HL Deb 07 October 2002 vol 639 cc9-10WA
Lord Moynihan

asked Her Majesty's Government:

How they will achieve the objective of improving the "effectiveness of the UK contribution to conflict prevention and management as demonstrated by a reduction in the number of people whose lives are affected by violent conflict and a reduction in potential sources of future conflict, where the UK can make a significant impact", as outlined in the HM Treasury document 2002 Spending Review: Public Service Agreements 2003–2006 (Cm 5571). [HL5755]

Baroness Amos

The Government are committed both to preventing violent conflict from emerging and to building peace in fragile post-conflict situations. The main global instruments are international development co-operation, political and diplomatic efforts and sanctions. We are working with the UN, EU and other partners to improve the effectiveness of all these measures.

In addition we created two conflict prevention pools on 1 April 2001 to improve the effectiveness of the UK contribution to conflict prevention and management. The Africa Pool (for sub-Saharan Africa) has been allocated £50 million per annum from 2001–04 to spend on conflict prevention programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. The Global Pool budget (for the rest of the world) was £60 million in 2001–02, £68 million for 2002–03 and £78 million for 2003–04.

Both pools work towards the PSA target by combining the direct conflict prevention work of the three departments most directly involved in conflict prevention—FCO, MoD and DfID.

Most of the funds allocated to the Global Pool have been divided among a set of geographical and thematic priority areas:

  • The Balkans
  • Central and Eastern Europe
  • Russia and the Former Soviet Union
  • Indonesia and East Timor
  • The Middle East and North Africa
  • Afghanistan
  • Belize/Guatemala
  • Nepal
  • Sri Lanka
  • Small Arms and Light Weapons
  • Strengthening the UN
  • Security Sector Reform
  • EU Civilian Crisis Management
  • The OSCE and Council of Europe.

The thematic priorities are of potential benefit to countries in both pools.

Ministers have agreed the following geographic/thematic priorities for the Africa Pool in 2001:

  • Sierra Leone
  • Great Lakes (DRC, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda)
  • Angola
  • Sudan
  • Nigeria
  • South Africa
  • Building African Peace Support Capacity
  • Tackling the Economic and Financial Causes of Conflict.

In addition the pools contribute to the additional cost of the UK assessed and non-assessed contributions to support UN and other peace keeping and peace-enforcement operations. In 2001–02 these included commitments in Sierra Leone, DRC, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Macedonia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Iraqi no-fly zones.

A report on the activities of the pools in their first year will be published later in 2002.