International Development

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I welcome the opportunity to debate these statutory instruments regarding the ADB and IDA. This is clearly a timely moment to discuss how the UK gives its aid, how much it gives and in what form. We should note that this week’s announcement has been described as a big, big blow for Africa by one African Minister. The funds the Government intend to release to the ADB will, via the African Development Fund, help the poorest countries in Africa. The general capital increase will improve the bank’s lending capacity, allowing it to have an even greater impact. We should laud the fact that the fund’s replenishment is estimated to create more than 1 million jobs. I also wish to pay a particular tribute to the leading work the fund is doing to promote clean energy and green growth, not only improving lives, but doing so in a sustainable way. It is good that further commitments have been secured from the bank towards climate finance over the next five years. Of course, that is totally in line with our commitments to help to achieve the sustainable development goals, too.

The UK’s funding of the IDA will support £82 billion in development financing, which will have an impact on immunisations, clean growth and measures that will support gender equality. We should be particularly proud that the UK is the largest donor to the IDA and ADF replenishments. That is, no doubt, one thing that has resulted from the UK’s statutory commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on official development assistance spending. As Members would expect, I will remind them that that commitment was enshrined in law by the Liberal Democrats. Our aid programme is about not just our bilateral partnerships, but our multilateral role. We have our own seat on the World Bank IDA board, which allows us to exert disproportionate influence, because of the reputation of DFID. It is important that we remember that.

It is also important that we continue to make aid available to multilateral institutions and to non-governmental organisations as we seek to combat coronavirus. When this replenishment was agreed late last year, we knew nothing of how the world would be turned upside down. There is no doubt that the latest tranche of funding committed to these funds will be used to assist vulnerable countries as we fight to recover from this pandemic. We should remember that, although we might be past the peak in the UK, case numbers are picking up in many parts of Africa. The public health challenge is so much greater in very vulnerable countries such as the Central African Republic or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where access even to clean water is limited. Earlier this week, we celebrated the findings that the drug dexamethasone cuts the risk of death by a third for covid patients on ventilators and by a fifth for those on oxygen, but in the most vulnerable places there are miniscule numbers of ventilators, and hospitals with oxygen supplies are few and far between.

In conclusion, we welcome these statutory instruments to provide further funding to the ADF and IDA. We are the largest donor to both institutions. The successor funding that this country has provided has helped reduce poverty in some of the most vulnerable countries in the world. These statutory instruments will allow that progress to continue. But following the Government’s announcement on Tuesday, there is sadly a question mark over whether we will continue to be a global leader. I urge the Government not to turn their back on that commitment, and I hope that this replenishment of the bank will not be the last that the UK leads on.