Overseas Aid: Discussions with NGOs (Hansard, 24 July 1996)

§ Baroness Chalker of Wallasey
My Lords, Ministers and officials regularly meet representatives of the non-governmental organisations to discuss development issues. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary met a wide-ranging group of such NGOs on 23rd January. I had a follow-up meeting with them on 16th May. Further such meetings are planned for later this year. Individual meetings on specific issues are held whenever necessary, such as the meeting last week on Sudan and the Great Lakes Regions.

§ Lord Judd
My Lords, will the noble Baroness accept our warm and genuine congratulations on her seventh anniversary today as Minister for Overseas Development?

Noble Lords
Hear, hear!

§ Lord Judd
My Lords, will she also accept our sadness at the fact that her obvious and consistent humanitarian concern has repeatedly been undermined by her senior colleagues in an aid budget which is down by almost 50 per cent. as a percentage of gross national product since they came to office in 1979?
Has the Minister studied the recent UNDP human development report, which demonstrates that the sustained and successful economic and social development of countries such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and China has been based on a strong partnership between government and the private sector, with government giving priority to land reform, education, health and other social infrastructure and to the redistribution of wealth to reduce the gap between poor and rich? What lessons do the Government draw from that? Will they now discuss with NGOs and others how those lessons can be applied elsewhere?

§ Baroness Chalker of Wallasey
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for his kind congratulations. Seven years may seem a long time, but they have passed in a flash and I am game for at least seven more.

Noble Lords
Hear, hear!

§ Baroness Chalker of Wallasey
My Lords, I am not sad about the actual amounts of money because during those seven years I have seen that what counts is what one does with money. It is simply no good throwing money at many of the problems of the developing world. What is important is how one applies the money. Indeed, the amount has increased in real terms and certainly the NGOs, which in 1994–95 received £185 million as compared with £65 million in 1989–90, know full well that we will back worthwhile projects wherever they arise.
As regards the UNDP human development report, as I have already told the noble Lord, Lord Judd, we support its main thrust. The importance of human development as an end in itself and as one of the means to increasing incomes is fundamental to our work. That is why the ODA is committed to promoting human 1380 development in order to improve the quality of life of people in poorer countries. That, indeed, is one of the four central aims of the ODA' s work.

§ Lord Clark of Kempston
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the record of Her Majesty's Government is excellent and that we are one of the leaders in the EU as regards overseas aid? Does she further agree that it is a mistake merely to look at government intervention and that we must also look at private enterprise intervention, which has been extremely high because we have a sound economy in this country?

§ Baroness Chalker of Wallasey
My Lords, my noble friend is once again right.

§ Lord Graham of Edmonton
She means it.

§ Baroness Chalker of Wallasey
My Lords, I should say to the noble Lord that I do mean it. This country has more than 1 per cent. of GNP going on private investment. It is the private investment which can take on from the fundamental work of government investment through the development programme. If there were only government development programmes, those countries would never make changes and alleviate the poverty about which the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and I are so deeply concerned. That is why there must be a contribution from the private sector as well as from governments across the world which will make it a safer and less unhappy world in which to live.

§ Lord Redesdale
My Lords, is the Minister aware that one of the main issues about which the NGOs are campaigning at present is the issue of landmines? Does she not agree that Britain could show a lead to the world and show its disgust of those weapons by taking a unilateral step and banning the production of landmines in this country?

§ Baroness Chalker of Wallasey
My Lords, nobody who has walked through wards of limbless children in Angola, as I have, can be in any doubt that landmines should be done away with as soon as that is possible. But it would be both short-sighted and naÏve to take unilateral action. We must get landmines out of the system of weaponry but we should also like to see many other weapons out of that system. But let us be realistic and carry on with the excellent demining work which is done by so many, both in the voluntary sector and with the help of the services in this country. That is making a great difference to people in lands which have been mined.