and remove all support to Africa, the only people who would suffer would be the poorest, and the only people who would have a temporary blip would be those who might have to search hard in their Swiss bank accounts rather than suffer anything at all.

[Mr Ellwood]

Is the Minister aware of the American Dodd-Frank Act that has been passed? That obliges companies listed on the New York stock exchange to declare how much money they give to a country’s Government or individual Heads of State when they strike deals on oil and so on. Could we apply that to DFID and British companies that are operating in Sudan and elsewhere to make sure that there is that transparency?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Stephen O'Brien

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr O'Brien]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for identifying the key issue of FGM. We will certainly consider carefully what he has said, as we look to roll forward the programmes, in order to ensure that we deal in the most effective way by bearing down not only on the activity, which is clearly intolerable, but on the societal and cultural drivers that lie behind it. That is what will be most influential in driving the funds to help the programmes.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to ensure maximum effectiveness in respect of the aid provided under his Department’s programmes.