Fiona Bruce supports International Development Bill
Fiona Bruce MP, Member of the International Development Select Committee, voted on Friday to support the International Development (Official Development Target) Bill, of which she was a sponsor.
The Bill aims to legislate to ensure that the 0.7% international development funding target that has now been achieved by the current Government is maintained. This level of funding helps to ensure that there is no annual debate on the funding level but the UK is able to maintain a consistent level of funding to the poorest countries in the world who desperately need that help and stability, meaning, doctors, nurses, teachers and providers of those services we in this country take for granted, can be certain they will have the resources to continue their work.
Speaking in the debate Fiona said
“Britain should be rightly proud of being the first G8 country to reach the internationally agreed target of 0.7% GDP expenditure of development support for some of the poorest countries on earth.
But it is not reaching that target which counts, nor legislating for it, as this cross-party supported bill provides – and of which I am proud to be a sponsor – it is what is actually achieved with UK taxpayers’ money to transform the lives of the poorest people on earth which really counts.
And what a transformation the DfID programme is achieving.
Everyone of those people helped is an individual, a mother, a father, a child, with loved ones, hopes and dreams.
This was brought home to me many years ago in Tanzania – as indeed was just how rich we are, one of the richest countries on earth – spending more on take-away food than we do on development support – this was brought home to me in Tanzania, when I was invited to the home of the headmaster of a school which British people are supporting. I was shocked. He, his wife and their five children did not live in a house. They lived in a container. Their meagre belongings hung up in plastic bags from hooks on the ceiling. Their furniture: a few mattresses which were stacked up against the wall during the day to make space; they had no bathroom or kitchen – the toilet was a communal latrine and their kitchen was a charcoal fire on the edge of the road. And they had just one chair which, with the hospitality so characteristic of such people, they invited me to sit in. Their mother gave to one of the children a precious sum of money to buy me a Coca-Cola. The mixture of my emotions at that point cannot be described, but as I say it brought home to me what a difference we can make with a relatively small amount from this country. Tragically, their older boy Sam, aged 15, subsequently died of malaria.
Addressing the needs – and this is the basis of UK Aid provision: need – is quite simply morally and compassionately the right thing to do.
In an era of huge inequalities across the world, and global communication, we cannot say that we do not know of the acute deprivation other peoples suffer; we cannot pass by on the other side.
And I believe that in promoting this Bill, the majority of UK taxpayers are with us in this. Look at how generously they respond to disaster relief requests.
But often, whilst the dramatic tragedy captures the public eye, and swift reactive help to those is essential, and this is not in any way to undermine what personal donations can achieve - what UK Aid is good at is that it can fund projects which might not on the surface appear so dramatic, or catch the news-reel, but which provide fundamental strategic change, through dedication and commitment over time, often working and dialoguing at Governmental level with developing countries, to ensure that UK Aid is in line with their strategic plans, and helping to make the transformational change which they want.
We’ve seen this in Ethiopia, as an International Development Committee, where UK Aid is helping to ensure not only that every child has an education – the number of Children supported by DfID in secondary school alone is 1,670,000. The UK is helping fund 1 in 10 teachers, and providing strategic help – when we visited one school as an IDC, I was very impressed with the biology textbook and syllabus, knowing something of ours. Yes, said the teacher, the UK wrote it for us. Similar fundamental transformation over time for the women of Ethiopia was witnessed by us over time, through continuous, committed service of DfID-sponsored workers, when talking to the women of rural communities, who were being taught of the disadvantages of early marriage – so often seen as a way of family securing generational support, when in fact the opposite – as cause of limiting a young girl’s education, life opportunities, health and well-being. One young woman told us: ‘my older sister was married as a child. She was damaged through sex too early. She was abused by the man. She is now left with two young children, physically unwell, and without a means of livelihood. I am staying in school to get an education and an opportunity for life, and I’ve learnt this is best through the UK Aid projects.’ Imagine that: transformed. Imagine how a nation can be transformed when this is multiplied millions of times. That is what UK Aid is doing across the globe.
And that is why supporting 0.7% is so important – to facilitate the capacity of our country to support consistent, long-term, stable projects, where the funding is committed over the period it takes to make that difference.
And what major transformational projects we can point to, where UK expertise has made the difference – facilitating land registration in Rwanda, to underpin not only the security of people in their own homes, but also trade and business transactions; helping achieve comprehensive voter registration in the same country, to facilitate political participation in democracy; overhauling the revenue system in Burundi to increase the tax-take by hundreds of millions of dollars to in turn pay for schools and hospitals; and working with civil society groups in Burma to promote civil engagement there, in a country where generations have never known it.
Our work in Burma is just one example of demonstrating that UK Aid is not merely selflessly altruistic, but benefits us too. Indeed it is critical. It is critical – helping unstable or potentially dysfunctional Government, or fledgling or fragile democracies; helps promote global stability; and potentially reduce the threat of terrorism on our own shores. The work UK Aid does in this respect is surely win-win, and surely even those who argue for increased defence spending cannot gain-say. As part of this strategic defence and security review, Ministers have pledge 30% of our bilateral aid to fragile and conflict affected countries. Prevention is better than cure.
And too, helping developing countries move out of aid dependency is in our benefit also: stimulating their trade can not only help increase ours, but also enable them to move from aid dependency to middle-income, and in turn begin to support other countries, as our committee saw in Brazil, which having received UK Aid over time is now a serious development support provider across the southern hemisphere in its own right, with an ability which the UK, with all its expertise, cannot offer: from its own experience of transitioning from aid dependency. It was there is Brazil that is really hit me how respected the work of DfID is across the globe – not just by recipients, but by other countries’ aid workers. This is a constant refrain, wherever the committee travels, and something the UK should be very proud of.
But we must not be complacent. The 0.7% must be effectively used. That is why effective oversight and review of expenditure is so critical, and why I support the principle of this, in this Bill. However, having seen first-hand the work of ICAI – the Independent Commission for Aid Impact – as a member of the Select Committee to which ICAI reports, may I ask the RHM for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, to whom I pay great tribute for bringing forward this Bill, to reconsider the need for a separate organisation to do this, a his Bill provides. ICAI has provided twelve reports to our committee, on subjects such as DfID’s Support to Agricultural Research, DfID’s use of Contractors to deliver Aid plans, DfID’s support for civil society organisation through partnership programmes, the FCO and British Council aid responses to the Arab Spring, as well as reviewing work in individual countries, such as programmes as far apart as Monserrat, Burma, Ghana, and Malawi. As I hope members will recognise, these reports are complex, often comprehensive in scope, and I can confirm they are frequently challengingly critical, as they should be if we are to be effective, accountable and responsible about UK taxpayers’ money. Only this week, we reviewed two of their reports – How DfID learns – and DfID’s Private Sector Development work. ICAI’s colour-coded system certified both these as Amber-Red, and pulled no punches about the challenges DfID has to address if it is to make effective use of the funds in these spheres. In our committee’s report, on the work of ICAI, published 2nd September, we commend the work of ICAI, its independence from DfID – which is critical – and quote Adam Smith International, who have told us ‘ICAI has added significantly to accountability in the UK. We now have one of the most accountable aid programmes in the world, if not the most accountable.’
Members, ICAI itself has been a learning curve since its creation just a few years ago: there is no need to recreate what is an increasingly effective wheel.”
