Poverty in Africa

HL Deb 08 June 1988 vol 497 cc1442-77

5.26 p.m.

Baroness Ewart-Biggs rose to call attention to the hunger, poverty and debt in much of Africa; and to the case for policies to develop greater international economic justice; and to move for Papers.

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, there have been many occasions in recent years when different aspects of Africa's problems have been debated in this House. We have examined the plight of the African countries from political, economic and humanitarian viewpoints. From this side of the House noble Lords have often condemned the North-South divide and demanded global economic policies to redress the balance between the rich and poor countries. Other voices have argued that many of the problems of the African countries are of their own making, that they should put their houses in order, and that the duty of Western countries should be confined to making emergency food aid available at the time of crisis and, for the rest, gearing their development aid policies to the achievement of their own national trade requirements and in support of their own firms working in third world countries.

Therefore, on the one hand, we have heard hardheaded economic arguments, and, on the other, the voice of compassion crying out for policies which will bring about fairer economic co-operation between the rich and poor countries for the benefit of both. Today I believe that a new theme may emerge. It will come from a report called Financing Africa's Recovery which I should like to draw to the attention of your Lordships.

Last year an advisory group of eminent international financiers under the chairmanship of' Sir Douglas Wass were given the brief to assess Africa's critical financial condition and to make proposals to the UN Secretary General. The report came out in February of this year and one of its characteristics is a combination of hard-headed economics with altruism. Indeed, one of its members made this clear when he said: The most striking feature of this report is its authorship. Its conclusions … are not those of charitable institutions. This is not just another in a seemingly unending succession of humanitarian appeals for help for the world's less fortunate. There is indeed a humanitarian dimension to this report's analysis. But its principle thrust is a financial and economic one. Nine of its 13 authors are bankers. The report must therefore, above all, be seen as a pragmatic assessment of minimal African requirements for medium-term economic recovery". The authors of the report first traced the various stages which led to Africa's present predicament. They described how further problems were added to the problems created by the chronic shortages of resources available for development in the early 1980s and how much of Africa suffered a serious fall in its trading income as the prices of its export commodities declined. Its burden of debt, already high in relation to its means, increased as it resorted to more borrowing—much of it on market-related terms which it was ill-fitted to service. Private capital flows and trade credit shrank as lenders perceived the risks they ran by further exposure and in 1984 and 1985 a large part of the continent experienced a drought and subsequent food shortage which compounded the problems of poverty and deprivation. Not only did living standards decline but the outlook for long-term improvement in economic performance received a severe setback.

Two sets of proposals to make good the damage were examined by the advisory group. First, measures designed to alleviate the cost of servicing the external debts of African states and, secondly, ways of providing additional financial resources from both public and private sources were considered. Before elaborating on those proposals the advisory council made it abundantly clear that it recognised the benefits that would flow from an increase in world demand for African exports and the dismantling by developed countries of protection measures which inhibit African exports.

From the point of view of African debts, the advisory council stressed that as most of the African debt is to governments and government-owned institutions, debt relief is therefore a matter for political rather than commercial decisions. Here I should like to make the point that Mr. Nigel Lawson has recognised that this is a political matter which should not be left solely to finance Ministers. Therefore, I feel it to be highly appropriate for the British Foreign Secretary to build on this further when he goes to the United States in September to address the United Nations; and that address could be based on African economic recovery.

In outlining ways to alleviate the cost of servicing external debts, the report recommended, first, that official development assistance loans should be converted into grants; secondly, that interest charged on non-concessionary debts rescheduled under the Paris Club should be lowered; and, thirdly, that commerical banks should take special debt relief measures on behalf of sub-Saharan African countries on a case-by-case basis. The savings to African countries brought about by those measures was calculated by the advisory council to be £1 billion.

The council then examined ways of providing additional financial resources and suggested new initiatives to be taken by the World Bank, the IMF and the African Development Bank which would yield about £3 billion. That would leave an annual £1 billion shortfall to the minimum—and the council stressed "minimum"—£5 billion a year additional financial resources that the group estimated Africa needed to cope with its current economic plight. The council appealed to bilateral donors to contribute this further £1 billion and concluded: Without increased support from donor countries and creditors there is a risk that African governments will be politically unable to persevere with the difficult economic reform programmes on which they have embarked: The council gave the onimous warning that: The consequence of failure, in both political and economic terms, could be incalculable.

That, therefore, is a very brief résumé of the main features of this important report. But what has given it additional weight is the fact that following immediately on its heels has come another, similar warning from Mr. Herman van der Wyck, of Warburg, at the recent conference on African debt held in London. He insisted that the position of many African countries had deteriorated to the extent that confirmed short-term arrangements could no longer work and might, indeed, even exacerbate the problem. Mr. van der Wyck added that the current situation was so intractable and difficult that a continuation of the stumbling "ad hocery", as he called it, which characterised recent approaches to the crisis were no longer acceptable from the point of view of either debtors or creditors. He commended the African Development Bank's proposals to streamline and regularise the process of debt management while preserving the most beneficial aspects of the current system. Therefore, the messages coming from Warburg and Sir Douglas Wass were identical. It would be wise for the international community to hearken to what they said.

Looking at the situation from the African side, there is little doubt that the austerity policies urged on them by the IMF have had a devastating effect on African populations. It is, of course, they who have had to pay the price. It is that consideration which leads me to my next point which concerns the consequences of adjustment policies on the most vulnerable groups in poor countries and how those consequences can be mitigated. Julius Nyrere, former President of Tanzania, asked: "Must we starve our children to pay our debts?" UNICEF had an answer which it produced in, again, a recent report published this year entitled Adjustment with a Human Face. That report sets out a framework for economic policy designed to protect the poor and prevent young children from being sacrificed for the sake of financial stability. It gives the horrifying statistic that in the past 10 years the number of under-nourished children in sub-Saharan Africa has risen by as much as 25 per cent.

The report made clear that: to miss out the human dimension of adjustment is an economic error of the most fundamental sort. Much evidence already exists of the economic returns to investment in human resources. To fail to protect young children at the critical stages of their growth is to wreak lasting damage on a whole generation, the results of which may well have effects on economic development and welfare for decades ahead.". Those views are now finding favour with others and in June last year the IMF's new managing director made clear that he believed that the more adjustment efforts give proper weight to social realities—especially the implications for the poorest—the more successful they are likely to be. He said that fund missions were willing to consider any request by a country to look at alternative approaches, with a view in particular to sheltering the poorest". It is clear, therefore, that at last the World Bank and the IMF are beginning to realise that their former prescriptions were creating nearly as many problems as they were solving.

I give an example. This new policy has been tried in Ghana where, to mitigate social costs of economic adjustments, a large US subsidy has been given to implement a programme of action comprising a public works programme, a credit scheme for small farmers and a rehabilitation and improvement programme for the social and economic infrastructure. A great number of jobs have been created. As many as 45,000 jobs will be created over a two year period. The food-for-work project in the north will provide employment for 4,000 workers. The infrastructure in four urban centres will be maintained and will provide 10,000 jobs over two years. A labour-intensive feeder road project to employ nearly 24,000 people will cost 12.2 million US dollars. In that way Ghana will be saved from the extreme results of economic adjustment.

Finally, in a debate about alleviating hunger and poverty in Africa, it would be wrong not to mention the role of NGO's, for it is without doubt that while the efforts of donor nations and lending institutions towards solving the debt crisis are essential to Africa's recovery, above all else recovery and regeneration depend upon human resources. It is here that voluntary agencies and NGOs play such an important role.

Although bilateral and multilateral institutions are engaged in ceaseless policy dialogue with third world governments, banks and delegations, they do not talk to the vast mass of the population in the rural and urban areas. In the jargon of aid bureaucracies, the needy are the "target group". That impersonal phrase perfectly illustrates the way people are categorised as objects or statistics. In contrast, voluntary agencies are in the front line of the battle against poverty, disease, drought and famine. For voluntary agencies, the statistics actually have names, real lives and real needs.

There are several thousand voluntary agencies working in Africa. Increasingly, more and more are local, grass-roots organisations. Both bilateral and multilateral lenders are beginning to realise that the voluntary sector—which accounts for 10 per cent. of all aid flows—has an influence out of all proportion to its size. Perhaps I may be permitted to give one example. I am president of the British section of SOS Sahel International. That is an association of European and African voluntary agencies working to protect the fragile environment and increase food production in the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa. In Sudan we work with rural communities to preserve their farming lands from encroaching desert through community forestry. The response of the villagers, especially women, to the programme shows just how readily communities will work to solve their own acute problems, given a little help, encouragement and technical assistance. Governments can support such programmes, but it is most unlikely that they will acquire the flair or flexibility to implement them.

Finally, can we be sure that we in Britain are making a sufficiently high contribution towards Africa's recovery? The present record of the United Kingdom Government is far from admirable. Newly released figures reveal that about half as much of the national wealth is now devoted to overseas aid as at the time the present Government came to power. Last year Britain provided only 0.28 per cent. of its GNP in overseas aid, which is a far cry from the 0.7 per cent. which is a UN target. It contrasts darkly with the 0.52 per cent. inherited from the Labour Government of 1979.

Perhaps I may give a few comparisons. In 1986 the net disbursement of official development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa by the Federal Republic of Germany was 552 billion dollars; by Italy 682 billion dollars; by the Netherlands 322 billion dollars, but by the United Kingdom only 267 billion dollars. Britain was overtaken even by Japan, New Zealand and Switzerland.

I am very grateful to all those who are to speak in this debate, which has not only given an opportunity to focus attention on the gravity of the economic situation of Africa and the suffering of its people but also reveals the fact that finally hard-headed economists have come round to agreeing with the bleeding hearts that the people of Africa can no longer be treated so shabbily by the rich countries. A solution must and can be found to raise the standard of life, prospects and hope of 555 million of the world's population. I look forward to hearing the Minister say what is to be the role of Her Majesty's Government to further these solutions. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

5.41 p.m.

Lord Bauer

My Lords, I wish to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, very warmly for this debate and for her moving speech. No one should be indifferent to the mass misery in Africa, some of which I have seen in refugee camps. The misery is particularly distressing after many years and many billions of official aid and heroic efforts by voluntary agencies.

What more can be done to alleviate this misery? I shall focus upon possible reforms of official aid. The reforms I shall list were proposed by Mr. Cranley Onslow and myself many years ago. The most urgent is a reconsideration of the allocation of official aid now based on incomes. To aid rulers on this basis rewards policies of impoverishment.

Western aid has assisted many recipients to pursue destructive policies for years on end. Aid should take cognisance of such policies. People will differ widely in their policy prescriptions. Mr. Onslow and I proposed that donors should favour governments who promote economic progress and the welfare of their peoples through humane leadership, effective administration, enlightened policies and the extension of personal freedom.

Aid should be untied cash grants. Subsidised loans confuse investment with donations and set up tensions between donors who see them as favours and the recipients who see them as burdens. Tied aid confuses subsidies to African governments with subsidies to exporters. Bilateral grants arc preferable to multilateral grants by allowing some degree of parliamentary control.

Sudan and Ethiopia show up the need for reform. For many years their governments have received, and still receive, much Western aid, far more than humanitarian relief. From 1983 to 1986, Sudan received some 4.5 billion dollars in aid and Ethiopia 2.25 billion. The external debt of Sudan is now around 10 billion dollars and that of Ethiopia around 3 billion dollars. About three-quarters is owed to official creditors for subsidised loans which are often in effect grants, as are the 50 IDA loans which are interest-free and unindexed. At times earlier loans have been written off.

In both countries hundreds of thousands of refugees live in deplorable conditions, having fled from persecution, civil war and famine. The rulers whose policies have caused them to flee are kept afloat by Western aid. Is this the economic justice referred to by the noble Baroness? The money has been used to pay for large armies, civil wars, show projects, the bizarre and expensive Organisation of African Unity, politically-motivated subsidies and other personal and political purposes. It has done very little for the poorest. Armed civil conflicts exacerbate the misery brought about by mass persecution, the forced uprooting of people, coercive collectivisation, wholesale confiscations, the suppression of trade, the underpayment of farmers. All these policies are pursued in Ethiopia and elsewhere.

Drought does not cause misery if there are reserve stocks and external trading links, as there are if trade is not suppressed or destroyed. External debt would present no difficulty if the loans had been used productively, especially in Africa, as there are no restrictions against major African exports and most of the debt represents heavily subsidised loans, the cost of which has been reduced by inflation, write-offs and deferment.

If governments had not obstructed foreign equity investment, failed projects would have left no debt. Debt service is now regarded as immoral transfer from poor to rich. This ignores the initial transfer; that is, the loans. Is interest on saving certificates or building society deposits improper? And is it immoral to honour contracts? Moreover, debt cancellation, as proposed by the Chancellor, specifically favours the imprudent, incompetent and dishonest and encourages attitudes which are damaging to economic advance.

External market conditions have been distinctly favourable in recent years. In 1985 the terms of trade of sub-Saharan Africa were, according to the latest UN statistics, on average more than 50 per cent. better than in 1960, when already favourable by historical standards. The world demand for major African exports has expanded greatly since the war. But in rising world markets cocoa exports from Ghana have declined, and palm oil exports from Nigeria have disappeared. It is also patronising to imply that African governments should not be expected to provide against adversity. Their citizens readily take long views, as witness the millions of acres under crops such as cocoa which take six years to mature.

Unless reformed, official transfers will not help the poorest or promote development. They are likely to obstruct progress by reinforcing the politicisation of life, increasing the stakes in the struggle for power, and thereby promoting civil conflict. The design of reforms would require much thought and care as they would be resisted by powerful vested interests, both in the public and the private sectors. After decades of disappointment, to urge reforms is not indifference to suffering, but the only hope for lasting improvement.

5.50 p.m.

Lord Banks

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, for raising this important matter this afternoon. I should like to underline much of what she said and take a stance rather different from that adopted by the noble Lord, Lord Bauer. Before I do that I recall the fact that we are shortly to hear the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury, and I look forward to that with anticipation.

I want to concentrate on the debt-distressed sub-Saharan African countries, a designation which I think the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, does not recognise. However, I believe there is full justification for that distinction between debt-distressed countries and others. When we look at those countries we are looking at a picture of decline. Twenty-two countries in sub-Saharan Africa are now designated by the World Bank as debt-distressed. In those countries in the period between 1980 and 1986 per capita output has declined, consumption has declined, investment has declined and the export of goods has declined. The export of goods has declined by the significant figure of 30.1 per cent.

Debt service will be more than 30 per cent. of exports in each of those countries in the period 1988–90. In some countries it will be more than 100 per cent. Most if not all of them—and I think it is all—have embarked on the IMF or home-designed structural adjustment programmes. These programmes usually call for increased food prices to pay farmers more to boost production, more scope for market forces in the determination of prices, the reduction of government expenditure, including expenditure on food subsidies, the reduction of government employment and the devaluation of the currency in order to improve exports.

A lesson has been learnt about these schemes in recent years. There is a time-lag and during the time-lag it is not possible to expect that these measures, whatever they may do in the long run, will have produced any favourable effect. During that time there can be suffering and acute political difficulties. Poverty is accentuated by higher prices; unemployment of civil servants creates a discontented element within the community; there is a reduction in real incomes through devaluation; health and education services are cut—sometimes, admittedly, at the expense of military expenditure. During that time-lag period there can be suffering and resentment; and in Zambia it caused riots.

These programmes need to be less harsh and more flexible in their implementation, more sensitive politically and more caring socially. That point was made forcibly by the noble Baroness. Support funds are required and are being made available, although not, it would seem, on the scale necessary. The noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, referred to the committee established by the Secretary General of the United Nations. The committee said that to cope with the fall in commodity prices, the decline in capital inflows and the huge debt burdens, a further 5 billion dollars a year was needed. Some 3 billion dollars had been pledged at that time and I believe that another 1 billion dollars has been pledged. However, there is a gap of 1 billion dollars a year. I should like to ask the Government whether they fully support the report and its recommendations and whether they are prepared to meet the United Kingdom contribution, which I believe will be about £100 million a year.

More than a year ago the Chancellor of the Exchequer launched a three-point programme to deal with debt. First, the conversion of aid loans into grants, as the United Kingdom had done with most of its aid loans. Secondly, the re-scheduling of debt on more generous terms stretching up to 20 years. Thirdly, the reduction of interest payments on debt to perhaps 3 per cent. below commercial rates. The Chancellor has stressed continuously—and all praise to him for that—these three points in his travels around the different financial authorities of the world. He has had a fair amount of success with the first and second points but not with the third. I hope he will continue to press all three points on his colleagues.

Oxfam has produced an interesting suggestion in connection with the third point on debt interest. It suggests that the Government should call on the next European Council of Finance Ministers to endorse the Lawson plan and to apply it immediately to those African countries whose share of export credit debts is overwhelmingly to EC creditors and other creditors prepared to join the scheme. In order to have a scheme designed to reduce interest rates it is necessary to have an interest rate subsidy. Clearly the Government do not want to embark on that if all it will do is help debt service to other countries to be paid more easily. This proposal would avoid that because the United States and Japan—two of the objectors to the proposal—would not be involved. Will the Government consider that proposal?

Finally, what is the Government's view of the Nordic proposal to establish a new window at the World Bank to re-finance loans under easier terms? What is principally required is greater political will, and what we seek this afternoon is a reassurance from the Government that they at least have the political will and the sense of urgency to continue energetically to urge upon their colleagues in the creditors' club the need for early and positive action.

5.58 p.m.

The Lord Bishop of Salisbury

My Lords, I speak today out of concern, and love, for the people of one nation in Africa which has already been mentioned more than once in this debate: The Republic of the Sudan. The diocese which I have the honour to serve has for 14 years been linked with the Sudan and with the Churches there. During that time many from the Salisbury diocese, including myself, have visited the Sudan or worked there, and the Sudanese have been to us. We have had friendly and practical relations not only with fellow Christians but with the Sudanese Government in regard to development and welfare problems. I should like today to comment briefly on lessons learnt in two areas—not the area of international finance on which I am not competent to speak, but the areas of health and education, where the lessons are also applicable to other nations in Africa.

The most precious item in the wealth of any nation is its people. This is especially true in Africa where so many countries are underpopulated. The Sudan, at almost 1 million square miles the largest nation in Africa, has at the best estimate not more than 20 million people, one-seventh of the density, say, of Rwanda. Such a country needs to make the most of all its citizens. Unless it can do so, it cannot take advantage of measures to correct the problem of debt or to improve terms of trade, essential though one recognises that those factors are. Enemies such as poor health and lack of education would still prevent the people of the Sudan from realising their potential and so helping to lift their country out of its seemingly hopeless plight. We must not lose sight of the need for continuing practical and precisely targeted aid.

The issue of health, both primary health care and the cure of disease, is vast. However, one theme occurs again and again—that of water. Water-related diseases, notably bilharzia and still to some extent malaria, are enormously destructive because they are so debilitating. When you are permanently devitalised by one of those diseases—or in the South perhaps by both of them—the limits on what you can do close in dramatically.

The water issue arises in yet another way. Much of the southern Sudan is potentially fertile. Ample clean water is not far below the surface. However, because there is no access to that water people cannot irrigate the land and so grow more and better food. The southern Sudan has a magnificent record of hospitality to refugees from conflict in neighbouring nations. However, this has often created new famine areas in a part of the world which, given access to water, could produce enough food for several times its present population.

Happily this is one problem which is yielding to technical aid. Reliable and appropriate technology is now available for local use. Designs of simple pumps, well building and spring capping have improved beyond recognition. Nevertheless, the programmes need to be vastly expanded. How can we educate our children on the need for such development, as is done in the new ODA video "The Water Connection", and not put more from our own affluence into that vital work which could free so many Africans to help themselves?

The other area I mentioned was education. I find that few people in Britain appreciate, for instance, the simple fact that in a country like the Sudan every child has to learn a second language before he can begin any formal education. On one estimate there are 99 different African languages in the Nuba mountains alone. In the cathedral at Khartoum—as I know to my confusion—five different numbers are indicated for each hymn which is then sung simultaneously in Bari, Moro, Zande, Dinka and English. I wonder how our children would get on if they had to learn, for example, Polish before they could do anything else at school.

Of course in a desperately poor country resources for education are almost non-existent in many places. The simplest textbooks are something that many children never see, yet the hunger for education is voracious. When the Church set up the first school in the shanty town of Haj Yusuf, in North Khartoum, it was overwhelmed with pupils. What further help might we give to support and improve such deprived educational systems? British educational publishers have developed major markets in Africa. One technically possible and useful form of aid might be to subsidise the provision of more in the way of the books and equipment that they need. Further, could more be done by seconding suitable teachers who are prepared to serve abroad at a time of falling rolls at home?

Noble Lords need no reminding of how close the link is between health and education. I shall give one example and then I shall conclude. It relates to the Gezira, that huge agricultural development between the two Niles which was one of the glories of British Administration in the Sudan. The latest edition of the British Overseas Development Magazine reports a plan to introduce Puerto Rican snails into the Gezira canals to eat the smaller bilharzia-carrying snails. However, the irony is that before independence there was no bilharzia in the system, because the canals were dredged and controlled to keep the water flowing fast enough to prevent the snails from lodging and breeding. Lack of education at the basic grass-roots level meant that people failed to appreciate the importance of what seemed to them to be a pointless chore.

Health and education are the twin pillars of prosperity. We know that well enough from our own history. They have brought us wealth and comfort far beyond anything most Africans now alive can hope for. They are also areas in which aid can be targeted practically and precisely. I believe that there are millions of people in this country who would insist that we can and ought to do more in these ways to help Africa to achieve the blessings that we so richly enjoy.

6.7 p.m.

Lord Walston

My Lords, on behalf of the whole House, as well as my own party, I am most happy to be following the right reverend Prelate and to be able to thank and congratulate him on a truly fine maiden speech. If one looks up his record one sees that he has spent the greater part of his life among the dreaming spires of Oxford and the rather differently dreaming towers of Westminster. Nevertheless, that has not in any way dimmed his warm heart or his understanding of the problems of other people. The picture he has given of the outlying portions of his diocese, or the relations to his diocese, is ample proof of that fact. We are indeed grateful to him and I say with complete sincerity that we look forward to hearing from him frequently on these and many other subjects in the future.

I am also thankful to the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, for giving us the chance to discuss such a vitally important subject. The only pity is that the Motion has attracted so many speakers that none of us will have enough time to say even half of the things we should have liked to say.

I shall forbear from passing any comments on the most pressing and immediate problem—that of debt and the debt servicing. That subject has been adequately dealt with by the noble Baroness and I am sure it will also be dealt with by other speakers. However, while it is clearly right for us to spend much time seeing what can be done to alleviate the present problems, we must not close our minds to problems which are being stored up. Such problems relate not only to Africa but to virtually the whole of the southern hemisphere; in other words, the third world. I am speaking of the future fertility, and ability, of the soil to grow yet more food to feed not only the present millions who are undernourished but also the increasing millions who are being born every year and who will need food.

Many of us know that trees and forests have some influence on our climate; for instance, the rainfall in Western Europe and the temperatures in that area. Some of us may even be somewhat nervous about the changes that are taking place. Nevertheless, a few more people accept the fact that deforestation in the third world leads rapidly to soil erosion, to gully formation, to loss of fertility and to a progressive increase of desertification. I know that is a horrible word, but it is the best one to describe what I mean.

We know from our history books how the Sahara has advanced; we know from contemporary knowledge how it is still advancing. Therefore, that is an aspect which is beginning to impinge to some extent upon our consciousness. However, few of us realise the enormous economic importance of trees—quite simply, trees—to the people who live in large parts of Africa, in even greater parts of India and also in South-East Asia. To those people, trees are a source of fuel. Ninety per cent. of the fuel of the people in those areas comes from the trees. With the decline in the number of trees the supply of their fuel has already diminished and is continuing to diminish rapidly. It is as if our own coal and oil reserves were diminishing to the same extent.

According to the statement, from the Bellagio meeting on tropical forests last July, more than half of the world's tropical forests have disappeared during the century; more than 1 billion people are today suffering from a shortage of fuel wood; and every year something over 10 million hectares of forest are being destroyed and not being replaced. So great has been the decline that women, who are the gatherers of fuel and who are responsible for cooking in homes, may have to walk for up to four hours every week to gain enough timber for their fuel requirements. Coupled with that, as I say, desecration of the soil is proceeding at a terrifying pace.

That is not to mention the 10 billion dollars worth of good timber that is exported every year largely to Japan but also to Northern Europe. We are pre-occupied with the immediate problems of starvation, hunger, malnutrition, disease, ignorance, lack of education and debt burden, all of which must come first in our minds; but I ask your Lordships not to forget the long-term effects of the cutting down of trees and of the failure to replant them. The result of that will make the troubles that are facing the third world today pale into insignificance in the next 50 years unless a massive programme of reafforestation is embarked upon.

The West can help with that programme through know-how and private enterprise. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, will agree that private enterprise can come in and make long-term money out of replanting. Unless that replanting is done by some means or another, devastation is inevitable on an even greater scale than we see it today.

6.12 p.m.

The Earl of Listowel

My Lords, as the first speaker from these Benches to follow the right reverend Prelate, I should like to add my words of congratulation to those which have already been expressed to him on his maiden speech; to thank him for the special contributions he made from his knowledge of the part of Africa in which he worked; and to say that we shall very much hope to hear him frequently on future occasions. I should also like to say that I share in the thanks expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Banks, to my noble friend Lady Ewart-Biggs for giving us the opportunity to discuss a subject which touches the conscience of every thinking person.

About 30 years ago I lived for three years in a country in sub-Saharan Africa. Sad to say, I do not believe that its problems are any less now than they were then, or that we in this country have done anything substantial to assist the people living there. That is why I want to make a plea to the Government to do something more and to do something constructive which would help them and also help us in the long run. I hope that there will be a reconsideration of policies relating to third world countries, especially the poorest countries in Africa, because I believe that it is justified both by the increasing wealth of our country—it has outstripped its European neighbours in recent years—and by public demand, as shown by the extraordinary response to humanitarian appeals such as Band Aid and Sports Aid.

Individuals have shown deep concern for those living in destitution in other continents. I trust that the Government will feel that they are justified by public opinion in following suit. The first and most essential change I should like to see is in the main purpose of trade and aid policies towards third world countries. While all such policies benefit us in the long run by creating purchasing power, their immediate and primary purpose should be to relieve the poverty of the poorest countries and to assist them in their own economic developments towards self-sustaining growth.

The motive of policy should be, at this stage at any rate, the welfare of those countries rather than the narrow view of our own self-interest; but, alas—I have to follow in the footsteps of my noble friend Lady Ewart-Biggs in this matter when we look at the Government's record they appear to regard overseas aid as easily dispensable and have cut it much more severely in relation to other forms of expenditure. The continuous and progressive decline of our annual aid contributions from 0.52 per cent. of our gross national product in 1979 to 0.28 per cent. in the current year surely puts us to shame and leaves us one from the bottom in the league of wealthy countries belonging to the development association committee of the OECD.

It appears that the Scandinavian countries, with Holland and Denmark, can lead the way with contributions of about 1 per cent. of their gross national product every year. I should like to think that one day we shall be able to follow their example. The Government have also decided—this again is a great disappointment—to cut their multilateral aid. I am particularly concerned about the funds of the International Development Association, which is the organ of the World Bank for providing soft loans for poorer countries. The IDA funds are replenished at yearly intervals. At the last replenishment our share was reduced from 10.1 per cent. to 6.5 per cent. of the total, or by nearly half. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether we intend to improve our performance when the next replenishment is due.

I regret even more the Government's decision to contribute nothing to the special fund for Africa. After the appalling African famine there was international agreement that help must be given to subsistence farmers to increase food production in sub-Saharan Africa, and so in January 1986 a special fund was agreed in principle by the major industrial countries in Western Europe which pledged a payment of nearly 200 million dollars. Britain alone refused to contribute. Perhaps the Minister can explain why that decision was taken.

I hope the Government can give some indication that they share our concern for the plight of those who live in the most poverty stricken parts of the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, and that they will produce more positive measures and, above all, more money to discharge our responsibilities towards them.

6.19 p.m.

Viscount Buckmaster

My Lords, I warmly welcome this opportunity to speak about Africa, having spent several years in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania and having visited something like eight or nine other African countries. In the very brief time available to me I intend to deal with four countries, each for a specific reason. First, Uganda, because it is the country I know best; secondly, Mozambique, where famine conditions are appalling and little understood; and finally, Botswana and Kenya, to illustrate ongoing aid projects. The Botswana project has only been partially successful, but Kenya has had a very successful series of programmes which are now continuing.

Let me deal first with Uganda. I have spoken about this fascinating country three or four times in your Lordships' House. The last time was when I asked a Starred Question and the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, told me, as I had expected, that although conditions in the country as a whole had improved under President Museveni, there was still a lot of poverty and fighting in the northern and eastern areas of the country. That is true today and only a couple of days ago I received a letter from a Ugandan friend illustrating this. They are very poor; the cost of living is rising at a phenomenal rate. Education and health services seem very poorly developed. I would be interested to know, can the Minister tell us whether British aid is getting through to this part of Uganda?

I turn now to Mozambique, and the information I have here comes partly from the South African Development Co-ordination Conference, partly from War On Want. The President has indicated that this year Mozambique was producing only 25 per cent. of what was produced in 1973. In human terms this means that something like 5 million Mozambicans have been affected by famine and war, 3.8 million of whom face serious starvation. There are 600,000 Mozambican displaced persons in Angola alone.

In February 1988, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe estimated that 1 million people had died and 8 million refugees had been displaced since 1980, as a result of South African aggression. The noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, probably knows this already but according to UNICEF 8½ million peasants have been displaced and 4½ million threatened with starvation. The relief organisation estimates that from 1983 to 1985 at least 200,000 people have died as a direct result of South African repression. The disruption of the health services—so the War On Want report continues—has caused the death of 120,000 children each year; one death every four minutes. Is that not a terrible statistic?

The trouble, of course, is that Pretoria is able to employ its military might and economic muscle to stifle its neighbours' independent development. In 1985 South Africa's gross domestic product was three times greater than the combined GDP of the SADCC. Its economic power gives the apartheid regime a stranglehold over neighbouring states whose economies have been underdeveloped and distorted in various ways. So much for Mozambique—a terrible situation, with very little known about it. I would be interested in any comments which the noble Baroness may have.

Let me turn now to two case studies of aid projects, the first in Botswana and the second in Kenya. Unfortunately, the first case study has not shown wholly satisfactory results. This project was a rather curious one allowing individual commercial ranchers to fence off tracts of land which had previously been grazed on a communal basis. I should perhaps point out that most of Botswana is semi-arid range land and beef is the country's main agricultural export. But the sad thing about this plan was that the policy decision to allow the rich cattle-owners to enclose what they could had the effect of compressing the poorer cattle-herders who still graze the land commonly into an ever-more confined space. Thus by subsidising enclosure on an individual basis without providing adequate safeguards for the poorer communal owners, aid donors had fairly clearly rendered the latter group poorer.

The last country I want to look at—and here I am turning to a very successful project; one must end on a successful note—is Kenya and its rural roads programme. This project was inaugurated in the mid-1970s and it aimed at the construction of some 14,000 kilometres of roads in the rural areas by labour-intensive methods. The programme was supported by technical assistance from various donor countries, including Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK, the USA and the World Bank. By 1980, with poor maintenance of machinery—a major problem in most of Africa—it was decided to use a system of local contractors. These contractors now number some 4,000 and they are all local residents, many of whom had been involved in the construction of roads over the past years.

So we have the rather extraordinary situation where a project has gradually changed from a bulldozer to a crowbar and shovel technology—a remarkable transition, one would have thought, in this day and age. But the fact is that the programme has been very successful and by 1983, under the RARP, some 7,000 kilometres of access road had been constructed and 3,000 had been gravelled.

I can say no more except to ask the Minister one question. In these areas, in connection with nearly all these projects water is of the greatest importance. I wonder whether the Minister could tell us in particular what arrangements are being made for water research in Kenya, Botswana and Mozambique. The Arabs have a lovely saying, "We have created from water every living thing".

6.29 p.m.

The Lord Bishop of Manchester

My Lords, it sometimes helps to put the enormous problems of Africa into a historical context. I have been reading a book recently about the Lancashire cotton famine back in the last century. That may seem a long way from the problems of Africa in the 20th century. I think it is worth a mention because that is one example of the terrible situation that prevailed in Britain during the years when industrial wealth was being created at the time of the Industrial Revolution and when there were various cycles of trade which brought enormous suffering and hardship. Some of the case studies in that book are the kind of things which are very similar to what we have been seeing on our television screens about Africa today.

It is noticeable that the reaction of the dominant classes in Victorian and Edwardian England was very similar to what many people say about the problems of our lopsided world—lopsided in terms of development. It was felt then that one could do nothing about the iron laws of economics; but what one could do of course was to have very generous collections from more affluent people in the South of England. Collections were held in aid of the Lancashire famine victims in London and in other areas. The proceeds were then sent up to that part of the world and they did some good at the time. But people of those days were good on charity to some extent but very weak on justice. That thread has run through British society. It was noticeable that when the Jarrow hunger marchers went to London one of the banners stated; "Damn your charity, we want justice!" It seems to me that this is what is now happening on a world scale.

One can transmute the poor of British industrial society in those days to those who are suffering so much in the third world today and especially in Africa which is the subject of our debate. The struggle should really be a struggle not simply to help the poor, but a struggle for greater equality and a greater share in the world's resources. I should like to know how far the Government are committed to that struggle because it is a matter of the deepest urgency. The moral case for such a commitment is overwhelming, not only from individuals but on the part of governments, too.

If we want the religious dimension all of us would go to different source books. But the great tradition of Isaiah and the prophets and the teachings of Jesus would seem to me to contain ample justification. It was Willy Brandt who wrote some years ago in North South—A Programme for Survival that the idea of a community of nations has little meaning if hunger is regarded as a marginal problem which humanity can live with.

I believe therefore that the commitment should be an urgent one towards much greater equality between nations. As we have heard today, Africa is facing an enormous series of crises in varying intensities between different African countries. They are: the food problem; the debt problem; poverty and the environment; and they are all running into each other. Soil which took 100 years to accumulate is now washed away in a day in certain parts of Africa. There is a Swahili proverb which states: do not borrow off the earth for the earth will require its own back with interest. That is something we might remember.

There are some who claim that these enormous problems in the emerging countries of Africa can be dealt with and should be dealt with through greater freedom of the market. I turn now to one or two brief comments on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, to which I listened with very great interest and some appreciation. One must listen with respect to some of the things that he was saying as regards policies in certain African countries because they are matters which have given us a great deal of concern recently. And yet I do not find that picture of the working of the market very helpful in relation to African societies. I think that all of us would agree that the market does have a part to play, as does freeing restrictions on the market in certain circumstances.

But it was noticeable in what the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, said about the freedom which African countries have had to trade; that he did not mention, for instance, the enormous fluctuations in commodity prices. If one takes the effect of that on copper in Zambia or on sisal in Tanzania, and what that has meant for the economies of those countries, one can see that in those cases freedom in terms of trade has been devastating.

Furthermore, I think that policies in African countries can only effectively be criticised by those who have shown themselves the friends of Africa in a very deep sense. This is especially of course related to the terrible situation in Southern Africa with which we have often been concerned and the efforts by South Africa to destabilise certain neighbouring African countries.

Coming back to the question of the freedom of the market and the way ahead in Africa, I have seen this sometimes represented under the figure of the game of Monopoly. Monopoly is fine if those who are playing it start off from a reasonably equal base and have equal opportunities; but this is not so for African countries today with the kind of constraints from which they have suffered. One could mention briefly some of these distorting factors. One such factor is the colonial heritage.

I am not one who believes that one can go on blaming all the evils of Africa on the colonial heritage, but it would be foolish not to recognise the way in which, for example, trade links have run back to former colonial countries and have distorted the internal pattern of the market in Africa. That has been a powerful constraint. There is a need to develop a proper infrastructure of roads and railways. The road example given by the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, was interesting because that is the kind of thing which does not attract private interests and private development in the same way as governmental help.

I should like the Minister to assure us that Britain is watching very carefully that we do not pursue the policy of pushing third world countries into buying expensive arms when in fact they do not necessarily make people safer, but only poorer.

Refugees are a major constraint on the development of African countries. Surely we must pay tribute to the generosity of Africa which harbours half the world's refugee population—5 million people and millions more who are displaced—when we make a great fuss about small numbers of immigrants coming into this country. Another constraint in Africa is the wealthy elite. The distortion of the African economy is something which has very largely stemmed from colonialism and the kind of standard of living which civil servants and others expect to have, resulting in a crisis of unfulfilled expectations by many others in the African population.

I must conclude by asking the Minister to try to give us some effective answer to why Britain's contribution in aid and in helping to change the terms of trade has been so very poor in recent years. Will she also tell us what is being done to help African students coming to this country, and to improve programmes for them? That is surely one of the most important contributions which Britain can make today.

6.36 p.m.

Lord Vernon

My Lords, I propose to concentrate on an aspect of the problem to which the noble Baroness has drawn attention but which is frequently overlooked. It has very largely been overlooked so far in the debate this afternoon. It is an aspect which is fundamental to reducing the poverty, hunger and debt which so debilitate Africa today. I refer to the quite extraordinary rate of population growth throughout the continent; a rate which, according to the policy study of the World Bank published in August 1986, is slowing development and sharply reducing the possibility of raising living standards.

If one takes Africa as a whole, the present population of 601 million is increasing at an annual rate of 2.8 per cent. and will double in 24 years. In Kenya, which has the fastest growing population in the world, it will double in 18 years. Even in Ethiopia, where we have witnessed famine and bloodshed on such a horrific scale, it will double in 30 years. I have given those figures (and I could of course give many more) because of the ignorance which seems to exist about what is actually happening in Africa. These new people have to be fed, housed and educated. They have to be provided with health care, and, perhaps most important of all, when they are grown up they have to be employed.

One has to ask oneself some rather brutal questions. Is it not vacuous for the Western nations to go on pouring economic aid into these countries if their governments—they are all independent and have not been subject to the colonial yoke for many a decade—-take no effective action to tackle this cancer of over-fast population growth? It may be argued that the majority of African governments now advocate family planning. Too many of them pay lip service to it. A much more determined drive is required if anything worthwhile is to be achieved.

I am not suggesting that this huge continent cannot in due course absorb a substantially larger population than it has today. The right reverend Prelate gave an example of areas in the Sudan which could hold a much larger population—but not yet. Population cannot go on increasing at the present rate without adversely affecting the economic wellbeing of the people, and especially the wellbeing of the poorer classes of society. It cannot increase without intensifying the deforestation, land erosion and desertification which are already taking place on such an alarming scale. That was a theme developed by my noble friend Lord Walston in his speech, every word of which I agreed with.

I am the chairman of a UK charity called Population Concern. In that capacity I visited Lesotho in Southern Africa, Mauritius and South India last winter. In addition to Lesotho, the charity supports family planning projects in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Gambia. It receives much appreciated support from our own ODA and from the EC. Lesotho is a typical example of what I have been speaking about. A huge amount of international aid is pouring in. However, apart from the work being funded by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (the IPPF) very little is being done by the Lesotho Government to encourage birth spacing, which in turn helps to improve mother and child health care and reduce mortality.

On the other hand, Mauritius is a shot in the arm. As a result of a combined initiative by the Government and by the local FPA, the population growth rate has been reduced over a few years to near replacement level, with greatly enhanced economic prospects for the whole island. That shows what can be done where there is a will to do it.

I know that the Government take seriously the rate of population growth in Africa. That is evidenced by their recent decision to appoint a special health and population adviser to the development division in Lilongwe, Malawi. However, I believe that more should be done. First, UK economic aid should not, as a general rule, be provided to countries in Africa unless their governments are firmly committed to a policy of reducing fertility. Otherwise, the aid will be largely wasted.

Secondly, the percentage of overall UK overseas aid made available for family planning should be increased from the present miserly 1 per cent. to a more realistic figure. I have made that request before. I do not hesitate to make it again. Thirdly, NGOs such as ours which work with local NGOs can sometimes make more of an impact for a given amount of money than the large agencies. The ODA has been generous in its funding of specific projects. However, administration and supervision from London are expensive and we may be able to achieve more if a contribution can also be made to core funding. I hope that the Minister will say something about those suggestions when she comes to reply.

6.45 p.m.

Lord Hatch of Lusby

My Lords, since my maiden speech 10 years ago I have spoken many times in this House on the issues of hunger, poverty and debt in the third world. I do not propose to repeat technicalities that I have mentioned previously. I am tempted to debate with the noble Lord, Lord Bauer. However, as he and I debated the subject on television last year, I shall leave it at that.

So long as the African economies remain colonial economies (as the right reverend Prelate has pointed out), so long as commodity prices are determined in London and New York, so long as the IMF acts as the master capitalist organisation in the world and so long as such things as the common agricultural policy exist, Africa will remain poor and become yet poorer. It is a disgrace that the aid programme of this Government has sunk to such abysmal depths. It is also a danger.

When the noble Baroness, Lady Hart of South Lanark, was Minister of Overseas Development, her officials proved that employment in this country directly depends on our aid programme. An example was the closing down of the Leyland factory at Bathurst in Scotland. That factory was tooled up to provide lorry kits for Nigeria and it provided 10,000 such kits a year. When Nigeria, as a result of a drop in oil prices, could only buy 2,500 kits a year, British workers were thrown out of work. We have heard the realities of African life eloquently spoken about this evening. However, those are facts which the British people should know. What have the Government done? One of their first actions was to destroy the plan for development education in this country which we had taken two years to work out, to cost and to get approved by every department of government.

In the short time available to me tonight, I wish to concentrate on man-made disasters in Africa. I wish to speak of the disasters happening now which, it would appear, are endangering lives, prosperity, food production and the whole future of southern Africa. That is based on the supremely powerful position of the Republic of South Africa. The South Africans have two objectives. The first is to preserve white supremacy at all costs. The second is to dominate the whole of the southern region.

The South Africans are guilty of naked aggression in Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Zambia. They are guilty of covert aggression in Mozambique. What are our Government doing about that international aggression? South African troops are in Angola today. Bombs have been dropped on all the countries I have mentioned. In Angola, South Africa and the United States support for UNITA has produced 1½ million refugees. In Mozambique, according to the United States State Department, the activities of RENAMO, supported and equipped by South Africa, have caused 100,000 civilians to be assassinated. That is in addition to what the noble Viscount told us so eloquently about the devastation of that country and the tremendous increase in the number of refugees.

The country of Namibia is associated with that most important, vital resolution of the United Nations—Resolution 435. When we read about the talks that are taking place in London and in Brazzaville, let us not fool ourselves—the South Africans have done that before. They have no sincere interest in genuine peace negotiations in South Africa unless they remain in control. They like to talk and their talks postpone the issue of sanctions; but their central objective is to maintain white supremacy and white domination throughout that region, to destroy the African National Congress and to destroy SWAPO in Namibia.

The British Government appear to have left the whole initiative in southern Africa to the United States. The United States is not a monolithic society, as I shall point out in a moment. The United States' present administration has an obsession about communism and about the Cubans. So they are supplying the destructive forces of UNITA through the Kamina base in Zaire along with, unfortunately, the help of the Israelis. As a result, the whole of northern Angola is being devastated. In the so-called peace negotiations there is a danger that Namibian independence will remain unguaranteed if the United States can get the Cubans out of Angola.

Britain has abdicated responsibility, but Britain is still a member of the contact group which was set up to bring independence to Namibia. Yet the present British Government have been most active in opposing the use of sanctions against the illegally occupying force of South Africa. We shall see in the press tomorrow that yet another attempt is being made to use sanctions—this time, the sanction of gold—against the continued aggression of the South African Government.

I said that the United States is not a monolithic society. A debate is going on right now in Congress to tighten and increase sanctions against South Africa. What is the British Government's attitude towards those in the United States and in Europe and in the Commonwealth, who are supposed to be their friends, who are today attempting to achieve further disinvestment and tighter sanctions against South Africa? What action are the British Government taking at the United Nations in order to stop the aggression of the South Africans which is devastating the whole of the southern half of the continent?

It has been left to the United States, but the United States is a combatant. It supports UNITA. It supports those who are opposed to the government which is recognised by our Government. I suggest that it is a British responsibility and that the British Government are failing in their responsibility. If hunger and poverty are not to be greatly increased in that area, then it is the British Government that should take the initiative now.

Beyond that, there is one final point. We know that both the South Africans and the Israelis have a nuclear capacity. Just think of the dangers in the whole of southern Africa if the South Africans are driven to the point at which their white supremacy is threatened when, as we know, that nuclear capacity exists.

6.55 p.m.

Lord McFadzean of Kelvinside

My Lords, I am not sure whether at the end of my speech the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, will view me as a hard-headed economist or a hard-hearted businessman. All that I can say in self-justification is that in the 1940s and 1950s I spent several years working in the development of the developing territories. One thing that I learned very quickly was that what are often very complex sociological and economic problems are seldom solved by having money thrown at them. I hope therefore that no Member of the House will claim to have a monopoly of compassion. I think that all Members of the House want to see an alleviation of the poverty and misery in Africa. Our differences are essentially differences as to how we achieve that and not in relation to the objective itself.

Probably due to the fact that so many of the conversations and negotiations on development have taken place in international bodies such as the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank and so forth—all of which are mainly attended by politicians and civil servants—the role of governments in the development process has in my view figured far too largely. The politicisation of power which has followed from that is common throughout most of the underdeveloped countries and is true of Africa.

Bilateral and multilateral aid is channelled through recipient governments while the proceeds of the borrowing—of which a great deal has taken place—also finishes up in official hands. If a substantial part of that inflow of capital had been invested in vital projects producing a return on investment, the question of the servicing of the debt would be of manageable proportions. However that was not so. Much of it went to finance current consumption while national prestige projects tended to take over from more practical investment of the scarce resources at the governments' disposal. The resplendent buildings used to house the Organisation of African Unity which were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, were constructed at a time when a large part of the population of Ethiopia was starving. That is only one of many examples of distorted priorities in public expenditure.

Given the manner in which the funds were dispersed it should have been fairly obvious that the servicing of the large-scale borrowing would impose a heavy burden on many of the debtor countries. Yet even commercial banks kept on lending in the apparent belief that a sovereign risk was a low risk, a view which was probably underpinned by the hope that if tragedy struck at least the IMF and the World Bank would come to their rescue.

The noble Lord, Lord Bauer, highlighted the fact that the economic difficulties confronting some of the African states stem from the actions of their own governments only too often having created a climate hostile to private enterprise while successful businesses have been expropriated, sometimes without compensation. The more governments have spread their tentacles over their economies the less effectively have they discharged their prime responsibilities. After years of socialist planning President Nyerere of Tanzania left his successor with one of the world's poorest countries and a debt of over 2 billion dollars. Uganda—which was mentioned earlier—which gained its independence in 1962 as a rich and prosperous country with its coffee, cotton, tea and sugar exports, has been reduced after years of genocidal civil war to what a recent sympathetic commentator called, "a land beyond sorrow".

There is no use in hiding the fact that the results of aid have proved disappointing. Of course, aid has never been a prerequisite of economic development. Except for the period immediately after the last war, all advanced nations in the free world have reached their successive stages of economic development without the assistance of grants from outside sources. Nor is the receipt of substantial aid a guarantee of economic progress. Indeed, those who have received the most have sometimes put up the poorest performance, while aid has played no more than a token part in the advancement of developed economies such as Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

It is almost 70 years since Maynard Keynes wrote: Wealth is not so much gold or even strategic raw materials. It is hard work, brains, imagination, initiative". There is no prima facie evidence to suggest that mainstream aid can create these personal characteristics that are the mainspring of economic development. Indeed, externalising the issue can create the impression that failure is not the fault of the country concerned but the responsibility of third parties. Like the cry of exploitation, it can be a convenient alibi.

The Brandt Report, which was mentioned earlier, advocates a substantial increase in both bilateral and multilateral aid and the creation of yet another international institution in a world already overburdened with a surplus of them. The report displays a distrust of private enterprise and, in spite of all the evidence, an implicit faith in the superiority of governments in the development process. However, private investment benefits the developing countries not only by the transfer of money, but by the transfer of technology, technical skills, equipment and materials and, above all, managerial skills motivated towards the successful utilisation of the resources through the need to generate an acceptable return on the capital involved. It cannot be too strongly emphasised that economic development by private enterprise is not the zero sum game that many of its detractors hold it out to be. All this is appreciated by those countries that have developed to a high level like those in the Far East that I have mentioned.

There is no doubt that aid will be increased. I think that its influence in the development process has been exaggerated. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, that future grants should be geared as far as possible to the policies pursued by the recipient countries.

7.3 p.m.

Lord Caradon

My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House. I want merely to congratulate the noble Baroness who led us into the discussion, which has been very valuable. I look forward to reading in Hansard the figures that have been given and the speeches that have been made, in particular that of the right reverend Prelate with his experience of Sudan. I served in Africa for a number of years, mainly in Nigeria, so the problems are close to my knowledge and experience.

It is important to take up the challenge given to us this evening, and we should all be aware of the problems and the dangers. It is unfortunately true that today fewer people from this country serve in Africa than used to be the case, although there are opportunities for individual service. One of my sons works for Save the Children in Somalia. Another son runs a project involving a big aeroplane that travels with skilled staff from one great country to another helping to advise the authorities in the government concerned on the problems of eyesight, a matter that is very important to poor people who are now suffering.

A few of us can make a valuable contribution but we need to spread the message, to read the reports and to know the figures. I warmly congratulate the noble Baroness who introduced the debate and those who have participated in it. Sparsely attended as the Chamber is, I hope that we may fire a new interest in the welfare and suffering of the people of Africa.

7.6 p.m.

Lord Harris of High Cross

My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, for the opportunity to discuss this issue again in terms of what I found to be a surprising Motion. The surprise is not the reference to hunger, poverty and debt in Africa, which has become an endemic condition despite decades of so-called "aid"; the surprise in the Motion and in the noble Baroness' speech is the absence of new thinking to replace what I regard as a discredited policy.

Time is short and I must speak with unaccustomed bluntness. When I hear the noble Baroness talk again of compassion and when I hear socialists generally deploring hunger in Africa I am put in mind of a convention of alcoholics denouncing drunken driving. In my view the prime cause of hunger and poverty is the collectivist policy that has been pursued by African governments sustained in power by subsidies from the West. It will no longer wash to blame periodic famines on acts of God when they are due to the misguided action of politicians, above all in disrupting agricultural production. There was a whiff of that from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, which I welcomed. Farmers everywhere complain of the weather, yet droughts and floods throughout history have not generally been followed by the starvation and other horrors that we have seen on television.

I wish that the House would face up to a question that I have posed once before in this place. Why does the weather always seem so much worse in socialist countries! There are technical reasons for this. What is it about socialist policies that frustrates the natural tendency throughout history for fluctuating food supplies to serve at least the basic needs of growing populations? The answer in a nutshell is that socialists cannot bear to let markets work their magic in stimulating and spreading output.

Thus by fixing prices too low and taxes too high, governments have discouraged the cultivation of cash crops. By establishing monopoly marketing agencies, they dry up supplies or divert them into the black market. By prosecuting as criminals people they call hoarders, governments prevent the prudent storage of grain against bad times and by persecuting traders as what they call middlemen, they prevent the shifting of supplies from areas of surplus to areas of shortage.

In Ethiopia the Marxist crusade against private ownership of land discourages long-term husbandry, as it must. It has led to casual nomadic cultivation that causes overcropping and similarly overgrazing and the conversion of fertile land into desert, as we have heard from a number of speakers.

The African correspondent of the New York Times Magazine states: If properly harnessed, the arable lands of Ethiopia or Sudan alone could feed most of the continent. Africa has an abundance of natural resources. Given opportunity and a little bit of freedom, its people have shown that they can be as capable as those anywhere else". The lesson is that hunger and poverty in Africa have been perpetrated by much the same socialist policies that have also made Russia dependent on the food surpluses of the West. My complaint is that billions of pounds and dollars have been poured out to prop up incompetent and even corrupt African regimes which have inflicted such sufferings on their own people.

In a debate three years ago on starvation in the third world the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, asked me to study a book called False Start in Africa, published in 1966. I was very glad of the tip. I came across a couple of quotes from his own essay that I should like to share with the House. I gave him notice of this. On page 301 he wrote with commendable candour: Increased aid alone is not enough. A great deal of aid over the past 10 years has been wasted or has actually impeded progress". For that I give him 10 out of 10. Then comes a purple passage which goes to the root of the difference between us. On page 302 he positively levitates into outer space with a sentence as follows: The social and economic revolution needed to break the stranglehold of African poverty can only come from idealism, self sacrifice and dedication". The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, implies that the solution is socialism, which I have argued is the chief cause of Africa's suffering. As always in a constructive effort, I wish to bring into the record a point that I have borrowed from a noble Lord who comes from a less revolutionary, or less reactionary, tradition on the Labour Benches. Last year the noble Lord, Lord Oram, with his personal research assistant, Nora Stettner, produced a remarkable study called Changes in China. He documents the co-operative agrarian reforms which the authors describe as the responsibility system and which is wholly consistent with an open market economy.

The authors acknowledge that, economic efficiency depends on a system of prices as market signals which can effectively match supplies with demands". I could not have said it better myself, but they get even better in this splendid book. It states: With the development of the responsibility system, profit has been elevated to be the primary criterion of economic efficiency". The noble Lord rejects the follies of the cultural revolution for what the authors call the failure to understand what motivates ordinary people, and for seeking forcibly to change human nature.

I am deeply in debt to the noble Lord, Lord Oram, for providing me with a peroration and a pointer for future policy. It appears that perestroika came to Chinese agriculture before it was invented by Mr. Gorbachev. My proposal is that all future aid to Africa is made conditional upon the adoption of agricultural reforms acceptable to an all-party commission comprising the noble Lord, Lord Oram, for Labour, the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, for the Tories, the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, for the Liberal Democrats; and, from the Cross-Benches, I am prepared to volunteer my own services.

7.14 p.m.

The Viscount of Falkland

My Lords, I should like to follow the historic perspective of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. I congratulate him on what I thought was an excellent speech, and for covering so many points in the time allotted.

Surely the problems with regard to Africa and the attitude of the northern rich industrialised world is that they have become locked into a theory which patently has not worked. It surely has its origins in 19th century idealistic economics—as perhaps I may call them—such as expressed by the 19th century economist, Ricardo. Although it is written in allegedly Victorian style, I should like to quote it: It is quite important to the happiness of mankind that our own enjoyment should be increased by the better distribution of labour by each country producing those commodities for which its situation, its climate and its natural and artificial advantages is adapted and by their exchanging them for the commodities of other countries". That is a very laudable piece of writing, and primitive economic theory. I believe that it stands at the base of the misconceptions which were taken up in the 1940s—Bretton Woods and thereafter—with the conventional wisdom that the third world countries should, after they have become a part of the world trade pattern with their commodities, be encouraged to industrialise at all costs. These factors contributed to the extraordinary growth of debt which followed the concentration on making African countries—which were basically agricultural economies like so many of the northern rich countries at one time—ignore their own needs to be self-sufficient in food and hasten on the dangerous path of industrialisation. That industrialisation was financed in a way that they could not afford. It resulted in their having many projects and much technology which was useless to the great majority of their population. It resulted in a great deal of hardships at an early stage.

However, it seemed that the industrialised countries were locked into this conventional wisdom. In Victorian times and in the 1940s we did not have access to the computer programing that we have today. I suggest that many variables were not put into the hypothetical computer. For example, they surely did not see the oil crisis. They surely did not see many of the other disasters of recent times—the escalation of interest rates, and so on—which have all aggravated the situation in the third world.

One asks the question: why do the industrialised rich countries have the attitude that they have towards Africa? Why do they allow this situation to continue? They continue to lend money, albeit with strictures placed on the loans by the International Monetary Fund and other organisations. Why do they seem less moved to act urgently to change the pattern? The answer is that third world black Africa has become marginal in its importance. It accounts for only between 4 per cent. and 5 per cent. of total world trade. It is very difficult to get accurate figures for the total third world debt. It amounts to something in excess of 80 billion dollars. That is only a small proportion of the total third world debt which is about 1 trillion dollars, if we can accept these astonishing figures. Therefore the interest in third world Africa has become marginal.

When the colonial countries went to Africa in search of its riches it was a very exciting area. There were precious gems, metals, exotic foodstuffs and fibres. These were commodities which were exciting earlier in this century. However, many of those commodities nowadays have become uncompetitive in the world market. This can be illustrated with some fairly clear examples. The right reverend Prelate gave a clear example. In Zambia copper has always accounted for something in excess of 90 per cent. of its foreign exchange income. Today, copper fetches a third in real value compared with its price in 1966.

There is no way in which a country such as Zambia can survive. I believe that even to service its debt, which is not very large, Zambia would have to produce a quite extraordinary amount of production per capita; 195 per cent. of export earnings, I believe. That figure would be required fully to service the debt in Zambia. It is not a good example to take of an African country whose difficulties are almost impossible to surmount. Zambia owes 600 dollars in debt per capita, and the GNP of that country is just over 400 dollars per capita so the situation is self-evident. I believe that the International Monetary Fund is having talks with President Kaunda and is suggesting the usual formula which the International Monetary Fund applies in these cases: "Increase your revenues; decrease your expenditure", which goes in the form of devaluation, reduction in public expenditure, denationalisation of state enterprises, and so on.

Kenya is another example of a country which has bent over backwards to fall in line with the IMF strictures. There again, the hardship in that country where they can make great efforts with cash crops is sad to see. In Kenya surveys of child nutrition in rural areas have shown that in recent years 28 per cent. of children under five who were examined were stunted by malnutrition. That is in a country widely advertised as being a third world African country which is going along the right lines.

I see that my speech is running over time, but I should like to refer to an important point made by the right reverend Prelate. That is in relation to arms. It is deplorable and I hope that we might have some statement from the Minister on this matter. In all these countries which have become destabilised by the effect of debt it is noticeable that arms have become a very large part of the expenditure. Either arms are given to them or they buy them. Nevertheless, in Ethiopia (which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, and has the lowest per capita GNP in the third world today, 110 dollars per capita) 13 dollars, is spent on military expenditure and 7 dollars only per capita is spent on health and education combined. That is something which is common in the whole of third world Africa and is extremely worrying. It shows the kind of political destabilisation which has resulted because of the maintenance of this extraordinary theory. The problem is compounded for countries in Africa having to pay more for servicing their debts than they receive in aid from donor countries.

I hope that the noble Baroness can give some assurance that the Government are considering another method by which they can find a more efficient way of developing third world Africa with justice and so that the great mass of people can benefit from food sufficiency and other items which are so sadly lacking.

7.23 p.m.

Lord Oram

My Lords, this evening we have heard a series of speeches which, taken together, give an effective rounded picture of the problems facing the continent of Africa. The speeches included the welcome maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury who spoke so effectively on the basis of his personal experience in the Sudan. We look forward to hearing from him in the future on these and other subjects.

The speeches also included three robust attacks on aid from the noble Lords, Lord Bauer, Lord McFadzean of Kelvinside and Lord Harris of High Cross. I cannot let the last speech pass without thanking the noble Lord for advertising the book which I wrote together with Nora Stettner, but I suggest to him that it was, if he gives a full picture of the hook, a warm description of a socialist economy. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, will continue reading socialist books, and derive continued advantage from them.

As my noble friend Lord Caradon suggested, the debate has added to the great deal that has been written and spoken about Africa's problems in recent years. Perhaps the most recent and authoritative and, indeed, the most challenging report was that which my noble friend Lady Ewart-Biggs summarised so effectively, namely, the report of the United Nations Advisory Group on Financial Flows for Africa which was chaired by Sir Douglas Wass. That report concluded that just to get back to where Africa was at the beginning of the decade, will require additional assistance of about 5 billion dollars a year for the next few years. That is the measure of Africa's economic crisis.

Africa is in a state of permanent crisis—not only the immediate crisis of the starving thousands in Ethiopia which is brought to us graphically on the television screens, but the long-term crisis of permanent grinding poverty and under-development throughout most of the continent of Africa. Living standards are far too low, and in many cases they are falling year by year. The infrastructure is grossly inadequate in terms of communications, housing, education and health services wherever one turns. Moreover African countries are the principal victims of unfavourable terms of trade. They have falling prices for the raw materials they export and rising prices for the goods that they need to import.

All this comes together in the formidable problem of indebtedness—so much debt that the service of the debt is impossible for many African countries to bear. As the noble Lord, Lord Banks, pointed out, the Chancellor of the Exchequer about a year or so ago, recognised the seriousness of the debt problem and on all sides we greatly welcomed the initiative which he took in proposing multilateral action to bring down interest rates on loans to third world countries and to change some loans to grants. I believe that the Government have made some unilateral progress in this respect and perhaps the noble Baroness will be able to tell us to what extent that is so.

But irrespective of such progress in the terms of aid, we need constantly to assess the volume of the Overseas Development Administration's aid programme both in absolute terms and, more important, as a proportion of GNP. We are failing to meet our international obligations. We need a much bigger aid programme. I know that anyone who suggests public expenditure to this Government is told that the problem cannot be solved by throwing money at it. But the problem of Africa is patently one which should have money thrown at it. The size of the problem, the nature of the suffering, the indebtedness, the disastrous decline in living standards are all problems which need money for their resolution.

In 1986 we provided 267 million dollars to aid the countries south of the Sahara. That may sound a lot but it was less than was provided by Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden and of course the United States of America. We are near the bottom of that league. The dismal nature of our aid record is revealed equally strikingly when we look at the overall aid programme measured as a proportion of the gross national product. A number of speakers in the debate have already made the point; namely my noble friends Lady Ewart-Biggs, Lord Listowel and Lord Hatch. However, it is worth repeating that in 1979 net official development assistance was 0.52 per cent. of GNP and in 1987 it was only approximately half as good—0.28 per cent.

That last figure was the subject of questioning in another place only a couple of weeks ago. The Minister for Overseas Development was reluctant to produce the figure but he produced it later in a Written Answer. He put forward a most extraordinary argument about the volume of aid which was that the low proportion—namely,0.28 per cent.—was a result of the rate of economic growth being higher than the growth in the overseas aid programme. He commented that that is one of the perverse consequences of using the percentages of GNP as a measure.

I recall year after year hearing from the Minister opposite a very different tale. We were told that we could not make progress towards the new United Nations objective because we had economic problems at home and that we should first put our own house in order. Now we are told that we have a thriving economy. All is going well and we are leading in the growth targets. At one time we were told that we could not meet the United Nations' target because we did not have the resources and now we are told that we cannot make progress to it because we are too affluent.

In recent days we have heard a great deal about the improvement of East-West relations. We all welcome that even though the pace is slow and the road ahead is long and hard. But North-South relations—the relations between the developed and under-developed world—should be of almost equal concern if we seek to establish a peaceful world. Rescuing the continent of Africa from its devastation must be a crucial and major element in our efforts. An explosion will surely happen if we do not make that effort and overcome the poverty that affects so much of the world.

The sad truth is that Britain is not playing its proper role in that rescue operation. We know that the Minister will tell us about the many projects that our aid programmes support. Of course she will; we hear it year after year. I know from first-hand experience that the work done by the Overseas Development Administration is admirable when it is looked at item by item. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that when all those admirable projects are added together the sum total is woefully inadequate. It does not begin to match our international commitment; it does not match what we can afford; it does not match what Africa needs. As a nation we can afford to do very much more for Africa and we on these Benches declare that we must do so.

7.35 p.m.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Education and Science (Baroness Hooper)

My Lords, the noble Baroness' wide-ranging Motion raises several of the most vital issues of international development. She has rightly concentrated on Africa. For while hunger, poverty and debt are by no means confined to that continent, it is in sub-Saharan Africa that they combine to create the most acute problems. As president of the UK Committee for UNICEF the noble Baroness has direct experience of what this can mean, as have so many of your Lordships who contributed to the debate. Among them I must mention in particular the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury. I should like to add my congratulations to him for his excellent maiden speech.

Speakers in the debate have graphically pointed out the special problems faced by many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The problems of too many African countries are compounded by the huge economic and human costs of external and internal conflict. In that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord McFadzean of Kelvinside.

It is true that sub-Saharan Africa has suffered prolonged economic decline in the 1980s. The debt obligations of many of these countries, although small in absolute terms, or in comparison with the main Latin American debtors, became unmanageable in relation to export earnings as pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Banks. The debt burden is now a serious constraint to development in much of Africa. Sub-Saharan African debt totals about 100 billion dollars, mostly owed to official creditors. Debt service takes over 30 per cent. of export earnings in about 30 low-income African countries. Few of these can escape the debt trap or resume economic growth without external assistance on a substantial scale. But this will be of long-term benefit only where it is used to support sound economic policies. In that I agree with my noble friend Lord Bauer—although I do not agree with his further conclusions—and the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross.

We agree that there is no point in pouring in cash where the policies are wrong. Hence our pressure within the European Community to ensure that its aid to Ethiopian agriculture, for example, was not released until the Ethiopian Government had adopted policies more likely to encourage agricultural production. That pressure appears to have had some results.

Most African countries now recognise the need to introduce economic reform programmes. Such programmes typically involve measures to adjust overvalued exchange rates; to liberalise prices; to restore incentives for the farming sector (thus to increase output) and for private sector investment and production; to improve the performance of inefficient public sector organisations; and to reduce public expenditure by cutting out waste. Over 20 sub-Saharan countries have now adopted growth-promoting development programmes with support from the IMF, the World Bank and bilateral donors. We should never overlook the political courage needed to sustain them, and the need at the same time to try to protect the poorest people from some of the side effects.

Britain, in common with other bilateral donors and the World Bank, has reoriented its spending plans to give greater priority to Africa. Our overall aid programme is substantial. In 1986, the last year for which we have full figures, it was the sixth largest among Western donors, ahead of, for example, Japan, Switzerland and the United States of America in terms of proportion of GNP.

In 1987, net official development assistance was an estimated £1,151 million. I must respond to noble Lords who have criticised the extent of the United Kingdom contribution. I shall not disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Oram, because I must repeat what my right honourable friend the Minister of State said. As a proportion of GNP our contribution in 1987 was equivalent to 0.28 per cent. The fall in the proportion of GNP reflects the strong growth in the United Kingdom economy last year. The 1979 figures, which have been quoted, are artificially inflated by the deposit of promissory notes. The aid expenditure figure for 1979 was in fact less.

The programme is planned to increase in real terms. The aid budget for this financial year is £70 million higher than that for last year—considerably in excess of the expected rate of inflation. The planned aid budgets for 1989–90 and 1990–91 provide for increases of £ 140 million and £185 million respectively over the budget for last year. Within this total programme, our bilateral aid to sub-Saharan Africa has increased from £181.4 million in 1984 to £232.6 million in 1987. And we have taken steps within this aid to increase the proportion devoted to quick-spending balance of payments aid for poor sub-Saharan African countries undertaking economic adjustment programmes.

In 1987–88 we provided over £80 million in this way, over and above existing allocations for development projects and technical assistance. We have urged other donors to follow suit and have been among the most prominent supporters of the World Bank's special programme of assistance for low-income, debt distressed countries in Africa, launched in December 1987. Indeed, I was somewhat puzzled by the suggestion of the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, that we have not supported this special fund for Africa because we are providing £75 million of untied bilateral aid towards this special facility.

Britain then announced the intention of spending at least £250 million over the next three years in bilateral grants to these countries to support the aims of the special programme. We are now taking forward detailed arrangements with the World Bank for the implementation of this programme. Contributions from all bilateral and multilateral sources are expected to amount to about 6.4 billion US dollars, or £3.4 billion at present exchange rates.

Another way in which the World Bank group is helping to encourage financial flows is through the establishment of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency—MIGA—which we recently discussed in your Lordships' House.

Another noteworthy development in 1987 was the agreement to enhance the IMF's structural adjustment facility. This will provide an extra £4.5 billion of concessional loans to poor countries with serious balance of payments problems. Britain is providing the single largest contribution to the interest rate subsidy account, sufficient to subsidise—at current interest and exchange rates—up to £750 million of new lending.

But new money alone is not enough to solve Africa's financial problems. The debt burden itself must be reduced. It is clearly unrealistic to expect the poorest and most heavily indebted countries to repay their debts in full. Hence my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer's initiative has been widely welcomed by African countries. It would apply to poor sub-Saharan African countries following agreed adjustment programmes and consists of three parts of which we have heard but which merit amplification.

First, conversion of past aid loans to grants. The UK has already completed this process for the poorest countries, and has written off £263 million of aid loans for 14 African countries. A number of other donors have done likewise. Secondly, longer repayment and grace periods for official debt rescheduled under Paris Club arrangements; ten countries have now negotiated rescheduling periods of 15 to 20 years compared with the more normal 10 years. Thirdly, lower interest rates on rescheduled debt. We have not yet achieved general consensus among creditors on this point, but believe it is crucial and continue to take every opportunity to press other creditors to agree.

We were encouraged by the support given to the Chancellor's initiative by the report of the UN Secretary General's Advisory Group on Financial Flows for Africa, headed by Sir Douglas Wass, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, referred and which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Oram. We firmly believe that special measures are needed, and soon.

There are a number of ways that developing countries can try to alleviate these problems while still ensuring effective adjustment. We are supporting the efforts of the IMF and World Bank to try out new approaches so that structural adjustment programmes can be designed with their social impact in mind. African countries recognise this need. Perhaps foremost among them is Ghana, which is implementing a programme of action to mitigate the social costs of adjustment. Our substantial programme for that country includes certain poverty focused projects that will complement the aims of this programme of action and we are ready to do more.

In most of sub-Saharan Africa, a strong agricultural sector is the key to sustained growth. The economies of the region are dominated by the agricultural sector. It is the largest source of production, of employment and, for many, of foreign exchange. Smallholder agriculture predominates and is generally more efficient than large state farms. British aid policy recognises the important role of smallholders in the drive to increase production. The key to this is incentives. In many African countries policies have in the past favoured the urban sector at the expense of agricultural producers. Overvalued exchange rates have encouraged food imports and discouraged agricultural production, while price controls have placed an implicit tax burden on farmers. A number of countries are now correcting these imbalances and are literally reaping the results in the form of increased harvests.

Perseverance with policy reform in agriculture has proved successful for a number of countries. There has been a marked turn around in the Tanzanian economy since the economic recovery programme was launched by the president, whom we are so pleased to welcome to Britain this week. Particularly notable was the recovery in Tanzania's cotton production. In 1987 Sudan also benefited from a similar increase in cotton production. Favourable responses to produce price increases have also been seen in groundnut production in Senegal and Gambia, and in rice production in Madagascar. I hope that reassures the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland.

Where appropriate policies exist Britain is willing to provide substantial assistance for agricultural development. About 30 per cent. of our bilateral project aid to Africa goes to the agricultural sector. In addition, part of our balance of payments aid is being used to supply essential agricultural inputs such as fertilisers and veterinary drugs. We are helping to reform inefficient agricultural marketing institutions, and supporting research aimed at developing high-yielding varieties of indigenous crops such as cassava, and at controlling pests and diseases which at present lead to substantial crop losses. The expertise of ODA's specialist scientific units has been brought together in a single body, the Overseas Development Natural Resources Institute (ODNRI), which plays a particularly valuable role in this respect.

World-wide, our aid for natural resources development increased by 75 per cent. in the five years to 1986, and we take care to ensure that all our projects respect the environment. For example, and in response to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, who specifically raised this point, our aid for forestry has increased threefold during the same five years. We would like to do more to tackle deforestation and the fuelwood crisis.

At the all-important grass-roots level, development can often be carried out most effectively through non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which are often able to reach the most disadvantaged groups in ways which are not always possible through government to government aid. ODA recognises the special contribution which NGOs can make to development by providing financial support for their activities in three main ways. First, the joint funding scheme whereby ODA contributes half the cost of projects put forward by NGOs. At the moment 800 projects, undertaken by 50 agencies, are being supported under this scheme. The budget for this type of assistance has been increased this year by 50 per cent. to £9 million. Projects in Africa take the lion's share of these funds.

Secondly, we support voluntary agencies' disaster and emergency relief efforts. ODA through its disaster unit is able to respond quickly and flexibly to their requests for emergency assistance. In 1987, about £15.5 million was committed to 61 relief actions in Africa, of which more than half went through British NGOs.

Thirdly, the ODA provides up to 90 per cent. of the income of the British volunteer recruitment agencies. Our contribution has increased by over 20 per cent. this year to £10.8 million. By the end of this year we expect about 1,600 volunteers in the field, most of them in Africa.

Britain also provides substantial assistance to Africa through our contributions to multilateral aid agencies and the European Development Fund. Under the present third Lomé Convention which runs from 1986 to 1990 we shall be contributing over £850 million of which by far the greater part will go to sub-Saharan Africa. The Lomé Convention also provides substantial trade benefits to the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. Negotiations on a successor convention begin later this year.

The most direct form of action against hunger is the provision of food. There can be no doubt about the vital role of food aid in famine situations. Both bilaterally and through the European Community we play an important role in providing such aid. For example, the failure of the main 1987 rains in Ethiopia has led to renewed famine, with up to 7 million people at risk of starvation. Britain's response has been generous. Since the beginning of 1987, we have committed relief aid totalling over £45 million through bilateral and European Community channels. Noble Lords may be aware that the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs has been considering the question of famine in the Horn of Africa and will be publishing its report tomorrow. The Government look forward with interest to seeing the report.

The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester referred to aid and the purchase of arms. The figures for expenditure on arms by developing countries are notoriously unreliable. Few developing countries have all that much to spend on arms but our aid programme is clearly aimed at improving the development prospects of developing countries that have demonstrated their willingness to adopt policies which make economic sense for their populations.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and others asked what the Government are doing about water. Many of our aid projects are concerned with water supply. Examples are the Burra irrigation project in Kenya and an underground water project in Botswana.

As a Minister in the Department of Education I felt very much in tune with the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury on the importance of education. Indeed, there are many educational sector bilateral aid projects in sub-Saharan Africa. During 1986 we provided about 861 man years of expertise in the field of education alone and supplied 505 man years of education to students and trainees. In 1986, 11 per cent. of all experts working in sub-Saharan Africa and wholly paid for by the ODA were in the education sector.

The noble Lord, Lord Vernon, referred to population control. In 1986 over £15 million was spent on population-related activities compared with £6.5 million in 1981. We want to do more. In Kenya, where they have given priority to reducing population growth, we have seen a success.

I believe I have responded to most of the points raised but I may have missed some because of the exigencies of time. Perhaps I can conclude by saying that the Government recognise the need for discussion between developed and developing countries on matters of mutual economic concern. Experience has shown us that constructive dialogue on specific issues is more valuable in addressing the real problems of the developing world than the gradiose attempts of the past to establish global frameworks for discussions between North and South. We welcome the increasing trend for developing countries to recognise their responsibility for their own development. For our part, we stand ready to help those who help themselves.

The Lord Bishop of Manchester

My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, can she comment on press reports which have indicated that over the past few years not only has the overseas aid programme been slashed four times as hard as government expenditure as a whole, but also that if the programme had continued in the same way and at the same level as in 1979 we would now be spending £1,100 million a year more on overseas aid?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, because of the time factor perhaps I may write to the right reverend Prelate on that point.

Viscount Buckmaster

My Lords, perhaps the noble Baroness will permit me to say that I did not criticise Her Majesty's Government in the way that she indicated. I think that the report in Hansard will bear that out. My only reference to the Government's activity was in the sphere of water development.

7.55 p.m.

Baroness Ewart-Biggs

My Lords, I believe I have time to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I thank also the Minister for answering very fully, and for the tone she used. I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury on his speech, and I am happy that he chose this debate in which to make his maiden speech. I am also delighted that he chose to speak about the Sudan.

I have taken in exactly what was said by the three noble Lords who opposed the very concept of aid. I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who accused me of bringing out all the old arguments. In fact, I was trying very hard to present a new idea which I think replaces many of the old ideas. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.