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Dr. Jenny Tonge (Richmond Park): I am glad that the hon. Lady has mentioned AIDS orphans so early in her speech. Does she agree that, even if we manage to control the growth in the number of AIDS cases anywhere in Africa, the fact that there are already 6 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa is a huge problem for the future? Does she ever speculate on what will become of those children? Will they become child soldiers? Will they become involved in civil war? Will they go into prostitution? Does she think that we, as an international community, should put much more emphasis on the needs of those children?
Mrs. Spelman: I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. We stand united on the question of raising the salience of AIDS orphans, and I do speculate about the issue. I sometimes think that the solution will be on a scale that no one has thought of hitherto. To put things into proportion, I was speculating that it would almost take something like every family in this country adopting an AIDS orphan to arrive at the scale of support that those children need. We do not provide that scale of support currently.
Sadly, the global health fund cannot successfully simultaneously tackle AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis with its limited resources. I wonder whether the Secretary of State agrees that something practical could be done if the fund's limited resources were targeted to provide free antiretrovirals for at least the pregnant women who are HIV-positive. The continent might then stand some chance of raising a generation free of that terrible disease. I feel that the Government have allowed AIDS to slip down the agenda. There is public complacency about AIDS in this country, and it is very difficult to get our countrymen and women to comprehend the scale of the problem when they hear that they can get the necessary life-prolonging drugs on the NHS. The Government must do much more to get this subject back up the agenda. If Africa is failing, it is doing so because it is dying, and we have the resources, if not to cure people, at least to sustain life.
Conflict, as the Secretary of State said, is another reason why Africa is failing to meet the millennium development goals. Many states are still involved in
active conflict; others are dealing with the aftermath; and many remain volatile. I have asked the Secretary of State before what is the Department's model for working with a failed or failing state, but the Department does not seem to have an answer. Conflict prevention also seems to have slipped down the agenda. I feel that we do not learn from the examples of failed states and apply those lessons to new scenarios. We as a country continue to give aid to countries that knowingly perpetuate conflict.I find it extremely frustrating that the United Kingdom is one of Rwanda's major donors, yet there is clear evidence of Rwandan involvement in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The departmental report for this year says that the amount of aid that our country gives to Rwanda will increase. I should like the Secretary of State to explain to the House how he can feel comfortable about giving much more to a nation that is making life so difficult for its neighbour. We supported putting an end to tied aid, but the Government have somehow failed to make aid effective in the promotion of good governance. Surely the Government have the power to threaten to remove some of that aid if that involvement in the Congo continues.
Mr. Tom Clarke: Some hon. Members were in the Democratic Republic of the Congo a few weeks ago, where we met the President and others. He did not take the somewhat negative view that the hon. Lady is taking about Rwanda; nor did he suggest that we should punish the poor in Rwanda because we are trying to find a solution in the Congo. Does she agree that the dialogue begun by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short)—I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is continuing it—with Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC is extremely important if we are to find a genuine solution to that conflict?
Mrs. Spelman: The right hon. Gentleman has long and respected experience of international development. The dialogue is not working, however—it is not stopping rebels going from the Rwandan and Ugandan border to perpetuate the conflict in the eastern Congo. I am simply looking for a tool—clearly not to penalise the poor in that country, as no one in this House would wish to do that—with which to bring the message to the Governments of Rwanda and Uganda that perpetuating the conflict in the Congo must stop.
Hugh Bayley (City of York): May I tell the hon. Lady that during that visit, my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke), I and other Members had an interesting discussion with members of the new interim power-sharing parliament? They took the view that what was needed to get the so-called negative forces—the Rwandan irregular forces—out of the eastern Congo and back to Rwanda was aid to Rwanda so that those forces would have a livelihood if they went back to their own country. The aid that our country gives to Rwanda is part of the solution to getting the irregular Rwandan rebels out of the eastern Congo and back across the border to their own country, where they can prosper if a rural livelihoods programme is provided through our aid and assistance.
Mrs. Spelman: Again, I respect the hon. Gentleman's long-standing interest in and knowledge of international
development. I lack confidence in his theory, however, because current amounts of aid to Rwanda are not stopping the incursions by those rebels. Why should we therefore put more money in the same direction? I do not find the argument compelling. I want to find a tool that will work to pull the rebels out. The most recent report on my desk—I am not sure when right hon. and hon. Members visited the Congo—shows a deteriorating rather than an improving situation. All Members must face up to the fact that what is happening in Kinshasa is very different from what is happening in Ituri.On the wider subject, I feel that all too often the Department turns a blind eye to examples of poor governance. Tanzania, for example, when given $3 billion of debt relief to be spent on health and education, bought instead a new air defence system. Uganda, too, has been rewarded with aid for very good things, such as reducing AIDS infection, increasing primary education and access to water, all of which are laudable. Meanwhile, a terrible civil war rages in northern Uganda, and in 2002 there were 4,500 child abductions alone. Therein lies my concern: the Government's policy of writing what amount to blank cheques to Governments means that the aid does not necessarily get to the people who need it. When we cannot rely on Governments, surely we must get aid to the people who need it in other ways: through non-governmental organisations, faith-based organisations and even the private sector. We must find those other ways.
As the Secretary of State said, one of the mechanisms that should help good governance is the New Partnership for Africa's Development. We had high hopes for NEPAD, but it has fallen at the first fence with Zimbabwe and has led even the African press to be sceptical. The Kenyan Daily Nation newspaper calls NEPAD "wishful thinking" and Botswana's Mmegi newspaper commented:
- "History shows that African leaders see no evil and hear no evil when dealing with errant leaders."
- "an abiding impression that expectation of Zimbabweans from all backgrounds is that the British Government should be able to do something to help".
I welcome the Government's recent announcement of food aid because such aid is vital, but it is like putting a plaster over a bleeding wound, especially if the aid is diverted to those who should not be the first priority. When will the Government take a lead in the international community and tackle the root cause of the problem? What will the Secretary of State do to ensure that Zimbabwe is at the top of the agenda during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in December? I was asked what we should do. The people of Zimbabwe really need free, fair and democratic elections that are overseen by international election monitors so that they can secure the future that they want without the fear of violence and intimidation.
To the man-made disasters of Africa are added the natural disasters of erratic rainfall and attendant famine. In the southern African region as a whole last year, 14 million people faced starvation. The Department for International Development made the mistake of minimising the scale of the famine by initially describing it as "localised shortages". In addition to that, 13 million people in Ethiopia need food aid this year. Do the Government accept that they were far too slow to react to the warnings of famine, and will the Secretary of State tell the House what they have done to improve their response this year?
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