APPENDIX 1
Memorandum submitted by Christian Aid
Christian Aid is the official relief and development
agency of 40 British and Irish churches, working with communities
in over 60 countries through their local organisations. It aims
to strengthen the efforts of poor people to achieve self-sufficiency
and to address the root causes of poverty by investing in development
education and campaigning at home. Churches here and internationally
are our natural partners, but Christian Aid seeks common ground
with all people of goodwill who side with the poor.
1. DISASTER PREPAREDNESS
The slow, hesitant and unco-ordinated response
to the catastrophic flooding that engulfed southern Africa, and
particularly Mozambique, in February 2000 demonstrates (yet again)
that current institutions and response mechanisms remain inadequate
to address what are likely to be increasing numbers of similar
sorts of emergencies in the coming decades.
Christian Aid believes there is an urgent need
for effective international co-operation in disaster relief and
mitigation. It is our view that this can best be achieved not
by establishing a "super worldwide" surveillance and
response mechanism but by establishing or strengthening these
at the regional level, usually within the framework of existing
regional organisations. This would help to ensure both that local
sensitivities are respected and that local organisations are strengthened.
In the southern African case, the most appropriate body to which
a sub-regional response and surveillance mechanism could be grafted
would be the South African Development Community (SADC) which
already has a regional Food Security facility. It is these organisations
which must take the initiative in establishing regional disaster
preparedness networks with a rapid reaction component. Clearly
these would need to work closely with the donor community and
multilateral organisations such as the United Nations Disaster
Relief Organisation (UNDRO) as well as to have access to the best
available international forecasting, early warning systems and
related technologies. They would need to be created in the context
of a pool of international funds and other resources to which
they could gain speedy access as and when needed and in the framework
of an international agreement on the topping up of funds from
donor and other agencies.
What plans does the UK Government have for actively
promoting strengthened regional disaster preparedness networks
at the international level?
Does the Government support the formation/enhancement
of regional rapid reaction forces?
Is DFID/FCO satisfied with current arrangements
for UK and internationally co-ordinated responses to emergencies?
2. POVERTY AND
AID
Poverty plays a key role in exacerbating natural
disaster, in increasing the numbers of people vulnerable to risk,
and in inhibiting a state's ability to be prepared for emergencies
and to deploy resources to respond. Major advances in disaster
management have been concentrated in the world's richer countries
and in those with high and sustained growth rates. It is 25 years
since a hurricane claimed more than 100 lives in North America,
but over 15,000 died in Honduras the Western hemisphere's second
poorest country, after Hurricane Mitch in 1998, through poverty's
dual impact.
The UK Government has been playing a leading
international role in helping poor countries to give priority
to raising growth rates in the context of policies that focus
on poverty eradication. However, poverty persists in many developing
countries and there remain serious concerns about the achievement
of many, if not most, of the internationally agreed targets by
the year 2015. Christian Aid in particular is concerned that:
— many poor country economies are failing
to achieve high growth rates—in a number population growth
rates continue to exceed economic growth rates;
— income and wealth inequalities continue
to widen in many poor countries as the political and economic
elites reap disproportionate rewards from the process of globalisation;
— the stabilisation and adjustment
policies advocated by the international finance institutions are
still failing to address, let alone, alleviate the particular
problems of significant groups of poor people;
— the downward global trend in aid
flows (temporarily reversed in the period from 1997 to 1998) together
with the increasing need to channel more and more funds to disasters
is leading to fewer and fewer aid funds available for development
promotion and long term poverty eradication.
In terms of global aid levels, what time-frame
plans does the British Government have to reach the 0.7 per cent
of GNP targets for official aid flows?
What steps is the UK taking to lobby other donors,
especially the United States and a number of key European partner
donors to commit themselves to higher and sustained official aid
flows?
Christian Aid believes that the UK's planned
development assistance expenditure for Mozambique of £37.5
million for 1999-2000 and £38.7 million for 2000-01 should
not be utilised for emergency funding and that emergency and rehabilitation
funding must be additional to planned programme funding. Can DFID
confirm that the planned programme expenditure of £37.5 million
for 1999-2000 and £38.7 million for 2000-01 will not be reduced
to partly pay for emergency funding?
3. DEBT
Unpayable international debt is a major structural
cause of poverty in the South. This year's budget for primary
health care for Mozambique's 19 million population is $20 million
a year and for education it is $32 million. Yet, the country's
annual debt repayment has recently been estimated to be $73 million
a year.
Reconstruction for Mozambique will require significant
resources in the medium and long term for repair of infrastructure
(eg roads, bridges, rail and the electric grid), agricultural
regeneration and health and education provision. Recent Government
of Mozambique figures judge that at least $630 million will be
needed for reconstruction, even though international experience
suggests that this figure is likely to rise very significantly
in the weeks ahead as the true cost of the overall damage is assessed.
Given the extremely limited resources available, the Mozambican
Government is faced with Hobson's choice: either it trims pre-flood
expenditure to pay for new needs arising from the flood or it
lowers levels of planned expenditure to pay for flood relief,
relief and reconstruction. (The fall in the proportion of government
expenditure allocated to the army over the past 10 years has been
higher in Mozambique than possibly any other African country.)
It is therefore essential that the international community respond
to this need by cancelling both bilateral and multilateral debts
owed by the Mozambican Government. Its foreign debt currently
generates over US$1.4 million a week in repayments.
Mozambique's total external debt is currently
US$6.4 billion (over £5 billion). Britain has pledged to
accept no more debt repayments from Mozambique. Meanwhile, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have announced
a deal to suspend Mozambique's debt service for one year. But
with the new money Mozambique needs to rebuild an already poor
export earning capacity made worse by the floods (Mozambique's
export earnings have halved in value in 23 years) it is likely
to end up in even greater debt. As Mozambican economist Carlos
Castel-Branco says, "We cannot pay our debt with water. The
Word Bank will not accept water. But it is all we have."
What action are we taking to ensure other creditors,
especially those within the European Union, follow the UK's example
of cancelling their bilateral debts with Mozambique?
Will Britain use its voice within the IMF/WB
to press for those bodies to cancel all of Mozambique's debt to
them?
4. THE EUROPEAN
UNION
The Government's White Paper on International
Development states:
"Within the EU we shall work closely with
other member states and the European Community Humanitarian Office
(ECHO) to ensure more consistent joint policies and approaches".
(p. 44)
Is HMG satisfied with the response of the EU
and more specifically ECHO to the current and ongoing Mozambique
emergency?
If not, how does it believe the EU response
can be improved in future and what role does it envisage HMG playing
in achieving that?
5. GOVERNMENT
CO -ORDINATION
The White Paper on development, Eliminating
World Poverty: A Challenge for the 21st Century, is a Government
not a departmental policy document: indeed this is a point which
is highlighted in the White Paper itself. Does the experience
and response to the Mozambique floods not indicate that in practice
there remains still a lack of harmony across departments, and
perhaps even a lack of cross-governmental commitment to implementing
the policies of the White Paper? For the White Paper states unequivocally
that:
"In responding to emergencies, we aim to
provide swift, appropriate and cost-effective financial, material
and technical assistance, based on analysis of actual need . .
. The UK's capacity to respond to disasters overseas will be strengthened
by tapping the vast reservoir of available skills and building
partnerships within the public and private sector to ensure that
all players are used to their best competitive advantage. In
all disaster work, our responsibility must be first and foremost
to those affected". (p. 44, emphasis added).
Where there is a major emergency and technical,
logistical support, and equipment need to be deployed quickly,
what mechanisms exist across UK Government and internationally
to ensure a rapid and effective response? Is DFID happy with these
arrangements?
Is it recognised that when such support is necessary,
other government departments will only charge DFID the additional
(marginal) costs likely to be incurred in providing needed resources?
How can Britain improve its response to rapid
onset emergencies?
6. BUILDING CAPACITY
IN MOZAMBIQUE
In recent years, Britain's aid support to Mozambique
has rightly focused on helping the Government to build, deepen
and strengthen local capacity. This is illustrated, for example,
in the assistance given to the education programme, including
support to teacher training, support given to rebuilding the Customs
Service, and the technical assistance given to the Ministry of
Planning and Finance (including through the Overseas Development
Institute's Fellowship scheme) both to build capacity in general
and to provide help in writing the Poverty Eradication Plan.
It is vital that this thrust of the aid programme
is not merely continued in the emergency assistance Britain is
now giving to the country, but that the floods and their aftermath
are used as a new and important opportunity to deepen and expand
capacity building.
Does the DFID believe that its current plans
for its emergency response pay sufficient attention to capacity
building in linking relief to development? Can DFID provide examples
to illustrate the continuing importance of this priority?
There are a large number of international NGOs
in Mozambique; but also a growing number of local NGOs and civil
society organisations. What measures is DFID taking to ensure
that the support it is giving to the flood, and especially in
this context the channelling of resources to and through NGOs
and civil society organisations, are consistent with its overall
Mozambique aid programme which has been praised for the emphasis
it has given to building local capacity?
Christian Aid
13 March 2000
| 
