§ Mr. Colin Moynihan (Lewisham, East)Despite domestic tensions and the international rhetoric of division, famine over the past three years has broken down barriers between East and West in an attempt to unite the generosity of the developed world to relieve the poverty of the mass of the people of Africa. Witness the Polish helicopter crews working alongside the Hercules team from RAF Lyneham in the Ethiopian airlift. Witness the response to the outstanding work undertaken by Bob Geldof and his team as the marathon runner Khuliya globe-trots from capital to capital.
It is fitting that the torch that Bob Geldof carries was lit from the embers of a dying fire in a refugee camp outside Omdurman — not a camp for families from another country who gather under the conditions of assistance provided by the United Nations but a camp of Sudanese migrants whose plight has been no less severe in their trek from the arid heartlands of their country—geographically a country compatible in size to Western Europe. Yet any assessment of the famine which, at its most acute, affected at least 30 million people, claiming several million lives, renews the deep anxieties among those of us who have a special interest in this subject. Unless the Western world can establish with the emergent nations of Africa a new recognition of participation towards common goals for development, I predict that the famine of 1984–85 will pale into insignificance compared to the much greater disasters the world will witness before the turn of the century.
In the 15 years since 1970, Africa has moved from a position of self-sufficiency in food to the current massive deficit that it now faces. During the same period food imports rose sevenfold from 1.9 billion dollars to 12.4 billon dollars. The root cause of such appalling deterioration are the policies of many African Governments. Unrealistic pricing policies discriminate against farmers while the urban population, exercising direct influence over the political elite, seek prestige projects, and a means of satisfying the consumer market, usually backed up by unrealistic exchange rate policies. Government investment that is much required in the areas of infrastructure, irrigation, training and regional agricultural projects finds its home in what Robert McNamara has called "an over-protected and inefficient industrial sector".
Too often the Western-oriented development of Africa's cities has taken precedence over the 80 per cent. of Africa's population, the rural poor, whose need for good prices for the food they produce and for skilled assistance in developing their local skills and pastoral systems have been low on the list of priorities. Equally, western producers have too often sought outlets for highly sophisticated agricultural equipment from stock rather than appropriate technology for the recipients. As Robert McNamara said in the Sir John Crawford memorial lecture:
The destruction of Africa's ability to feed itself need not have occurred. The fact is that agriculture, which accounted for a third of the continent's gross national product (GNP) in 1982, has been discriminated against for decades.The key importance of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa must not be underestimated. It is a labour-intensive sector in which most of these countries can enjoy a 672 comparative advantage, particularly relative to industry. A vigorous growth in agricultural production and exports is an absolutely essential condition for the creation of significant employment and earning opportunities for the rising rural core.The average African who depends critically on agriculture for a living is poorer today than he was in 1970. If the problems of agriculture are not addressed more effectively, he will be poorer in 1990 than he was at the time his country became independent. What is even more ominous is that the disastrous famines that are currently restricted to years of drought and to only a few countries will become everyday occurrences affecting a majority of the sub-Saharan nations.
Such problems are intensified by a population problem that needs close attention by all those anxious about the future of sub-Saharan Africa. Of Africa's population of 453 million, 363 million are from sub-Saharan countries. In those countries, there is the highest population growth rate in the world, of 3.2 per cent. If that continues in sub-Saharan Africa, that 363 million will double in 22 years, quadruple in 44 years and will rise eightfold in 66 years. Through an educational process, we need to break down barriers and assist Governments to recognise the importance of breaking down such barriers in countries where populations have a culture and a tradition which mitigates against smaller families. For many family heads, daughters are currency. High premiums are placed on fertility. Even the best possible predicted average rate of growth of 2.5 per cent. will come well below the number of mouths that will need to be fed. That will inevitably mean high levels of malnutrition in future, and the incidence of famine will be inevitably increased. Of course, there is the additional burden on social services, on primary health care and on education. It is interesting to note that in China there is a 70 per cent. use of contraception and in India there is a 30 per cent. awareness of its importance and use and less than 5 per cent. in sub-Saharan Africa.
The 1984–85 Kilimanjaro plan for action which included 36 African countries went a long way towards recognising the importance of making family planning services available to all couples and individuals and backed the concept of non-governmental organisations assisting in the distribution of contraceptive supplies. The consequences of high population growth are only too clear. Greater strains are placed on the socio-economic structure, cities are ringed with slums and, unfortunately, the effects of high population growth entrench illiteracy, malnourishment and ill-health, encouraging environmental mismanagement and land exploitation. It is on land exploitation that anyone assessing the problems of Africa must concentrate. There has been far too much over-grazing, destruction of woodlands and land clearance. Vast amounts of international relief aid have rightly been spent in attempts to alleviate the immediate short-term needs of rural populations by providing emergency assistance. The importance of such aid is recognised by all hon. Members but if the regions affected are to retain even a small degree of self-sufficiency, a much more fundamental long-term approach to the conservation and rehabilitation of the rural environment is required. If self-sufficiency is not a target, the amount of relief aid required will increase as the size of artificially supported populations increases in and around urban areas.
673 A major difficulty facing sub-Saharan Africa apart from south-east Asia, China or India is that the whole region comprises one of the most sensitive and delicately balanced ecological systems in the world, whose natural resilience to the extremely arid climate has been seriously impaired by man. A proper understanding of the region's natural environment and the inter-dependency of its separate components must be a prerequisite to a coherent strategy for the sustainable management of its resources.
An overriding issue is the way in which the natural resources of the region are managed. The unrealiable and erratic rainfall in the region is one of the main constraints on plant production. Others are the inherent poor fertility of the soil, low livestock productivity, the high incidence of attack by pests and diseases and the susceptibility of stressed plants and animals to such attacks. Traditional rural settlements and lifestyles suffer constraints for carrying capacity imposed by the harsh realities of the immediate environment and the poor reliability of water resources. Until recently, they appeared to be self-sustaining and in some ways able to cope with drought. In the recent past, planning strategies appear to have been based on the assumption of maximum availability of natural resources. By contrast, the more traditional systems seem able to have retained their viability when resources were at a minimum and could respond when more favourable conditions arose. Traditional systems are not now working as effectively as in the past. New systems, whether Government or private, are not effective replacements. Traditional cropping systems that revolve around the long-term cycle of cultivation, fallow and natural regrowth, are collapsing. Pressures on growing by decreasingly nomadic populations have extended the cultivation period by several years and shortened the fallow season. The soil then becomes too impoverished to recover. Over-grazing during fallow periods prevents tree seedlings from becoming established. The pressures of growing numbers on marginal land leads to deforestation. Africa is losing 2.7 million hectares of forest each year, a land area equivalent to the size of Czechoslovakia.
The clear picture that emerges is one in which it is, first and foremost, the responsibility of the 19 countries that constitute sub-Saharan Africa to implement national policies to tackle environmental rehabilitation, population control and make agricultural policies priorities for development. They need the assistance and expertise of the West, of the international lending agencies, of the World Bank and of donor Governments throughout western Europe. They also need the growing expertise in such bodies as the European development fund. When he was writing about Africa, Geldof recognised this and said:
In the 20th century, famine can no longer be regarded as a natural phenomenon; it is the mismanagement of drought and it is no coincidence that the five African governments, which have suffered most from famine over the past twelve months — Ethiopia, Sudan, Chad, Angola and Mozambique—also happen to be the five African countries engaged in the most bitter civil wars.Ethiopia, the country whose starving millions aroused the conscience of the world, spent an estimated 47% of its total annual income in 1984 on arms. … Sudan is the biggest country on the continent and it is sadly appropriate that its mess is a microcosm of the mess of all Africa … If ever there was proof that famine is an act of man rather than An Act of God it is there in the Sudan … On the good side, the British left Sudan with one of the best railway systems in Africa. Yet in the 30 years 674 since independence—more than half of them under Nimeiry—there was little maintenance and no real investment in the railway … Nimeiry's neglect of the railway system, which subsequently became one of the most corrupt and inefficient bodies in Africa, was to prove a crucial element in the failure of the famine relief effort".Ethiopia has the highest population in the low income countries of sub-Saharan Africa. In 1980 it stood at 37.7 million. By 2025 it is estimated that it will reach 105.8 million. One policy related to population patterns arid movements that has come in for special consideration is the resettlement programme. One of the most important papers written about this subject, produced by Mr. Constable for the FAO in Rome, in December 1984 was the "Ethiopian Highlands Reclamation Study". Extrapolating the statistics for soil erosion against current population patterns, Constable concluded that 10 million more people will, by the year 2010, be unable to cultivate the land that they now farm. His important findings confirm the essential soundness of the agronomical reasons for such a programme. The emphasis on directing the programme in areas of high soil erosion and over-population—Wallo, 60 per cent., Tigré 16 per cent. and Shoa 24 per cent., with no movement from Eritrea—confirm the view that the movement of the resettlers has not been motivated primarily for political reasons, aimed at denuding the rebel areas of Eritrea in particular.An assessment of the movement from the provinces of Wallo, Tigré and Shoa reflect the fact that these are areas that will never sustain the current, Jet alone the anticipated, levels of population predicted for them. Self-sufficiency of these areas is not a viable proposition. The resettlement programme is not new. It was initiated in 1973 on the basis of the Brown report. Sites were identified and early resettlement from overpopulated and ecologically eroded sites to more fertile areas in the south-west of Ethiopia took place.
The first phase of the project came in 1974 under Emperor Haile Selassie, and a slow and relatively insignificant number of people moved in 1979. A third and major phase, involving 600,000 people began in December 1984. An accelerated programme of resettlement took place under the glare of approbation from both western donors and the aid community. During the third and by far the largest phase of relief, the relief rehabilitation committee aimed to resettle 1.2 million people.
Medicins Sans Frontieres was expelled from Ethiopia after claiming that as many as 100,000 deaths resulted from the resettlement. The European Parliament has called for investigations into the conditions under which the resettlement programme was implemented. The European Commission has pledged that the European development fund will not be used to support resettlement.
Concern, which is a major voluntary organisation in Ethiopia, has been working hard on the programme. It has received first-hand experience of the appalling conditions in the transit camps. Divided families and coercion has been documented, but international assistance has been increasingly forthcoming — for example, an Austrian non-governmental organisation is operating in Illubabor near Gambella, the Dutch, Italian and Canadian Governments have all pledged financial support. Strong advocacy was made by Concern of the need to influence the Government from within rather than outside the project. Meanwhile, REST remains implacably opposed to 675 the programme, citing examples of refugees in camps. Evidence is available that up to 1,200 of the 600,000 may have left the camps for refugee sites in the Sudan.
Nevertheless, the conditions of the journey south for those resettled last year and before have been inhumane. When I went last year to visit Ethiopia, it was clear that in overcrowded and unpressurised cargo holds in Soviet planes, the new settlers were flown to Addis to be decanted into buses to continue the journey westwards. RAF Hercules crews armed with brooms, swept water polluted with cholera, known as 001, away from their supplies on the airstrip as the hosed effluent from the holds ran down the camber of the airstrip towards them. Lack of food and medical care awaited many travellers on arrival, and the prohibition of international agency doctors and nurses from travelling with the settlers was wrong.
However, the programme, due to a considerable amount of international opposition, was temporarily brought to a halt on 31 December 1985. It was due to a considerable amount of representation, made by Kurt Hansen the United Nations co-ordinator for relief in December to the Government, that a moratorium was placed on any further movement as from 1 January.
Both my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester), whom I am glad to see in the Chamber, and I believed that it was important to report to the House our assessment of the situation. To that end, we have recently visited resettlement areas and we had discussions in Addis Abbaba with a wide cross-section of experts and representatives from the voluntary sector. Our initial findings have been reported to the all-party parliamentary group on overseas development.
The theory of resettlement is one that we would support. Its implementation in the phase to 31 December deserves no support. That phase was flawed by a wide range of problems, including violation of human rights, and rightly brought no backing from western donors. However, subject to substantial reform, the Ethiopian Government accepting new conditions, and effective international monitoring, the Western aid donors should assist the new programme through non-governmental organisations.
Many people are in desperate need of help at both ends of the programme. However, the criteria necessary for any such involvement by the west should include recognition of the suitability of land for human and animal use, sufficient rainfall to support development, adequate soil and land conditions, accessibility and sufficient land for effective land use planning. More important for the population concerned, there should be demonstrable and verifiable limits for heads of families favouring resettlement and from the local communities to allow families to travel with their dependants, thus avoiding split families.
Such a resettlement programme should be accompanied by the rehabilitation of lands deserted, including reforestation work, land reclamation, control of cattle sites, planting of suitable crops and extension and development services to revitalise once over-populated and eroded habitats. This is particularly relevant in the case of Ethiopia, where substantial overpopulation exists in the areas where the resettlement is targeted.
Additionally, we propose that the International Red Cross be permitted to undertake a full tracing exercise to 676 reunite separated families, as well as a programme for orphans, and that charities should be allowed to assist in the resettlement programme, encouraged to establish primary health care units, educational services and, above all, assistance to those in transit.
Therefore, we support the view taken by The Economist in its 8 February edition this year—
The aid agencies working in Ethiopia, swallowing their distaste, should try to get into the 77 resettlement sites in order to make life a bit easier for the people there. This humanitarian aid should continue, where it prevents things getting even worse for the victims of Colonel Mengistu's experiments. But the money the Colonel gets for his grander plans, he should be told, will stop unless he stops his forced removals.The same cannot be said for villagisation. That is an experiment in the blatant collectivisation of farmers and families in traditional areas to square-built village camps. This collectivisation along Soviet lines frightens the Ehiopian people and destabilises the historic patterns of agricultural patterns and rural life. It is undertaken under strict party control in every aspect and it has gone nationwide, in the Hararge experiment. The programme deserves no support. Rather it deserves the outright condemnation of the western world.Ecological degradation is reinforcing the depletion of woods and land cleared of vegetation. Soil erosion accelerates. Rain runs off, rather than seeps into, the ground. Less water is retained, less evaporates, fewer clouds are recharged and rainfall diminishes. We need action to promote conservation and to promote new farming practices and policies, better terrace designing and more research into drought-tolerant trees.
On the financial side, we must look for a lead role from the World Bank, to ensure that the donor agencies are co-ordinated, to ensure swifter implementation of project cycles, policy dialogue rather than policy monologue, to fight against famine fatigue and to work towards famine relief alongside long-term development programmes.
Politics is the ordering of priorities. It is therefore remarkable that the outstanding ability of Band Aid worldwide to raise £60 million is equivalent to the Europen Community's five-month cost of destroying surplus fish, fruit and vegetables, its four-week cost of storing surplus Community production in public intervention and less than one week's expenditure on export refunds. That is a common agricultural policy which, in its own right, does substantial damage to the development of indigenous Third world agriculture.
§ Mr. Jim Lester (Broxtowe)It is a great pleasure to be able to support my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Mr. Moynihan). He and I have shared experiences in Africa which it is important for us now to share with our colleagues, although we would prefer that a few more were present to hear us talking about them.
In the David Davies memorial debate on international affairs, Maurice Strong said:
No analysis of Africa's crisis can begin to convey the immeasurable human costs it has imposed on Africa's people—the tragedy of those who lost the desperate struggle for survival and the untold sufferings of those for whom the struggle continues. About 70 per cent. of the total African population, and close to 90 per cent. in some of the poorer countries, is either destitute or below the poverty line.It is an almost unimaginable statistic that, even in normal times, the lives of some 4 million African children are claimed by starvation each year. I welcome the report 677 entitled, "Within Human Reach" produced by UNICEF, which showed how we could start to solve some of those problems.The debate is timely. We have the Race Against Time over the weekend when those who feel strongly will be mobilised. My hon. Friend the Minister for Lewisham, East is young and fit and I am sure that he will be running. I shall be waving them on. I hope to make a contribution to that marvellous effort. The Race Against Time shows that there is far wider interest in the problem than some politicians realise.
I should like to mention two other voluntary organisations which do remarkable work but do not get the publicity of Sport-Aid or Band-Aid, valuable though they are. Water-Aid, pioneered by the Thames water authority, enables people paying their water rates to contribute. People who recognise the importance of water in their lives can contribute through the technical skills of our water engineers to help Africa find water. Engineers fpr Disaster Relief comprises engineers who have put their name on a register. When there is a crisis which requires engineering skills, they go whenever and wherever necessary'. When I was in a camp at Umbala in western Dafur, I was taken round at 5.30 am by an engineer from Humberside. He showed me the roads and drains that he had provided for the camp, which were vital as they stopped 20,000 people from getting diseases such as cholera. There is a great deal of voluntary effort which should be recognised.
None of that detracts from the basic responsibility of Governments and international agencies to provide substantial support to meet the crisis. This weekend, John Denver will lead a run in Nottingham involving, I hope, hundreds of thousands of people who will raise money for Sport-Aid. I read in my newspaper that, on the same day, the United States Congress is likely to cut all aid to Africa except Egypt. That is a terrible irony.
I hope that we will take the lead at the UN conference in mobilising world opinion to support international agencies, especially UN agencies, in their valuable work. As we assume the presidency of the European Commission, I hope that we shall take the lead with an early initiative to link the skills and resources of the 12 to reach into Africa on long-term developmental issues. I hope that we shall make an early initiative an important part of our presidency.
My hon. Friend talked about resettlement. I have the constant vision of the destitution of 250,000 people living around Port Sudan in accommodation which cannot be called accomodation, with no water supply and only such medical supplies as can be provided by Sudan Aid and dedicated volunteers. They have no hope for their future, no idea of what can be done and no hope for their children. Those people nevertheless reach out in every possible way to make the best of their lives.
I should like to leave the House with the vision of parents working with scraps of timber and other bits of material, some provided through voluntary agencies, trying to put together a school so that their children might get something of an education.
This is an extremely important subject and I welcome the opportunity to take part in the debate.
§ The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Timothy Raison)The House is grateful to my hon. 678 Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Mr. Moynihan) for introducing this debate. He showed his great knowledge and commitment to the subject. The same is true for my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester). My hon. Friends have contributed enormously to our understanding of Africa 's problems. The House and others should be grateful to them for what they have done.
This is a timely debate. We have the great Sport Aid activity over the weekend. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will meet the Sudanese athlete, Omar Khalifa, as part of Sport Aid's series of fund-raising events for African relief. The Race Against Time is a kind of prelude to next week's special session of the United Nations on Africa's economic problems. I welcome this opportunity to say something about our actions and policies.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East rightly stressed the need for wise policies to tackle the problems of agriculture and population. We have to face the fact that, in the two decades before the drought smote east Africa, total food production increased but per capita food production fell by perhaps 20 per cent. A growing number of Africans are therefore seriously under-nourished.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe spoke movingly about the plight of African people. Governments have all too often followed policies which have inhibited and discouraged farmers through resettlement, ill-judged villagisation or unrealistic pricing and over-controlled marketing of agricultural produce.
There is also the problem of population growth. Having more mouths to feed puts ever increasing pressure on agriculture and other sectors, and per capita incomes must dwindle. Some African countries have population growth rates of 4 per cent. a year, so that the population doubles every 17 or 18 years. There is large-scale migration from rural to urban areas. Governments therefore come under inescapable pressure to ensure supplies of low-priced food in the towns and are therefore rather reluctant to implement proper food production and pricing policies. The Government have substantially increased aid to population-related activities in recent years, from £1 million in 1977 to £12 million a year now. That is a great improvement.
There are also problems of soil erosion, deforestation and the advance of the desert, partly as a result of climatic change but magnified by the pressure of growing population on marginal land which is often poorly farmed. Meanwhile, nomads are pushed into land that cannot support their animals, and this leads to deforestation as bushes and trees are cut down for firewood or to create farmland. They are significant factors in what is happening.
As my hon. Friends said, the crisis in Africa has deeply affected people throughout the world, awakening a new public awareness of the problems facing that continent and awakening a great desire to help to overcome them. I add my tribute to Band Aid and the other voluntary agencies for the immense work that they have undertaken. I also pay tribute to the ordinary citizens of Britain who have given on such an unprecedented scale. I understand that Band Aid and Live Aid have so far spent £26 million on famine relief. That is a notable achievement alongside that of the other voluntary arganisations.
The British Government's contribution to famine relief has been substantial—about £190 million through the bilateral programme and our share of European Community expenditure in the past two years. We 679 responded swiftly to the urgent need for assistance to help the victims of famine in Ethiopia, Sudan and other drought-affected countries in Africa. Much of this aid, both bilateral and through the European Community, has been given in close co-operation with international agencies and voluntary organisations. In 1984, the Government allocated bilaterally and through the European Community, £81.4 million for drought relief in Africa. In 1985, this fugure rose to £96.5 million. In the first three months of 1986, we committed a further £27 million. We are ready to continue provide assistance towards famine relief where it is needed.
At the same time, the European Community has played an increasingly effective role. It was slow to get its emergency procedures going, and I pressed hard for improvement. But once under way it has delivered substantial quantities of grain and other supplies and worked hard in the difficult area of transport, providing among other things a notable and insufficiently noticed airlift operation in the Sudan last summer which did good work.
On this year's food aid requirements, as the House knows, most of the countries in Africa which suffered drought and famine in 1985 have had a much improved harvest. Many of them have produced surpluses of grain. However, some substantial needs for emergency food aid persist, notably in Ethiopia and Mozambique; and other countries, notably Sudan, need external assistance to deliver surpluses from one part of their territory to another.
In 1986, the British Government are delivering 37,000 tonnes of wheat to Ethiopia, in close co-operation with the world food programme. This includes 6,500 tonnes due to be loaded in Hull next month. In Mozambique the world food programme is completing delivery of 14,500 tonnes of maize which the Government have purchased in Zimbabwe. We shall continue to watch needs as they arise. The Community is providing substantial quantities of products.
As I have said before in the House, food aid is a double-edged weapon. Even in an exceptional year like 1985, only about 10 per cent. of Community food aid expenditure went to help victims of famine. During the British Presidency of the Community in the second half of 1986, we intend to work hard for reforms in the EC food aid programme designed to make it more responsive to the needs of developing countries. It is not easy to use food aid to promote agricultural and economic development; but it can be done. Next week's meeting of the governing body of the World Food Programme in Rome will be asked to approve the allocation of a further $76 million during the next three years to food for work projects in Ethiopia designed to rehabilitate forest, grazing and agricultural lands devastated by drought. This work will be based on the experience accumulated in similar schemes in recent years. A world food programme evaluation concludes that in general they have gone relatively well. But there is no doubt that the sheer size of the conservation problem, especially the need to control the grazing of livestock and the implications for the water table, still needs much attention.
Rehabilitation work after the 1985 famine has also been a special focus of attention by the European Community. The Development Council of November 1985 approved proposals to spend about £70 million from the European 680 development funds in rehabilitation work in the eight countries most seriously affected by famine. Nearly all of this has been committed to specific projects; this, too, will be discussed at next November's Development Council.
In the longer term, the third Lomé Convention, which came into force on 1 May, will provide greatly increased aid resources during the next five years for the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East said, Ethiopia and Sudan present us with special difficulties. There is a self-evident need for assistance to victims of famine in Ethiopia. We have given food, vehicles, spare parts and equipment to improve port handling facilities and we have helped in many other ways. We are also helping in Ethiopia by paying for some of the monitors working under the world food programme.
We are also concerned with rehabilitation after the famine. I informed the House last November that we had allocated £3 million to help with such rehabilitation in Ethiopia. Some of this has been spent on seeds and hand tools. An ODA team is in Ethiopia at the moment identifying other uses for these aid funds. They are talking with the Ethiopians about how we can best help.
However, although we provide our share of Community long-term development assistance, we do not feel able to offer the Ethiopians any bilateral assistance with longer-term development, apart from some technical cooperation. This is partly because of the factors mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East—the programmes of resettlement and villagisation, which continue to cause us great anxiety. Under the recent resettlement programme, about 600,000 people have been moved, we believe, from the northern provinces of Ethiopia to the south and west of the country. There have been many reports of force being used and families being split up.
On several occasions I have expressed our concern to the Ethiopian Government and did so to the United Nations Co-ordinator in Addis Ababa, Mr. Michael Priestly, when he called on me in London earlier this year. Those expressions of concern by Britain and several other countries have been an important factor behind recent statements by the Ethiopian authorities that the resettlement programme has been brought temporarily to a halt.
I recognise that the longer-term effects of population growth and the degradation of the environment may make it necessary for some people to be moved from one part of the country to another. But such moves need to be well prepared. They need to be carried out with proper consideration and respect for all the people concerned. Above all, resettlement must be on a voluntary basis.
It is important to make sure that there will be sufficient land with adequate rainfull in the chosen resettlement areas. Transport must be adequate. I have seen for myself Ethiopians being herded for resettlement on to Russian Antonovs and have heard of the horrifying conditions experienced by some of those who have made those journeys. It is important that families should be kept together. All those matters must concern us.
However, the villagisation programme causes us even greater concern. Last month the Ethiopian Government released figures showing that nearly 3 million people have already been relocated. Villagisation involves the relocation of a scattered rural population in newly constructed villages, usually located close to existing 681 roads. The reasons given for the policy are that the move will facilitate rural development and the provision of social services.
However, there are clear dangers that any benefits gained will be more than offset by the losses to production caused by the time and effort involved in covering the distances between the new villages and the farm lands. We understand that in some areas people have been moved at particularly inappropriate times in the farming calendar and harvest yields reduced in consequence.
There is also the fear among many that the speed with which this exercise has been carried out, and the life style forced on people in the new villages, means that its purpose is to give the Ethiopian Government the means to exercise a tighter control over the rural population. Thousands of people have fled, some to refugee camps in Somalia. Many of these refugees allege that corruption has been used in implementing the villagisation programme, homes have been burnt and livestock confiscated.
Both those policies, but especially villagisation, cause us serious problems when it comes to considering what we can do in the longer term in Ethiopia, substantial though our shorter-term contribution unquestionably has been and is today.
There are also daunting problems in the Sudan. Much of western Sudan suffered further drought in 1985, and a major relief effort is now taking place. Much of the south is affected by renewed civil war. Sudan's economic and financial difficulties are immense, including external debts exceeding $9 billion. The task of longer-term development, in what is the largest country in Africa, remains a complex and formidable one.
We are concentrating our support for the relief effort this year on the distribution of food supplies in the remote region of Darfur in western Sudan. Logistical problems there were had last year. We have provided £6 million for the distribution of food in the west, which is being undertaken on our behalf by the Save the Children Fund. It is too early to judge whether all the targets have been met, but it is working hard and recent reports have been encouraging.
The Sudan also needs a great deal of longer-term development and there we are actively involved. As my hon. Friends will know, our emphasis nowadays is particularly on rural development projects of exactly the 682 kind that are needed to deal with the situation there. My hon. Friends have seen some of the projects and I hope that they will agree that what we are doing is extremely worth while.
In the background, we must hope that Sudan's return to democracy, which we welcome, will lead to some solution of Sudan's enormous problems, especially the problem of the south, because at the moment it is making development in that part of the country difficult.
Let me deal in the remaining minutes with the special session of the United Nations General Assembly. My right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary and I will both be attending that special session. At the Tokyo summit we joined with our partners in recognising that the needs of Africa should be accorded high priority. That is reflected in the care with which we are preparing for the special session. The session will give us a real chance for a detailed analysis of the nature of the long-term problems besetting Africa. A wide convergence of views already exists. My hope is that that will provide the opportunity for agreement at the session on what needs to be done. The United Kingdom Government will certainly be working for a positive outcome.
A major theme emerging from the papers produced by the African countries is the concept of development as a partnership. We welcome this. The African countries, as sovereign states — which, of course, they are — have made it clear that they have the prime responsibility for their own development and perhaps for their own shortcomings. But we on our side must also play our part.
I welcome the fact that in a number of African countries the difficult process of policy reform is getting under way. Difficult political decisions have to be made as we all know. Those who make those difficult decisions, often working in conjunction with the IMF, the World Bank and other donors, can count on our support. The work must be done. The economies of those countries must be strengthened and helped to carry out the structural adjustment that is necessary if they are to get away from the burden of debt.
It will be the commitment of my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary and myself to do all that we can to see that the conference in New York is a success and that it justifies the hopes that have been placed on it by so many people across the world.