Speech
Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander speech to the British Overseas NGOs for Development (BOND) AGM
24 October 2007
Thank you Richard for that kind introduction.
And I’d also like to acknowledge another Richard, who I can see at the back of the room. For Richard Bennett, as already indicated, announced last week that he is stepping down as General Secretary, and I would like to acknowledge the huge amount he has achieved in his time with BOND. Richard, I wish you well.
It’s a genuine pleasure to be here this morning, and to speak to this group for the first time as International Development Secretary. I look forward to meeting many of you individually in the weeks and months ahead. I want to leave enough time to take questions so I don’t aim to cover all our mutual concerns.
Instead I’ll really try to do two things. Just over 100 days into the job I want to set out for you what I see as some of the key policy challenges for the department I lead, and second, I also want to share with you my thoughts on the importance of the work done by your members in support of the development effort.
Poverty Reduction – using the framework of the Millennium Development Goals – is my department’s enduring mission.
And it is clear that this last seven years has brought global progress in that endeavour.
Debt cancellation and aid increases helped to put 20 million more African children into school just between 2000 and 2004. The proportion of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has fallen from a nearly a third to a fifth.
I cite this because they are real achievements, benefiting millions. But all of us in this room know that we are not moving fast enough to meet the Millennium Development Goals.
And I would suggest to you that we will not meet our objectives unless we have an acute understanding of the challenges facing development today, at the half-way point towards the MDGs.
Beyond my Department’s clearly stated commitment to good governance, to improving basic services, we must focus renewed effort therefore on four key policy challenges. Increasing growth. Reducing conflict. Tackling climate change. And reforming the international system. And to a significant degree these challenges have shaped my work as Development Secretary in recent months.
Economic Growth
Let me start with the first of these – the issue of economic growth. Of course developing countries have long argued the importance of growth and trade for lifting their people out of poverty. And recent indications on this front have been encouraging, showing trends of truly global growth. Indeed in Africa, fifteen countries, representing a third of the continent’s population, are growing today at more than 4% a year.
And just this Monday I met with the former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright. Nowadays, amongst her responsibilities she chairs the Pew Centre. This is relevant because last week they published the Pew Global Attitudes Survey.
It confirmed that the vast majority of people (more than 80%) in countries as diverse as China, Germany and Kenya agree growing trade ties between countries are either, and I quote, “very good” or “somewhat good”. Of the 47 countries that were surveyed, it was in fact the United States that came last – with the largest drop in support for closer trade ties of any country on earth since 2002.
And across Brazil, India and Bangladesh over 70% believed foreign companies had a positive impact. Compared to only 45% in America. So to support strengthened trade, growth is both what poor people want and indeed need if our goals are to be achieved.
For no country has reduced poverty in the last 30 years without also increasing trade. That is why trade is so vital. As Richard indicated, it is why as chair of the Cabinet Committee on trade policy, I am working with my colleagues right across the UK government to align our aid, debt relief and trade policies to tackle poverty.
Within the last seven days alone I have met with Pascal Lamy, Kamal Nath and Susan Schwab, the US Trade Negotiator, and held conversations with Kenyan and South African Trade Ministers. To each I have made clear that the UK’s number one trade priority is to deliver the promise of the Doha round. I also made clear however that our efforts on trade must go beyond simply creating a level playing field. Which is why our Government has pledged to spend $750 million a year on aid for trade by 2010. Notwithstanding all the difficulties we must continue to work to fulfil the promise of a truly development oriented round. But while it is clear we must strive to make progress on trade, my travels in the past few months have starkly reminded me of the coincidence of poverty and conflict in today’s world. We all agree we need to see more action to tackle and prevent conflict. Because conflict not only ruins lives – it chokes development. A civil war costs a country, on average, more than £25 billion, and leads to 20 years in lost development.
Conflict
Of course many of you in this room will have experience in both tackling the causes of conflict and dealing with its consequences. When I visited northern Darfur in July, I saw the costs of conflict first-hand. I spoke with mothers, fathers and children forced from their homes. And I saw for myself the truly outstanding work of agencies such as Oxfam, providing water and sanitation to those who have been displaced.
In Afghanistan, I was told how the Taliban pay young people a dollar a day to dig up landmines, which they then use to attack NATO forces. Children so poor that risking their lives for 50 pence seems like a good deal. But I saw the work of the Halo Trust, a British charity based out of Dumfries, to help these communities clear mines and return farming land to the people of Afghanistan.
These types of experiences confirm to me that we must make our response to conflict more effective and better coordinate our efforts nationally and internationally.
As part of the Comprehensive Spending Review we’ve just had in Government, I announced that my Department will work more closely with the Foreign Office under David Miliband and the Ministry of Defence under Des Browne to better prevent and respond to conflict. And of course how we deal with the aftermath of those conflicts that take place.
And the challenges of post-conflict reconstruction were a key topic this weekend in Washington. NGOs were joined by myself, some of my fellow ministers and I’m glad to say the President of the World Bank in calling for delivery of the remaining $110 million needed to clear Liberia’s arrears to the IMF. We need to demonstrate to Liberia as it emerges from its conflict, that we mean what we say when we declare our support for courageous leaders such as President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Yet even if we secure a multilateral trade deal, even if we assist in stimulating growth, even if we become more effective in dealing with both the causes and consequences of conflict, all of these potential development gains are at risk of being taken away unless we also rise to the challenge of climate change.
Climate Change
The challenge facing the development community is two-fold. Firstly, we must ensure that steps are taken to mitigate against further climate change. Which is why I am working actively with colleagues across government to press for a global post-Kyoto framework agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – the Bali conference in December will of course be the next vital staging post on that journey.
Secondly, we must help countries to adapt to the effects climate change is already having. That is why at the Annual Meetings this weekend I held talks on how we can use the UK’s new £800 million Environment Transformation Fund effectively to leverage additional international funding that will help developing countries to adopt low-carbon growth strategies.
So I am pleased to see that a major part of your discussions today will focus on the question of what climate change means for all of us engaged in the work of development.
We need to join up the efforts on poverty and on climate change – but not lose sight of how both require action now. Quite simply, it is not an either or. Put simply, in 2005, the people in this room joined forces in a call to Make Poverty History. Unless we now tackle climate change, it threatens to make poverty the future.
The sheer scale of these challenges on trade and growth, conflict and climate change are clear. But what then are our instruments like for responding to these challenges?
Multilateral Institutions
In recent months I’ve met with the UN Secretary General, the Secretary General of the WTO and the new President of the World Bank and the conversations with these men - for alas, they are all still men - all relatively new in their jobs, confirm to me what many in this room would argue. That the international institutions, created for a world as it was after the Second World War, must be reformed to deal with the world as it exists in the early part of the 21st century.
And so yes, as a result of the additional resources we have secured for development in the CSR, DFID will spend more through multilateral organisations in the coming years. But we must not only maximise our contribution. We must also aim to maximise our influence to bring reform within these multilateral institutions.
So when I was in New York last month for the General Assembly meetings, I made clear that the United Kingdom wants the recommendations of the UN High Level Panel on System Wide Coherence to be implemented to ensure poor countries get a better service from the UN system.
And at those World Bank meetings this weekend I strongly supported the calls from developing countries for an increase in voice and participation in the Bank. But within the Bank much more needs to be done to decentralise decision making, bring the Bank closer to the countries with which it works, and ensure more staff are located in country to both support country ownership and also harmonise donor support.
We also continue to urge the Bank to live up to its adopted principles on the issue of conditionality. And as I said last month at the Labour Party conference, we will continue to argue against forcing the poorest countries to privatise their most basic services.
Our capability to secure such outcomes and our influence within the multilateral system is affected by the resources that we commit. So too, of course, is the number of poor people’s lives we can directly improve through our bilateral Country Assistance Programmes.
Comprehensive Spending Review
So the Comprehensive Spending Review was naturally top of my in-tray when I arrived at DFID in July. Our settlement confirmed that this Government is serious about delivering on its promises to tackle global poverty. And I was able to tell other donor members of the World Bank Development Committee on Sunday that we remain on track to reach our commitment – the first such commitment given by a UK Government - to spend 0.7% of GNI on aid by 2013.
Let me add, incidentally, that I genuinely welcome the positive comments many BOND members made when the Comprehensive Spending Review was announced. But let me also say something else. I want to thank all of you who have campaigned, marched and worked to help ensure such an outcome.
Such a significant uplift in the budget for International Development certainly brings responsibility. If we are to sustain public support for development expenditure on this scale we must work constantly to assure taxpayer’s money is spent efficiently and effectively. And that is the case for money spent through DFID and through its partners. It will certainly mean pursuing multilateral reform, as I have said already. It will also mean reappraising our relationships with civil society organisations.
Many of you will be aware that my Department is currently consulting on a review of our Partnership Programme Agreements. I know that BOND members have already held meetings as part of this consultation with us. And I thank you for that engagement.
Because this is important. Today we have a range of funding mechanisms for civil society and partnerships with over 200 organisations. We need to look at how to achieve maximum impact with this funding.
Civil Society Organisations
So let me share with you my thoughts on the key relationship between DFID and Civil Society Organisations. As I see it, Civil Society Organisations can play three critical roles in development. By directly working in developing countries; through policy development and advocacy; and in your broader campaigning work among the public – both in Britain and internationally.
Let’s start with the work done directly in developing countries – and let’s take just the policy areas I’ve already set out this morning. Many of your organisations are working with my Department in conflict afflicted regions – as I’ve seen for myself in both Darfur and Afghanistan.
And supporting growth in developing countries has been a focus for some of your organisations for many years. In Malawi, we are working with Concern Universal to provide savings accounts and small loans to around 20,000 villagers. Helping these entrepreneurs to start up or expand small businesses in this way helps not only alleviate poverty for their immediate family, but also spark the growth needed for their local economies.
As climate change leads to an increase in the frequency and scale of natural disasters, many of your organisations have helped in the aftermath of such difficulties. Indeed, some of you are engaged in efforts to mitigate against further climate change.
In the Congo basin, we’re working with the Rainforest Foundation to help forest communities to map their lands. Thus helping to protect the same forests on which they rely for their daily needs, that we rely on for global survival as the world’s “second lung.”
And if in recent months I have been fortunate enough to see for myself the work that some of your organisations carry out in developing countries, frankly I have also had first-hand experience of your organisations’ work in advocacy and policy development.
And much as my postman might wish otherwise, I welcome your work in inspiring the public to lobby on behalf of developing countries. This year alone, my Department has received nearly 45,000 letters, emails and petition signatures from the public, on issues ranging from trade justice and debt relief to the deforestation that I just mentioned.
Civil society’s role in advocating for policy innovation, presenting the evidence and challenging us, is important. Sometimes we will agree to disagree. But I assure you that we do listen and sometimes that leads to change as we have with Water Aid and Tearfund on the issue of water and sanitation. And as we have with Oxfam, Action Aid, many other NGOs and also teachers unions on the Education Fast Track initiative.
And more recently campaigning on health has not only increased international funding for the Global Health Fund, but also helped inspire the International Health Partnership.
Only last week I addressed an audience of ministers, practitioners and civil society leaders at the Women Deliver conference on tackling maternal and child mortality. And at the weekend I joined campaigners and fellow development ministers in pressing the World Bank to accelerate progress on that issue of gender and poverty.
I think that we can identify more areas like this where we agree, and then work together more effectively to deliver the results that we all want to see – and indeed that will improve the lives of people around the world.
And we can only be effective in policy and advocacy if we enjoy the support of the British people. For there has been a golden thread of British support for international development, from Live Aid through Jubilee 2000 to Make Poverty History. The huge public responses to natural disasters – after the Tsunami, and the earthquake in Pakistan for example – only serve to underline that support.
But we cannot and should not take this public mood for granted. We must also understand some of the concerns that the public have about development spending. Although three out of four people in the UK are concerned by poverty in developing countries, the same number believe, and I quote, that “most aid is wasted due to corruption”.
I therefore want my Department to do more to increase public understanding of what development is about, and the real change that it can bring.
I want the public to take pride in the UK’s role in helping our neighbours. But I believe this is something that the whole UK development community needs to tackle together.
It was a tremendous coalition of NGOs, faith groups and Southern Governments that created and sustained the global public pressure that led to the first HIPC initiative and to the progress we have made since.
And it is striking how much of my postbag remains focussed on the issues of debt relief and how widely this issue still chimes with the general public. We have been able to explain the impact debt relief has made – and the progress that has been achieved in the last ten years – but of course there remains work to be done in areas such as vulture funds.
Narrating these campaigning achievements does show just how far we have journeyed together. It is certainly down to a great deal of hard work on your behalf. But let me offer perhaps a less familiar but nonetheless critical account. It has also been down to the election of a Government receptive to those demands.
Personally speaking
Let me speak personally for a moment. For me it is an immense privilege to undertake this work as Britain’s Development Secretary. And one of the perhaps less than usual aspects of this job is to find yourself thanked quite as often as I do when carrying out this work.
It happened again last week when after announcing an extra £100 million for women’s reproductive services, many delegates at the Women Deliver Conference came up to thank me.
What struck me as I acknowledged this gratitude in a rather embarrassed, Presbyterian way, was that at a fundamental level it wasn’t about me as an individual – about my generosity, my compassion or my concern – it was an affirmation of the power of collective action.
That announcement was possible and those hundreds of lives will be saved because right across our country people decided to get involved in party politics to try to give expression to their innate belief in the equal worth of every human being.
It is not by chance but by choice that this Government has prioritised development over the last decade. It didn’t just happen and it wasn’t inevitable. It speaks to who we are, where we come from and what we came into politics to do.
Thirty years ago I was being taken by my parents on Christian Aid sponsored walks.
Twenty years ago I was working as a volunteer in a school building project in Kenya.
Ten years ago this month I was seeking election to the House of Commons and making the case that we should tackle poverty not just at home but also abroad.
So my final plea to you would be this.
Of course continue to campaign for this Government to go further and faster. Of course continue to work to raise the awareness of the British people about the global injustice that exists in a world that remains unsafe, unsustainable, and too unequal.
But recognise also – in this age of travel and communications – in the world of the web – the need to campaign globally. Many of you are doing it through coalitions like the Global Campaign for Action Against Poverty, but I would urge each of you to take a look at how you can be part of a global effort.
For if commerce and trade are being globalised so too must the campaign for the values we share. International campaigning – working with partners to influence the actions of governments far beyond these shores - I believe is the next frontier in our campaigning to help secure the Millennium Development Goals.
Certainly much has been achieved.
Certainly much remains to be done.
But together, now, we can write that next chapter.
