Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
BARONESS AMOS,
MR TOM
FLETCHER, MS
SALLY HEALY
AND MR
GRAHAM STEGMANN
TUESDAY 16 JULY 2002
Chairman
1. Minister, thank you very much for coming
this morning to talk about Africa. Before we start, I think generally
as a Committee we welcome the announcement yesterday of the extra
£1.5 billion in the overseas development budget to 2006,
which I think gets us up to 0.4 per cent of GNI, which although
it includes money for debt relief, goes further than the G7 average
and perhaps particularly notable and good news was that the amount
allocated to international development was double the amount given
to the Ministry of Defence. Perhaps there is a signal there for
colleagues elsewhere in the world to take note. Of the four horseman
of the apocalypse which face Africa, that is famine, AIDS, corruption
and conflict, I suspect that the one with which the Foreign Office
most closely interfaces is conflict. I just wondered how you and
your colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office saw the
international community helping with conflict resolutions in Africa.
We have heard a lot about prospects of peace in Sudan, the Democratic
Republic of Congo and Angola, but I would welcome your thoughts
on what progress you think has been made there. We have a large
military presence in Sierra Leone but, no sooner do we seem to
have resolved one area, than another area of conflict emerges.
Clearly the situation in, for example, Zimbabwe is pretty depressing.
I welcome your thoughts on how the Office see helping resolve
conflict resolution in Africa.
(Baroness Amos) There is no doubt that
conflict has destroyed or has the potential to destroy many countries
in Africa. Both in terms of our foreign policy priorities and
also in terms of our development priorities, it is absolutely
critical that we not only deal with the countries that are currently
in conflict but that we try to work to prevent conflict and, in
that sense, Africa is the continent where we have to put in our
best efforts. The G8 Africa Action Plan makes specific reference
to the conflicts in DRC, Angola and Sudan because there was very
strong feeling that, with concerted international effort, we could
consolidate the very fragile peace in Angola following the signature
of agreement between UNITA and the Government of Angola and that
there is a real opportunity in the DRC and we saw last week that,
in the margins of the OAU meeting in Durban, there were some positive
signs about the possibility of greater progress in DRC. We also
feel that the work we have been doing with the US and with the
Norwegians in Sudan could also bear fruit in the coming year.
These are sensitive and complicated areas where we need to work
with our African partners, where we need to support the initiatives
that are coming out of Africa and where we need to ensure that
the role played by the international community is a positive and
not a negative one. In saying that, I am thinking particularly
about the fact that countries like ourselves and France, and Belgium
to a certain extent, have a particular history in those countries
and it is very important indeed that we do not bring the negative
elements of that history into our consideration of the future
of those countries. We have seen the commitment by this Government
to work collaboratively across Government with the establishment
of the Conflict Prevention Pool and that has been very important
indeed. On Sierra Leone, we know that we need to work very hard
to consolidate the democratic process there. We are all very pleased
indeed at the outcomes of the election and that we managed to
have an election process that was broadly judged by the international
community to reflect the wishes of the people of Sierra Leone.
I myself will be chairing a meeting of the Security Council in
New York on Thursday looking at the Mano River Union because we
must take on board what is happening in Liberia and Guinea and
the potential that continues to exist for destabilising Sierra
Leone in that respect. So, we recognise the importance of dealing
with conflict, not just in terms of resolution but prevention
and consolidating peace when it happens.
2. Would you like to say a little more about
the Conflict Prevention Pool. That is a piece of shorthand that
maybe is worth expanding on a little.
(Baroness Amos) In countries like Nigeria, for example,
where we have seen a number of different ethnic conflicts arising
over the years, you feel it is important that we not only work
with the Government of Nigeria with respect to those conflicts
in ensuring that they do not spread across the country—we
must remember that a quarter of all Africans live in Nigeria—but
that it is important for us to work with the Government of Nigeria
to ensure that the right kind of secure and stable environment
exists within the country. So, it is working on areas like working
with the Nigerian Government with respect to reform of the armed
forces and working with them on reform of the police services,
for example. It is that kind of work that must improve in terms
of conflict prevention.
Tony Worthington
3. Can we talk about NEPAD and how it is going.
When we got to know of it, it seemed like a bolt from the blue;
it was very, very welcome. I think that there are two issues,
really. For it to succeed, it is going to need a superstructure
bringing together the nations of Africa and the previous pan-African
organisation has been eliminated and a new organisation is there.
Is that going to be the structure for harmonising across Africa?
The other and perhaps the most important part is about the ownership
of NEPAD. In informal discussions with African politicians, one
does not get the impression that it has moved in a very significant
way on to their agenda and, if it is not on their agenda, it is
not on civil society's agenda. What is your impression of how
both these areas are developing, first of all at the pan-African
level and within countries about ensuring that it is more than
a declaration, it is the involvement of a continent?
(Baroness Amos) I think there are probably three different
elements in there. Can I first of all say that, in a way, NEPAD
was not a bolt from the blue in the sense that there was a process
that started off with something called the Millennium Africa Plan
which was brought through and developed by President Mbeki at
the end of the 1990s. That was brought through together with an
initiative by President Wade of Senegal which was the Omega Plan,
which was very much about infrastructure development in Africa.
That then became the New Africa Initiative which became the New
Partnership for Africa Development. So, there was a process of
development over three years. In terms of the structure and how
I think Africans want to see this development developed, there
is no doubt that there was a discussion about the best institutional
arrangements for NEPAD. When this was first considered, it was
very much seen an exclusive process where a number of like-minded
governments in Africa could work with a number of like-minded
governments in the west and then demonstrate the value of working
together in terms of promoting development. By last year, what
had happened was that the New Africa Initiative, which was considered
at last year's OAU meeting, was brought into the structure of
the OAU, so it became an inclusive rather than an exclusive process,
but with a small secretariat funded by the South Africans and
located in South Africa operating separately to the OAU but delivering
a concept that had been endorsed by the OAU. At the most recent
meeting in Durban, there was still ongoing discussion as to how
this will work in practice. We continue to have the secretariat
which will service NEPAD but there is an Implementation Committee
which is made up currently of 15 Heads of State and this will
be expanded to 20 Heads of State chaired by President Obasanjo.
The peer review process which has been agreed will now be brought
under the umbrella of the African Union. We do have some concerns
about that in the sense that the African Union is growing up now
out of the process that was the OAU. We have discussed in the
past with our colleagues in Africa the fact that it can be a somewhat
bureaucratic structure with which we have to deal. So, we do have
some concern that we do not want to see the lightness of touch
which we had in developing NEPAD through the NEPAD Secretariat
and the Implementation Committee lost by the fact that there is
now greater integration into the OAU structure. However, I think
it is much too early to say whether or not there will be a superstructure.
I think that the core objective for African countries, as it has
been explained to me, is that they would like countries to self-select
in and recognise that NEPAD will bring them benefits rather than
countries being excluded from NEPAD at the outset of the process.
In terms of the civil society agenda, concerns have been expressed
by civil society organisations in Africa, but also in the UK and
in other countries, that there had been a lack of consultation
with civil society organisations with respect to the development
of NEPAD. One of the things that we have been trying to say is
that this is not an exclusive process. While it is important to
recognise that the leadership of NEPAD is coming from within Africa
and from within African governments, civil society organisations
have been arguing over many years that they want to see that kind
of leadership demonstrated by governments in Africa. To then argue
with the governments that then have a vision and demonstrating
that leadership I think is slightly problematic. Having said that,
I do think it is important that the consultation processes continue
with civil society organisations. There have been some over the
last year and African leaders themselves are committed to continuing
that consultation.
4. You referred to the peer review mechanism.
I would like to know a little more about the Government's declaration
and that peer review mechanism which I understand was to be approved
at the meeting of the African Union last week. Could you let us
know the outcome of that and what is being said in the declaration
on democracy, political, economic and corporate governance.
(Baroness Amos) The process that has been developed
is that the UN Economic Commission on Africa has been working
with the NEPAD Secretariat to develop the core elements of a peer
review process which would be used within the context of NEPAD.
That peer review process is extremely comprehensive and quite
lengthy. I would be very happy to ensure that copies are made
available to the Committee, but it runs through the structure
of the peer review process and the fact that participation will
be open to all Member States of the African Union. It is proposed
that the operations of peer review process would be directed and
managed by a panel of between five and seven eminent persons who
would be Africans who had distinguished themselves in careers
that are considered to be relevant to the work of the peer review
mechanism and it is proposed that the members of the panel would
serve up to four years. The paper then goes into the types of
the peer review mechanism and the programme of action and identifies
four types of review. The first would be a country review which
would be the base review carried out within 18 months of a country
becoming a member of the African peer review process. Then there
would be a periodic review that would take place every two to
four years. In addition to that, a member country could ask for
an additional review that is not part of the mandated periodic
reviews and, if there were early signs of impending political
or economic crisis in the member country, that would be sufficient
cause for instituting a review. So, it is an extremely comprehensive
process. It then goes through what the stages of the peer review
process would be. I think the test will be the implementation
of this. A considerable amount of work has gone into developing
the peer review process, but the acid test will be implementation
once the weaknesses have been identified in member countries in
terms of political and economic governance and recommendations
have been made with respect to ways of dealing with that, the
extent to which that is taken on board by member countries and
the process that is used by other countries to hold those countries
accountable to the recommendations that have been agreed.
5. These are early days and I can see the power
of the peer review has been missing, but how does that link in
with poverty reduction strategies, which is also about reviewing,
and NEPAD, which is about partnership which must also be about
reviewing? Is there any thinking coming forward about that?
(Baroness Amos) The link with NEPAD is absolutely
clear. From the African perspective, the African peer review mechanism
is the core element of the NEPAD process. This is about African
leaders talking about holding each other accountable and the peer
review mechanism which has been developed for NEPAD is central
to that. In terms of the processes which are gone through PRSPs,
the relationship between the two has not yet really been thought
through and there are elements of the peer review process which
are very similar to the elements that countries go through when
they are developing a poverty reduction strategy. So, this is
further work which I think will be developed as the peer review
mechanism comes on stream. May I just say one further thing in
relation to that. One of the issues we have been working very
hard to ensure is that we do not burden countries too much with
respect to PRSP process and I think that one of the issues we
would have to work to ensure is that the capacity of resources
of African countries is not all channelled into PRSPs and/or doing
the African peer review mechanism which actually then prevents
implementation of the strategies and policies which will deal
with poverty reduction.
Mr Robathan
6. Minister, I agree entirely with your last
comment and also I agree with your acid test because I come to
this with a certain amount of scepticism. I understand—and
correct me if I am wrong—that the peer review will be voluntary
and is it the case that the results will be published?
(Baroness Amos) It will be voluntary in the sense
that countries will choose to opt in and, yes, it will be a transparent
process and the documents will be published.
7. Has there been any discussion about what
indicators will be used or is that still in the discussion process?
(Baroness Amos) There have been discussions about
indicators. There are complicated indicators that look at what
is happening to a country in terms of its economy, looking specifically
at some of the macro-economic indicators but also political indicators
including the state of its legal structure, for example whether
a country has a parliament or not, how often it has elections
and a whole range of indicators that fall squarely within governance
criteria.
8. Can I turn briefly to the idea of a reciprocal
accountability which I understand came out of the G8 summit, that
donor behaviour would be assessed by African countries. Might
the Economic Commission of Africa participate in the OECD's peer
review process? Is that planned? I do not know a great deal about
that.
(Baroness Amos) What currently exists is a process
within the OECD, which is a peer review process for member countries
of the OECD. What has been proposed is that African countries
could participate in those peer reviews of those OECD countries
with the agreement of those OECD countries. There has been a long
discussion within the G8 about the notion of mutual accountability
and what this actually means because the core of the G8 Africa
is the establishment of a new partnership between the G8 and African
countries. What that new partnership is about is that African
countries commit themselves through the African peer review process
to putting in place and creating the right kind of enabling environment
for, for example, investment, putting in place the right kind
of structures and policies in terms of governance. What the G8
then pledge to do is to reward those countries that deliver on
those improvements in terms of additional support to facilitate
their development. The Prime Minister has described it as a `deal'.
That is the core of the G8 Africa Action Plan.
9. I am happy with that as far as it goes. Can
I turn to my scepticism. NEPAD, as I recall, was announced by
President Mbeki with President Obasanjo and the President of Algeria
whose name currently escapes me.
(Baroness Amos) President Bouteflika.
10. President Mbeki has famously been rather
reluctant to condemn what has been going on in Zimbabwe where
we have 46 per cent of the population starving while he is closing
down working farms and everything else, not to mention his involvement
in lead and diamonds in the DRC. President Obansanjo was of course
a military dictator. The Committee recently visited Nigeria and
I have to tell you that, having travelled a lot in Africa, I and
other colleagues were fairly shocked by what we found. We have
a country where, putting it in one simple term, in 1980, the GDP
per capita was approximately $1000 each year and it is now somewhere
between $300 and $400. Not bad for 20-odd years! Frankly, I was
literally appalled and have never been so shocked by the corruption
that we saw there in all sorts of ways. I know that Obasanjo is
trying but I do not think he has got that far yet. I do credit
him with trying. Finally, the situation in Algeria is not good
and I am sure your Department's advice to British tourists is
not to travel there. I do not know but I suspect it. What I am
asking is, what confidence can we have, notwithstanding our optimism,
that there will be progress? More than that, if you have a voluntary
peer review mechanism, what will happen to the bad performers
or those who do not take part in the voluntary peer review mechanism?
(Baroness Amos) Can I first of all say that the group
that is the core group in terms of NEPAD actually involves five
leaders: Presidents Mbeki, Obasanjo, Bouteflika, Mubarak and Wade.
They are the core, and then there are the 15 who form the Implementation
Committee as I mentioned earlier. There has been a great deal
of scepticism about the NEPAD process and much of this has been
around what is happening in Zimbabwe. I think we all recognise
and condemn the continuing levels of harrassment and violence
that we see in Zimbabwe. We are all appalled by the humanitarian
crisis and the fact that half the population could need supplementary
feeding by March of next year. We have been disappointed by some
of the reaction by our African colleagues to what has happened
in Zimbabwe but we have made progress. The Commonwealth Troika,
which included President Mbeki and President Obasanjo, after the
Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in March, together with
Prime Minister Howard of Australia, suspended Zimbabwe from the
Councils of the Commonwealth. Presidents Mbeki and Obasanjo have
worked tirelessly. You will recall that last year, President Obasanjo,
facilitated the meeting in Abuja where we sought to deal particularly
with land reform in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe made commitments at that
meeting which it has not kept and President Obasanjo had worked
tirelessly before that process and since that process to actually
try and bring about some change in Zimbabwe, and Presidents Mbeki
and Obasanjo had sought to bring the two sides together by facilitating
a process of dialogue between the two parties which had broken
down. I know that they have both given fairly strong messages
to Robert Mugabe, but I think it is very difficult—and we
ourselves have seen this—to fight the degree of international
condemnation of Zimbabwe. It is very difficult in a country where
those who are taking leadership positions in their country do
not appear to care one jot as to what is happening to their people.
We have seen the product of economic mismanagement in Zimbabwe
which is having terrible consequences on other countries in the
region. So, there is no doubt that the situation in Zimbabwe has
cast a shadow over the NEPAD process, but it is our strong view
that we cannot hold an entire continent to ransom on the basis
of what is happening in one country. In terms of peer review process
and your question regarding what confidence we have, I think we
will have to see what the peer review process delivers. In terms
of our own aid budget at the moment, we are already committed
to working with those that are committed to the reform agenda.
We of course continue to give humanitarian assistance to countries
that do not meet the reform criteria, but we will not give significant
levels of bilateral assistance to countries that do not meet our
reform criteria and that will continue to be the case and that
will be the case with respect to NEPAD and the G8 Africa Action
plan because the core of the Action Plan is a commitment to good
governance, to governing justly, to ensuring that countries adhere
to the rule of law.
11. I do not claim that it is easy and I think
the Government's policy is a sensible one. One has to have optimism
or one would just retire and, frankly, cry in the corner because
of some of the things one sees, but it is not just Zimbabwe of
course, is it? Zimbabwe is involved with DRC and I will not go
into the details of that. I have recently been in Sudan and there
is so much in Africa and of course we want it all to go well,
but my constituents ask me, "Why have you been to Sudan?"
and I say, "Because a civil war has been going on there for
45 years" and they ask, "Why are we giving money"—not
to Sudan but to Africa—"when it is so misspent?"
and this is the crux of it, really. It is not just one country.
We need to see your acid tests. Do you have any idea how we will
enforce in any way G8's views on them if they do not come up to
scratch?
(Baroness Amos) I have two things to say in relation
to that. The first and very important point is that Africa is
made up of very different countries; they are in very different
places and different stages of development. So, you have countries
which are in the midst of conflict, countries coming out of conflict
and countries which have the potential to be mired in conflict
if we do not work on our conflict prevention agenda. We, in the
last two years, have seen a number of countries where there has
been a peaceful transition in terms of democratic elections. That
is not something that we have seen consistently on the continent
before. You mentioned specifically Nigeria and some of the difficulties
in Nigeria. This is a country that has never, since independence,
had a peaceful transition from one democratically elected government
to another, which means that the elections which are coming up
next year will be a test for democracy in Nigeria. Yes, there
are enormous difficulties and great frustrations across a continent
where we have seen the capacity of individual countries on the
African continent to, for example, meet the Millennium Development
goals go backwards. Why should we continue with our development
efforts? Because there are a number of countries that are committed
to a different agenda; they are committed to a reform agenda,
to making sure that they put in place policies which will contribute
to total elimination; they are committed to working to clean up
public service and to deal with the corruption. It is important
that we support those countries to do that and that is an absolutely
key element of our development strategy.
Mr Colman
12. In the FCO memorandum which you have submitted
to us[2],
you say, "The G8 Action Plan announced in Kananaskis on 27
June is a significant response to NEPAD but not the totality of
the international response." What is the relationship between
the Action Plan and the work going on in the existing institutions
such as the WTO and World Bank? What does the Action Plan add
to the existing declarations? What is the additionality?
(Baroness Amos) I think that the first
and most important thing to say is that G8 leaders very much wanted
to give a political response to the New Partnership for Africa's
Development, so one of the core elements of the G8 response is
that this is a political response and there has always been a
recognition that the G8 is not an implementation mechanism, that
we have the UN, we have independently the European Union, we have
the international financial institutions and we have the WTO;
we have a host of organisations, including the World Health Organisation,
all of which have an implementation element to them. So the G8
Africa Action Plan is not going to create an implementation mechanism.
What we see are the commitments which have been made by the G8
being implemented through the mechanisms which already exist.
So, it is not setting up a whole new super structure internationally.
13. That sounds a little marginal in terms of
the additionality if it is simply a political statement pulling
together everything that is existing at the moment.
(Baroness Amos) It would be wrong to say that it pulls
together everything that exists at the moment. If you think about
it, the G8 consists of the eight rich industrialised nations.
We have the OECD, we have the European Union and we have a whole
range of work which is going on in development terms which is
not just narrowed and focused on the G8, and what the G8 made
absolutely clear at the beginning of this process was that the
G8 response would be only part of the response to NEPAD. It is
a comprehensive response. There are eight areas which are represented
in the document where the G8 want to see additional action. The
additionality here is the fact that we are talking about the richest
nations in the world taking Africa and taking development seriously
and putting these issues at the top of the agenda despite 11 September
and despite the pressures in terms of what is happening internationally.
For example, at the time of the G8 meeting recently, we had the
centrality of the crisis in the Middle East, we had the concerns
about what is happening in India and Pakistan, we had the weight
of the terrorism agenda and yet Africa retained its place and
its weight on the agenda and at least one-third of the time and
the discussion at the G8 meeting was on Africa. I believe that
we cannot underestimate the importance of having G8 leaders focus
on Africa giving them weight to initiatives coming out of other
places. For example, the G8 Education For All Task Force mentioned
specifically the work that the World Bank is doing on wanting
to fast-track a number of African countries to meet the Education
Millennium Development Goals. So, the G8 have committed to increasing
their own bilateral resources to ensure that those goals are met
with respect to education. I do not think that we can underestimate
the added value of that, but also the weight of the political
commitment which has been given by G8 leaders and they have said
that this, for them, is not the end of the process. They have
requested a report at their meeting next year to see how far we
have reached in terms of implementing the commitment which they
have made.
14. You mentioned it is good that the rich countries
are involved in this, but would it not be better if it were in
fact put through the OECD, which of course is the normal way of
co-ordinating donor assistance? Would the OECD not be a better
counterpart to NEPAD?
(Baroness Amos) I think it is very important we remember
that all of the different organisations will have a response to
NEPAD. The G8 response is but one response and the G8 themselves
have said that this is the beginning and not the end of a process.
In the discussions that we, as G8 African personal representatives,
had with colleagues in developing the Africa Action Plan, we actually
had a meeting with representatives of what we call the 0.7 group,
which is a group of donors who have reached 0.7 or have gone beyond
0.7 because they have an extremely important role to play, and
they themselves are sceptical of the role that the G8 is playing
given that G8 countries are not the ones with the highest GDP
ratios. So, I think we are well aware of that but, at the same
time, we cannot underestimate the impact that the fact that the
G8 have talked about these issues and that these issues have been
at the top of the G8 agenda has had globally.
15. When you gave evidence to our sister committee,
the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, on 14 May, you were quoted
as saying, in relation to G8's response to NEPAD, that ".
. . at its core, lies the notion of selectivity." What are
the implications of such selectivity for poor performers and what
will the G8 do to ensure that poor performers are not further
marginalised?
(Baroness Amos) The G8 identified three different
categories, as it were. There is the notion of working with what
are called enhanced partnership countries and, if I can quote
from the document, it talks about G8 countries focusing their
efforts on countries that demonstrate political and financial
commitment, good governance, the rule of law, investing in their
peoples and pursuing policies for economic growth and to alleviate
poverty, and it goes on to talk about matching African countries's
commitments with a G8 commitment on our part to promote peace
and security in Africa, to boost expertise and capacity, to encourage
trade and direct growth orientated investment. The document then
goes on to talk about the kind of relationship that we would see
with countries that do not meet those enhanced partnership criteria
and it includes the fact that the G8 would work as a matter of
strong principle with countries where the humanitarian need remains
universal and the G8 has committed to working with those countries
independent of what the particular political regime in those countries
might be. On the NEPAD side, part of the reason that they wanted
this to be an inclusive and not an exclusive process is that they
would like to demonstrate to countries that are not committed
to the reform agenda the benefits of the reform agenda and that
is very important for them. So, the G8 and NEPAD come at it from
slightly different perspectives but, at the heart of the initiative
is wanting to ensure that poor performers actually recognise that
there are benefits to be had from governing justly and from putting
their own people at the heart of their agenda.
16. Are you suggesting that the donor policy
should be in fact to have less overseas aid go to those countries
who are poor performers despite the fact that they may be the
countries with the very poorest individuals?
(Baroness Amos) The evidence is that if a country
has a poor policy environment, then the impact of the work that
we are able to do in those countries is not as great as in countries
with a better policy framework and that has been the basis of
the way in which we in the United Kingdom have been developing
our policy for some time.
Hugh Bayley
17. I am still not quite clear whether our Government
see the G8 as driving the process or whether they see the G8 as
having done its part of the job and it would just have a report
next year to see what others have done too. So, specifically,
is it the G8's intention to present its Action Plan to all the
implementation bodies that you have mentioned, to the UN, to the
OECD, to WHO, to the EU, to the WTO, to encourage those bodies
to support the plan and to play our own parts in implementing
it and to seek their commitment that they will do so, since we
are members of all these bodies, and then will we be seeking reports
back to the next G8 meeting on what the G8 has persuaded others
to contribute? In other words, is the G8 leading this process
or is it just one of many corks bobbing about in the sea seeking
to respond to NEPAD?
(Baroness Amos) The G8 is driving its own process
but it does not see itself as the G8 as driving the process in
other fora although individual G8 countries will drive the process
in other fora. So, for example, in the context of the European
Union, we have four EU countries around the G8 table that will
want to bring some of the issues that were agreed around the G8
table and, in particular, for discussion around trade and market
access and will want to see that discussion brought into the centre
of discussion at the European Union. It is no secret that there
is a difference between the European Union countries and indeed
between the European countries that sat around the G8 table with
respect to trade and market access issues. This is an area where
the UK Government have really sought to bring about change. We
would like to see fundamental reform, for example, of the common
agricultural policy and we want to see greater market access.
We will need to persuade our EU colleagues that that is the case.
So, there is a G8 agenda. The process will continue in terms of
the African personal representatives who were appointed by each
of the G8 leaders and we have now been asked to pursue the Action
Plan in terms of ensuring implementation by our individual governments,
but also to meet collectively to ensure that the G8 as a whole
is meeting its commitments to report back to the G8 next year.
18. I appreciate that the G8 cannot commit other
countries and bodies. That must be clear. One would have to go
to those other bodies and seek to persuade them that they should
support the agenda. This is not an easy project. There have been
plans to generate Africa's development in the past which have
failed and making this one work is enormously important and it
will be enormously difficult. When you have a difficult political
goal, unless there is absolute clarity about where the leadership
is coming from, it will not happen. I remember six months ago
in one of the debates that we had about NEPAD during the formulation
process expressing worries about where the leadership in Africa
was coming from: from the Economic Commission for Africa, the
five Presidents, or from Mbeki's Secretariat. Some progress has
been made in Africa; there is the group of 15 and there is the
Secretariat, but surely African leaders are asking, "Where
is the donors' high command? Where is the centre of leadership?"
Who are the people to whom we look to deliver a response from
the developed world? If it is a little bit or response that comes
from the World Health Organisation and a little bit of response
that comes from the EU and a little bit of response that comes
from the OECD and others will do their part, there will not be
the political leadership and drive on our side of the bargain
to make the bargain delivered.
(Baroness Amos) I was going to come on to that. The
Africa Action Plan is a comprehensive document. If I just, for
example, go through four areas. The peer review element of this
which sits squarely within NEPAD in terms of the African element
of it is that we would expect the OECD to work with our African
colleagues on the elements of the peer review that apply to the
G8. On the elements in the Africa Action Plan which relate specifically
to peace and security, there are large elements of that where
the G8 and the individual countries within G8 will be working
with the UN to deliver on those commitments and in fact there
is a proposal with respect to the conflicts in DRC, Angola and
Sudan to establish contact groups, which is a proposal that actually
came from the UN Secretary General. So, the UN would have an absolutely
core role. On trade, I mentioned the European Union but clearly
the Doha/post-Doha negotiations through the WTO will be the mechanism
for delivering on the commitments made in the Africa Action Plan
with respect to trade. On education, the G8 Education Task Force
produced a comprehensive report looking at education and endorsing
the World Bank fast track proposals with respect to ensuring that
a number of African countries, 11 in the first wave, are able
to meet the Millennium Development Goals with respect to education.
That will be a bilateral commitment by individual countries actually
upping the amount they give to education but the body that will
oversee the achievement of that will be the World Bank. It is
absolutely clear in the document and it is stated in the document,
although I have to say that I cannot find where at the minute,
that the implementation mechanisms will be through these different
fora. In terms of your question about the political leadership,
the fact that African personal representatives in individual countries
plus our leaders in a year's time will be wanting to know exactly
what has been achieved and where and how in terms of the commitments
that were made in Kananaskis I think is a driving force behind
the G8 element of that. I think it is also really important to
distinguish between what G8 leaders have committed, and this is
not a response to the totality of NEPAD. I think that is the other
point I would like the Committee to understand. The G8 always
said that they would think about the areas where they, as the
G8, could add value. So, there are areas of NEPAD that are not
reflected in this Action Plan in terms of the priority that our
African colleagues have given it and that is because those are
areas where the G8 do not necessarily feel that they can add value
to those areas. It is very important to remember that the NEPAD
process and NEPAD itself will have a response from different parts
of the international system. I think that does lead into what
I believe is at the base of your concern, which is that you can
then have a number of different initiatives popping up all over
the place which, in totality, do not actually deal with the major
problem of development on the African continent. We recognise
that we do have to watch that very, very carefully indeed, but
one of the important things that we all see about this G8 Action
Plan is that it has not fallen into the trap of being about small
individual initiatives and is much more a comprehensive document
focusing on the elements of the new partnership and not focusing
on money; it was never intended to be a pledging conference, it
was very much about defining the new partnership. We wanted to
see some more in this document, not just on the trade aspect but
also on some of the aid effectiveness and some of the aid coherence
agenda, which we think can really drive through and make change
in the way that donors work with African countries, but again
it is the first step, it is not the end of the process—I
would really like the Committee to understand that—it's
the beginning of a process.
Mr Battle
19. While it is a fact that our Prime Minister
brilliantly took the initiative to get Africa on the agenda at
the G8, listening to the debate and discussion, I am less clear
as to what G8, as G8, actually adds through the Action Plan. I
think they actually go a little further, certainly in the preamble
of the Action Plan in terms of driving a process. You said that
it was pledging but in paragraph 9, there is a reassertion, ".
. . substantial new development assistance commitments were announced
at Monterrey. By 2006, these new commitments will increase ODA
by a total of US$12 billion per year." It goes on very boldly
to say, ". . . we believe that in aggregate half or more
of our new development assistance could be directed to African
nations . . . This will help ensure that no country genuinely
committed to poverty reduction, good governance and economic reform
will be denied the chance to achieve the Millennium Goals through
lack of finance." Yet there is no reference to finance in
the whole document apart from the reference to the HIPC shortfall
that was not allowed for originally and should have been there
and has been put back in. It does say in paragraph 10, "We
will pursue this Action Plan in our individual and collective
capacities . . ." and I wonder what those collective capacities
are. Then it says, "We will take the necessary steps to ensure
the effective implementation of our Action Plan . . ." What
are those steps to ensure the effective implementation? What is
the Action Plan adding to NEPAD that our own Government are not
already doing, for example?
(Baroness Amos) Let me try and go through those areas.
You mentioned paragraph 9 and the commitment that half or more
of the Monterrey money could be spent in Africa. At Monterrey,
it was agreed between the European Union and the United States
that there would be an additional $12 billion for development
assistance. That commitment was made at the Financing and Development
Conference, not at the G8. Where the G8 has added value is by
G8 leaders saying, "We have made that commitment in terms
of $12 billion. We are now making it clear that in terms of the
enhanced partnerships and countries in Africa which commit to
governing justly, abiding by the rules and so on, that half or
more of that money could go to Africa." So, in March, we
have the $12 billion—
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