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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 494-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Kenya: DFID's Country Assistance Programme and Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals See also: DRAFT COUNTRY ASSISTANCE PLAN http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/cap_kenya_draft.pdf Wednesday 24 March 2004 RT HON HILARY BENN MP, MR MATTHEW WYATT and MS FELICITY TOWNSEND Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 43
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the International Development Committee on Wednesday 24 March 2004 Members present Tony Baldry, in the Chair Mr John Battle Mr Tony Colman Mr Quentin Davies Mr Piara S Khabra Mr Andrew Robathan ________________ Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Rt Hon Hilary Benn, a Member of the House, Secretary of State for International Development, and Mr Matthew Wyatt, Head, and Ms Felicity Townsend, Senior Education Advisor, Department for International Development (Kenya), examined. Q1 Chairman: Secretary of State, thank you very much for making time to be with us this evening. It was very good of you to fit the session in. If I could just say, as much to those at the back of the kirk as to you, as a Select Committee, we sometimes find ourselves in the rather curious position of going on visits to countries where DFID has large bilateral programmes but, because of the curious rules of the House, it is difficult for us to take verbatim evidence that appears as part of the record of the House. DFID in Kenya organised what we all thought was an excellent seminar on the Country Assistance Plan and what NGOs and civil society wanted to see in Kenya. We thought it was so good that one of the ways in which, of course, what they said could become evidence and part of the record of this House was by our having an inquiry, and that is what we are doing. However, I want to make it very clear that we are not seeking to second-guess the Country Assistance Plan; we are not in a position to do that, we do not want to do that, and we certainly do not want to set a precedent whereby it is felt by DFID or whoever that we are trying to look at each and every Country Assistance Plan, but because we have been there so recently, and we were engaged in thoughts on Kenya so recently, we thought it would be worthwhile to do an exercise whereby at least all of it is on the record. So thank you very much for helping us with it. There was quite an interesting comment in the Economist a few years ago, which was, I think, entitled "The Kenya-Donor Dance." It said, and I quote: "Over the past few years Kenya has performed a curious mating ritual with its aid donors. The steps are (1) Kenya wins its yearly pledges of foreign aid; (2) the government begins to misbehave, backtracking on economic reform and behaving in an authoritarian manner; (3) a new meeting of donor countries looms, with exasperated foreign governments preparing their sharp rebukes; (4) Kenya pulls a placatory rabbit out of the hat; and (5) the donors are mollified and the aid is pledged and the whole dance then starts again." Actually, one of the things which struck us as being interesting in the seminar that was hosted by DFID Kenya - and I think it was Andrew who observed this - was that nobody actually asked us for money. It is the first time we have been in a situation where people did not have money at the top of their agenda, and indeed, many of the participants stated that what Kenya did not need was more money from donors. I wondered if you felt there is a sense in which Kenya is and has had to be more self-reliant than its neighbours over the last 10-15 years and, if so, to what extent and how does this preference for self-reliance alter the nature of DFID's approach to assisting Kenya? Hilary Benn: First of all, can I think you, Mr Chairman, for inviting me to come and give evidence. I probably do not need to introduce Matthew Wyatt, who you will have met, and Felicity Townsend from the DFID team. Q2 Chairman: We are extremely grateful to Matthew and his team for facilitating a really good visit. Hilary Benn: I am very glad that is the case. Secondly, I appreciate the opportunity of what I am sure will be a conversation about the work that we are doing in Kenya and the process of the development of the CAP. As I understand it, the Committee is not planning to produce a report as such, but one thing I wanted to say right at the beginning was, if you have any opportunity for reflection on what you have had in the way of written evidence and the session we have today and there are any views that you wanted to express, formally or informally, as a Committee to us, I would be very happy to receive them, because, having been through the consultation process on the CAP - and the plan we have, of course, is to produce a final version, drawing on all the sources of advice and feedback that we have had - it would be very useful to have any of the Committee's views to contribute to that process. I was very interested by the quote that you read from the Economist. You said some years ago; you do not happen to know when? Q3 Chairman: 1995, so a few years ago. Hilary Benn: It is a very interesting description of a process, and I am, I suppose, relatively new to it. Clearly, in recent years, and certainly since the election in 2002, there has been some real progress in terms of the democratic process in Kenya, and I think everybody recognises that. There is the progress they have made on universal primary education, and I was interested in what you had to say about people not having asked you for money, but clearly, the contribution that we were able to make alongside others to support the lifting of user fees has resulted in a very tangible benefit, which has been the increase in enrolment in primary education. I think there is some debate still about the precise numbers, but it is certainly over a million, and I think the government is suggesting that it could be slightly more than that. I think if one looks back at the history, corruption has been a particular problem, but the new government has certainly taken steps to try and address that and to change what might have been the traditional picture, and it is interesting to look at what Transparency International have reported, namely that Kenya is now in a different position on their league table than was the case previously, and there have been significant judicial reforms. The private sector is doing reasonably well, although one of the reasons why, certainly in our view, some of the key Millennium Development Goal indicators in Kenya have worsened in the last ten years, particularly income, health and education, is in part due to corruption, but is simply the fact that population growth has outstripped economic growth. We are trying to have an open and honest relationship and dialogue with the government of Kenya, and to develop a CAP which reflects the priorities that they are setting through their Economic Recovery Strategy, the ERS, which is, of course, their version of the PRSP. If you look at the elements of our programme, we are making a significant contribution on HIV, on malaria - where the bed net programme is a very tangible benefit, because we estimate so far that this may have contributed to saving 40,000 lives, and we are looking to extend that programme - the money we have put into education, about which I have talked already, and other things to do with water and sanitation, extra classrooms, and so on, and I hope it will not be, as far as the future is concerned, a continuation of the Kenyan dance, as the quote described it, but us working as an important donor in the country to support the government in taking the country forward, recognising that in these key areas of health and education and income, things have actually worsened in the last 10 years, and that is why we are anxious to help, and that is why our programme is increasing in size. Q4 Mr Colman: Could I welcome to this evidence session also, but not giving us evidence, the distinguished High Commissioner from Kenya and other representatives of Kenya. Everyone here is very much a friend of Kenya, and if our questions sound particularly aggressive, it is that we are searching for truth, and nothing beyond that. I think, Chair, the Kenya donor dance stopped in 1995 and, regrettably, has now been taken up after seven years of the dance coming to an end. I very much welcome the fact that DFID are having this new look at the Country Assistance Plan. If things do unravel, if things - pray God it does not happen - go wrong, if HIV/AIDS is not sufficiently tackled, if there are problems with the government implementing its Economic Recovery Strategy, how does DFID intend to track and manage these risks so that we do not get back into the bad past, as it were, and is there a danger in channelling too large portion of assistance to the government, which as yet is not able to prove its poverty reducing credentials? Hilary Benn: Clearly, if the bad things that you refer to, Mr Colman, in your question were to come to pass, this would present a very big challenge. On HIV/AIDS, as I am sure you saw when you were in Kenya, in the last year or two there appears to have been some stabilisation of the prevalence rate, and that undoubtedly represents progress, although we have expressed some concerns about the effectiveness of the arrangements within the country for managing that process and that has been the subject of discussion at a number of different levels. Clearly, if those circumstances arrive, we are going to have to address them. It is very important that we are able to manage both the progress of the elements of our own programme and also the way in which the spending of the government of Kenya on what I think collectively we regard as the priority sectors actually moves. One thing that is very striking - and it in part links to the point that you raised about health - is the disparity between expenditure that goes on education as opposed to health, because education spending is a significant proportion of the revenue budget and it has increased in recent years. In health it is nothing like as significant a proportion and I think one could probably argue that health has been under-funded, certainly in comparison with the amount of money that has gone on education, and of course, infant and maternal mortality are getting worse. Also, an interesting statistic which I came across: I am advised that 15 per cent of the health budget goes on the Kenyetta Hospital and 5 per cent of the health budget goes on preventative work in general. That is just an example. Q5 Mr Colman: Will you be setting benchmarks in each of these areas? Hilary Benn: I do not know whether Matthew wants to say anything about how the monitoring work is being undertaken in detail relating to the programmes. Mr Wyatt: We are having a dialogue with the government on the overall nature of the budget, and within that the government itself has said that it feels that the expenditure on preventative services in health is too low, so they are looking for ways to increase that, and we are hoping that they will increase it and we have made that very clear to them. The budget is in June, so the process is ongoing at the moment, but that will certainly be one of the things that we will be looking at as we develop our partnership with them. Q6 Mr Colman: You will be setting benchmarks in other areas too? Mr Wyatt: We are not setting benchmarks, but what we will be doing when we look at the budget, and in particular, as we are considering, as we say in the CAP, the case for providing direct budget support, we will want to look in the round at the budget and to see whether or not the expenditures which really benefit poor people, of which preventative health care services are one, are in general increasing, but we do not feel we are in a position to set benchmarks ourselves at the micro level. Hilary Benn: That is true; the fact that we are not in a position currently to consider direct budget support reflects our assessment of how things are going, but Matthew is entirely right that, were we to get to that point, as we do in our relationship with other countries, it is very important if you are going to use that as a mechanism for giving some of your development assistance that you can see very clearly, by the decisions that the government takes about the way in which it allocates expenditure to poverty reduction, to health and to education, that it is moving in the right direction. That is fundamental to that kind of relationship. Q7 Mr Battle: This draft Country Assistance Plan seems very thorough, and it seems very well tied into the ambitious Economic Recovery Strategy for wealth and employment creation, but I wonder if I could ask you this: having read it myself, I was left wondering what you see as the key changes that have taken place to previous approaches. What is new in it? How do the plans for engaging with the government differ from previous approaches, particularly where you have had experience in the Department in Africa, and elsewhere in the world really, with countries that have emerged from authoritarian regimes in the past? How do you see it as a new direction and a new dynamic? What is special about it that could be leading us on a new way forward in our approach, or maybe it is not? Hilary Benn: I think your last comment is very pertinent. Clearly, the circumstances in the country have changed with the election of the new government, and I alluded to some of the consequences of that in answer to the Chairman's original question. I happen to think that the process by which the CAP has been drawn up and then consulted upon is a really good model, not least because of the extent of the comments which we have had from people in response to it, and the fact that this then gives us an opportunity to reflect. If one just looks at the comments that we have received, people were positive about the emphasis on accountability; the priority we have given to HIV/AIDS for reasons, I think, that we all understand; the need to work both on demand from citizens - because a significant part of the work that we do is about trying to support the political process doing what it ought to do, which is citizens asking things of government, because that is government's job, to respond and to provide, but also to support the government in improving its ability to respond to those demands and to supply basic services; donor harmonisation, which, of course, is a theme that runs right across the work we are doing n a number of countries; recognising the importance of agriculture to grow from poverty reduction - and I know you had a submission from Farm Africa - and being involved with the Ministry of Finance on public financial management and revenue. None of those I would describe as unique, but those, if you like, are the positives. Then people have made comments to us, asking the question, for example, whether we are spreading ourselves too thinly. The honest answer on reflection is perhaps we are, and I think there are two areas where we might look to scale back, and in both cases actually to direct work towards the World Bank because they are doing these things already - one is on procurement and the second is on civil service reform. We ought to do more on how we track and monitor, which was your question, Mr Colman, and I think you are right, and we need to reflect on that. People suggested we should do more with civil society. In truth, we think we are doing quite a lot already, so I am not sure that that is a criticism that we would necessarily accept. Certainly people have said "Can you spell out more clearly what the envisaged size of the programme will be in future?" The revised version of the CAP will come out after the 2004 departmental annual report is produced, and it seems to me that that is the appropriate place to publish the figures on what the aid framework is going to be for the next two years. I just feel, having talked to colleagues in the office who have been working on this, that this is good progress. Each country is unique, each set of circumstances is unique, but I think as a process it has worked well because it gives us a chance to reflect on what people said about the draft and then helps us to develop our thinking. Today's hearing is part of that process. Q8 Mr Battle: The next question that is in my mind, and you might tell me is just a stylistic, language question, is Millennium Development Goals and how largely they feature. Some of us on the Committee, about a year ago, I think, went to America to try and lobby senators and congressmen and women to say "Can you take Millennium Development Goals more seriously, not just have them as aspirations but as real targets, so that we have what is sometimes rather gloriously described as an international narrative, where we are all joined together and know where we are going." I thought there were very helpful annexes on Millennium Development Goals in the paper. The targets and the figures are there, but there is hardly a reference to it in the main text, and there is nothing in the Economic Recovery Strategy either. I wondered whether that was just because you are so close to it on the ground and you are doing it anyway, or whether we do not need to sharpen up the focus on the Millennium Development Goals. What is your view? Is that an unfair criticism, or am I just playing language games? Hilary Benn: I think there is a mixture of both, because the Millennium Development Goals are fundamental to everything that the Department does, yet we have been discussing, not just in relation to Kenya but more generally, our Country Assistance Plans. My view is that I think we need to have more focus on the progress that is or is not being made, and then how our programme responds to that, not least because, as you will see when the departmental annual report is published, in the case of Africa we have 16 target countries which form part of the PSA, and I think we have a good system for reporting using the traffic light system. I cannot remember whether we discussed this before at an earlier hearing. It is a very visual way of presenting the progress that we are making or not making, and I have certainly been encouraging the Department, looking at the information that we are now producing on how we are doing in aggregate across sub-Saharan Africa, which is one of the PSA groups, but also in relation to individual countries, where we identify that the country is not making sufficient progress towards the MDGs. One of the questions we have to ask ourselves as a donor, as other donors should be doing, is how we should adjust our programme. We need to focus on this, first, because we have all signed up to this, and second, because if you look at figures on, for example, maternal and infant mortality, and in the case of Kenya they have been getting worse, the question is what are we going to do collectively, us supporting the government, to make a difference to that? Those are the two answers that I would give to the question that you ask. Q9 Mr Battle: Would it be more helpful, if we are developing, if I can put it in these terms, a common discourse, that the documents tied in together and worked it through, and that everyone is aware that there is some momentum? Hilary Benn: I hope very much that in future, when people are looking at our Country Assistance Plans, they will be able to see quite clearly a consistent focus on the progress that is or is not being made against the MDGs and what it is that we intend to do as part of our contribution in the areas where progress is not being made. Q10 Mr Davies: One thing that struck me about the draft CAP was that you say very little about your plans for education, and what is more, in the table at the back, Millennium Development Goals in Kenya: At a Glance, under Education you have a light colour, which means that you are satisfied with progress, goal potentially achieved. Unfortunately, I do not have the original colour version but I think, if I am reading the thing right, the light colour means that. You were saying that one of the benefits of this exercise was all the comments you are getting back from people, and I wondered whether you had seen the comments of Oxfam on the subject of education in Kenya. Hilary Benn: To be honest, I have not read all of the contributions that were made. Was there a particular point you wanted to raise? Q11 Mr Davies: They seemed to be a bit disappointed, and they make a number of suggestions, including, if I can just read some of them briefly, "The Kenyan education policy, and donor support of Kenya's education programmes such as DFID, must include measures to widen access to education to cover non-formal education needs." You have, of course, already supported the primary education programme. "In this regard a commitment to Non-Formal Education should be reflected in a revised Education Act," they say. "Relevant Kenyan Government ministries, and donors supporting their programmes such as DFID, must provide sufficient financial resources for non-formal education to improve access, levels of teaching and curriculum standards." How do you respond to these proposals about non-formal education and, if you accept them, will you in the full report, when it comes out, include proposals of this kind? Hilary Benn: The first thing I should say is we certainly reflect upon them in the course of drawing up the revised plan. We have self-evidently put a particular focus in terms of our effort in supporting the government's efforts to get more children into primary school, and the £10 million that I referred to earlier has made an important contribution, and the government has made real progress. That is not to under-value the importance of non-formal education, but it is to value the progress that has been made with the support that we have given because of the priority that we give to that particular measure of progress, and it links back to Mr Battle's question, which is that this is one of the Millennium Development Goals that we are all very keen that we should make progress on. Ms Townsend, who is our education advisor, perhaps would like to say something in answer to Mr Davies's question. Ms Townsend: I have been away for a week, but at the end of the week before that we, together with the World Bank representative, were really talking about DFID's first step into supporting the sector in a wider way than we have up until now. The World Bank will follow but they will be a bit slower than us. So for next year and onwards, our plans, which have very much emerged from what the government has prioritised, now, informally at least, agreed with the Minister and the PS and others, are that a fairly significant proportion of our support should go towards easing the way for government and donor finance to reach the providers in the non-formal schools, because the government recognises that it cannot do everything. Some of you will be remembering the visit to the slums that we did in Nairobi. You know that government schools are few and far between for urban poor people, and that there is no early prospect of the government being able to provide good services in those areas and in other areas where non-formal schools are the only possibility. We have just come back from a visit to the North-East, where enrolment is only 20 per cent, and a lot of the options available to increase that access are a combination of non-formal and government support - they certainly want to be able to fund every child through whatever provider. This, I think, is a major and very positive step, so we will be working with them to get out of the bureaucratic situation which has prevented non-formal schools registering with the government and therefore getting assistance, so we are going to be able to sweep a lot of that away, while watching very carefully the accountability issues. So the plan which we will be putting up very soon will include this as a major element. Q12 Mr Davies: So we are making some progress. I sense that you share my view that the present draft could indeed be read as I rather read it, that "We have done education", because there is nothing very concrete or new that is proposed in education, and secondly, that you are now going to come up with addressing the issue of non-formal education, which is not in the present draft. Before I leave education, can I put to you something else, that really came out of the discussion we had in Nairobi: one of the local experts who came to see us at our meeting - and I think I am entitled to quote her because those were the rules of the game - Winnie Kinyua of Kenya Private Sector Alliance - told us that really, the essential problem in primary education is female primary education, and if you can solve the problem of female education, you can achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Do you sense that something special should be done to prioritise female education, and if so, what is the government doing to urge the Kenyan authorities to move in that direction or to support the Kenyan authorities moving in that direction? Hilary Benn: Ms Townsend may want to comment on some of the detail. In answer to your direct question, do I agree with the observation that was made to you, yes, I do, for all the reasons that we understand, the fundamental importance to everyone but particularly to girls of an education and the prospects that it opens up for the country. Certainly, as part of the work that we are doing, we would like to see further progress on that front. Ms Townsend: It is part of all we do. I think it would be good if we could further prioritise, and it would not just be DFID doing this; we are now getting the government interested. The trip that I have just mentioned to the North-East a couple of weeks ago with the World Bank and with the PS from education, the Director of education, and the Chief Inspector, was the first time that any of those three have been in that province for a very long time. They have never in 40 years been visited by a PS, for example - any PS. That is where enrolment is 20 per cent and the girls' proportion of that is less than a third. So some of the issues we were digging up and rubbing our noses in, very deliberately, were connected with girls' education, with Islamic issues, with issues about madrassahs and the possibility of some integration, and that would need to include girls. We work closely with the Aga Khan Foundation, which do a lot of good work on the coast. Again, it is an Islamic area and girls are lagging far behind. There are other areas in Kenya where the gender gap is not a problem, so we have a particular set of foci to concentrate on. We now have an arrangement with CIDA (Canada) where they are putting funds through DFID into primary education, and we are working closely also on the technical assistance and the needs assessments and the specific pilots and innovations that are needed. They have a very good track record on girls' education, similar to ours, and I think that partnership is going to be very useful, particularly in that area. Q13 Mr Davies: I think one should regard as axiomatic that nothing we do in this area is done by DFID alone, to address your first point. The only purpose in having a development programme, it seems to me, is to collaborate effectively with other donors, bilateral, multilateral, and with the local recipient government, and to try to influence them in the direction we think is most appropriate. In that context, I think this document has a certain importance, because it does highlight what we consider to be the lacunae that need to be addressed as a matter of priority. So I hope you make some further progress there, and maybe something on girls' education could also come into the document when it emerges in final form. I am grateful for that. If I could just move to a different area, where there is also a strange lack of any reference at all that I have been able to find, to tourism. Anybody who goes to Kenya can see there is an industry which is flourishing and does create rather a lot of employment and can see the enormous potential of it. So though you prioritise somewhere the economic areas which you think most promising - I think it is paragraph E9 - you mention agriculture, land, natural resources, financial sector, micro and small enterprises and so forth, I was rather struck by the fact that tourism does not figure there. Does that mean that you think that really, the potential has been exhausted? Does that mean you do not think there is a role for explicit governmental or donor action in that sector, or is there some other conclusion I should draw? Hilary Benn: No, I hope you would not draw the conclusions that you have just postulated. In part it is about the answer I gave to an earlier question, about the response to the feedback we had to the CAP, which is what in the end can we do, and do we spread ourselves too thinly? In the end, we have to make a judgment because we cannot do everything, and we have to recognise that. Q14 Mr Davies: That is a perfectly respectable answer, to say other people are doing everything, so there are certain things we can sit back on. Hilary Benn: Indeed. Clearly, the tourism industry is of great importance. The EC provides some funding through its Biodiversity Conservation Programme, so we are contributing to that, obviously, by the contribution that we make. We are also doing some work through our PEAK programme - Pathways for Enhanced Environmental Governance in Kenya - which is about trying to promote policy and legal frameworks which will encourage sustainability in the use of forest and wildlife resources, upon which, of course, tourism depends significantly. So that is a modest contribution to helping the government to deal with some of those issues, but in other respects we have decided there are other things that are of greater priority. That is not to say that other donors are not working on them, or that it is not a considerable priority for the government of Kenya, because of course, it certainly is. Q15 Mr Robathan: Moving from tourism and education to health, you mentioned HIV/AIDS and you also mentioned in your opening remarks the difficulty of population. What I particularly want to talk about is reproductive health. I cannot quite remember the figures for economic growth compared to population growth in Kenya, but I do recall that it was significant and actually, to a certain extent, economic growth is eroded by the growth of population. We have been told that population issues are invariably dealt with by donors rather than national governments. I notice it is set down in the Millennium Development Goals that the development goal in maternal health is unlikely to be reached. Do you think that DFID should be doing more about pushing the issue of population issues and reproductive health? Is somebody else doing it? What impact do you think population growth is having on progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals? It is a rather big question. Hilary Benn: It is indeed, but you are absolutely right that the extent to which population growth has been outstripping economic growth is one of the reasons why there has been growing poverty, and therefore it is an important issue to address. Looking at our programme this year, as I think I mentioned earlier, about £7 million will be going on HIV and reproductive health. At a very practical level, we finance the provision of condoms and other reproductive health services, because that is a very practical contribution one can make both to protection against acquiring HIV and also in terms of helping to contribute to control of the population. Who do I think has responsibility for this? Ultimately, as in all of these things, the government of the country has responsibility; I think there is no question about that whatsoever, but the importance that we attach to it is reflected in the sums of money that we are investing as part of our increasing aid programme, and I think that the two interests, in population control and also in tackling HIV/AIDS, obviously come together, in part in the form of the support for reproductive health services which we make available. So it is undoubtedly in the country's interest from both of those points of view that the issue should be addressed, and that is the contribution that we are making. Other donors are also doing that. Mr Wyatt: This is very high up in the dialogue that we have with the Ministry of Health. We have for some years been stepping into the breach when funds run out or when stocks of contraceptives have run out, and so on, so year on year we have stepped into the breach, but obviously we are not very comfortable doing that and we would much rather see the government providing adequately in its budget and then making sure that its budget is spent on those things. That is very high on the list of things that we are talking to the government about, but in the mean time we have been providing a lot of things ourselves, and we will continue to do so, particularly with the social marketing of condoms. Q16 Mr Robathan: Is it the case - my memory is becoming hazy even though it is only two months on - that population growth is outstripping economic growth in percentage terms? It is. Yes, I seem to remember asking that in Nairobi actually. Is the government of Kenya aware of the issue, and is it taking steps to address it, with your assistance? You discuss it, but is it reacting? Mr Wyatt: There are two sides to that equation. I think that the government is very much focused on wanting to increase the rate of economic growth, and that is really where many of the energies lie, and in fact, that is why the Economic Recovery Strategy is called the Economic Recovery Strategy, because it is a very top priority, and we very much support that because, unless there is a significant increase in the rate of economic growth, Kenya will not meet the Millennium Development Goals. In terms of setting targets for population growth, I am not aware that the government has set itself targets for that. The most recent figures for population growth in Kenya suggest that the total fertility rate may have slightly risen for the first time in some years, but overall, the population growth rate in Kenya is generally rather below most of the countries in the region and, as far as I am aware, the government has not targeted that as a key problem. What is a key problem, of course, is enabling people to have access to reproductive health services so that they can make their own choices about family size, how many children they have and when they have them, and also the impact that there is particularly on maternal mortality and so on. That is very much part of government's support, and we support it, but in terms of a target for population growth rate, I am not aware that they have that. Hilary Benn: That, of course, links back to the proportion of the budget which is being spent on health in comparison, for example, to education. Q17 Mr Colman: The Economic Recovery Strategy envisages the creation of around 2.6 million jobs by 2007, with domestic investment the primary driver of employment growth. How realistic do you think this is, and how does the Country Assistance Plan help to bring this about? Hilary Benn: It is an ambitious target which the government has set itself. I think if one looks at how Kenya has performed, if one looks, for example, at the extent of its private sector development, in one sense one could say that it is in a stronger position than a number of other countries in Africa, so I think that provides a foundation on which the country can build, but it depends on a range of circumstances, and, referring back to Mr Davies's earlier question about tourism and the contribution that tourism makes to the industry, of course, there have been recent difficulties in the course of the last year which did impact upon the tourism industry, so events can come along which can knock you off course which you cannot anticipate at the time. In this case, the government did respond very effectively to the concerns that had been raised, and restoration of flights and so on and so forth, but it did have an impact upon the economy, and that is one example of events that can come along that can have an impact. As it so happens, there is an investment conference, which the Committee may well be aware of, that is scheduled and is taking place today, which is about trying to get the business community together. There are, however, some key measures which we assess to be important to the prospects of achieving the objectives that are set, and which you referred to, such as the passage of the privatisation bill and the promulgation of a new investment code, which are still outstanding. One of the things that we are seeking to do is to help the private sector to build what one might describe as a single voice for the purposes of having an internal dialogue with the government, and we look to support the intensifying of that dialogue, in the terrible development jargon - more of it - and to see what the results of the investment conference are. But that is a step which the government has been taking to try and follow up the aims that have been set for itself and for the future of the economy. Mr Wyatt: The only thing I would add on that is you mentioned, Secretary of State, that it is a very challenging target. As you say, the foundation for the economy is very good, but there is a need for some fundamental reform, and I think the government accepts that, and that is set out in the Economic Recovery Strategy, and it is important, obviously, not only to pass the legislation and the code that the Secretary of State mentioned, but also actually to get on with implementing some of those reforms, such as the privatisation agenda and reducing the costs to business in particular, which that should entail. Q18 Mr Colman: Can I move us on to trade? The Kenyan Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called for DFID to support Kenya's National Export Strategy 2003-07. I think we all admire the work of Minister Kituyi in terms of getting the Doha Round back under way and the work of ambassadress Amina Mohammed at the WTO in Geneva, but what actually is DFID going to be doing to help the export strategy of Kenya, particularly on agricultural produce? Kenya has had problems in the past in getting its agricultural exports into Europe, for instance, and also dealing with this issue of "Everything But Arms" not applying to Kenya of course, where it does apply to all its neighbours. To what extent are you going to be helping? You mention it in E9 and you mention it again in C6, but you are a bit short on practical steps you are going to be taking. Hilary Benn: Obviously, you see the two references set out there. We had been giving some support to the Ministry of Trade through the Africa Trade and Poverty Project. The real key to progress, as I think we all know, is what is going to happen in the World Trade talks, because I have to say, in my experience, a very large number of developing country ministers with whom I have had conversations about trade and trade policy have a pretty clear idea - indeed, a very clear idea in many cases - of what it is that they are looking for out of those World Trade negotiations in order to enable their economies to benefit. So we are giving some support in the form that I have described and the references to which you have referred in the Country Assistance Plan, but much more broadly - and this is something we have discussed in previous evidence sessions - it is the contribution that the UK and other countries can make to opening up the world trading system, and that is all about getting the World Trade talks back on track. So I think it is about approaching it from both ends, supporting the building of capacity and knowledge, and that is different for different countries, but at the same time, making progress to unlock the opportunities which a country like Kenya would very much like to have. Q19 Mr Colman: But you recognise the problem that Everything But Arms at the moment does not apply to Kenya, which could cause major problems in export of its goods into Europe very shortly. To what extent are you addressing this problem, or is DFID going to be addressing this problem, with the European Union to ensure that Kenyan exports are not having this impediment going forward? Hilary Benn: The key to that is the trade talks and the development round. Everything But Arms is Everything But Arms, and that applies to the countries that it applies to. Q20 Mr Colman: It is a European Union designation, not WTO. Hilary Benn: Yes, that is true, but we need to focus our efforts in making progress in World Trade matters, and I would say the number one priority from which we should not deviate is continuing to put all our effort and energy, alongside others, into getting those World Trade talks restarted, because of the benefits that will flow to lots of countries, including Kenya, and that is what I would say unquestionably is the priority. Q21 Mr Colman: But you do not recognise, perhaps, in your answer that Kenya is being ruled against on the fact that Uganda, Tanzania - I could list them all - all the countries in east and central Africa have trade preference over Kenya on its exports to Europe. Is this something which DFID would in fact see as a major area that needs attention? Hilary Benn: I recognise that that is the fact of the matter currently, because of the decisions that have already been taken. My answer is simply that I think the route to progress, both for Kenya and other countries, is in making sure that the World Trade talks progress, because I think that is where we ought to put our energy and effort, and that, if we can have a breakthrough and get the trade talks back on track and get an agreement, is where we can see real progress which will benefit Kenya alongside others. Mr Wyatt: The question about who is able to benefit from Everything But Arms is an ongoing discussion within the European community, and in terms of Kenya, an awful lot is likely to depend upon what happens with its regional trading agreements. Of course, there has recently been agreement with the Eastern African Community on the common external tariffs and so on, so there is good progress there. There are, I think, reasonable prospects that Kenya will be able to benefit in the same way as some of the other countries in the region once they get their regional agreements in place. Hilary Benn: They have made progress on that front and revived an idea that, as I recollect, was originally mooted a couple of decades ago, and have been able to make some real progress in recent months, and I think that is a good illustration of the benefit that countries can have from promoting regional trade and regional trading agreements at the same time as trying to make progress at an international level. Q22 Chairman: Am I right in thinking the EU has just recognised their fisheries regimes? Is there some improvement on fisheries? Hilary Benn: I do not know the answer to that but I can find out. Q23 Mr Colman: I think it is correct that Ugandan fish products out of Lake Victoria are allowed in but Kenyan products from the same lake are not. The witnesses are nodding. Kenya has had many trade barriers against it which do not apply to neighbouring countries. Hilary Benn: It depends on the classification of the fish. Q24 Mr Colman: It is the same fish. Hilary Benn: Yes, but to whom they are attributed. I would be happy to provide a note in answer to the question since I do not know the answer. Q25 Mr Battle: In another context, I am quite encouraged by the Department's shift to budget support as opposed to simply projects. I am actually trying to encourage the Chancellor and Home Departments to apply that same model in Britain, to give a little bit more as well, and support through local councils as a way of going forward rather than doing piecemeal projects. But the proviso that I would have for that is that you tie in that kind of work in the relationship of governments to a really clear and agreed poverty focus. I want to probe a little more the plan that you put forward, the Country Assistance Plan, and its relationship with the Economic Recovery Strategy. You mentioned Farm Africa, but also CARE and Action Aid, and some of the other bodies and organisations that have looked at the Country Assistance Plan have said the problem is perhaps going to be that the Economic Recovery Strategy is not sufficiently poverty-focused, that in essence at best there is still, to use an old-fashioned terminology, a trickledown approach that wealth generation at the macro level will deliver the goods for eliminating poverty, and therefore there is not sufficient poverty focus on the issues such as equity, public service provision. How best can that be addressed, and how is the dialogue going with the Kenyan government, and are the kind of lines that I am suggesting the right way to go? Hilary Benn: Very much. Since you started the question by a reference to budget support, why do we not feel that we are in the position to go down that road at the moment? Really, first, because we think that there has been insufficient progress in improving public financial management; secondly, because there has been insufficient progress in public sector reform; and thirdly, because it is not yet clear to what extent the budget will reflect expenditure which tackles poverty and improves social spending in the areas I think we would all accept are important, recognising the real progress that has been made in education, but the progress yet to be made in health. Yes, we do form a judgment on that basis. Certainly we support the ERS, but we also support the idea that it is a strategy which needs to be developed. In the same way that our CAP is developed in response to consultation and discussion and dialogue, we are certainly encouraging the government to do the same thing, and in particular, for there to be a more explicit focus on poverty as it develops. Q26 Mr Battle: You mentioned earlier on a renewed emphasis on agriculture, and if I could take that as a particular example to push this argument a little bit further, Imperial College published a paper in which it suggests that often politicians can review agriculture as a means of distributing patronage. In other words, that top-down approach might not deliver the anti-poverty strategies and the pro-poor growth that is needed. What role does DFID see for agriculture in being a pro-poor strategy rather than simply a macro strategy for economic growth? Hilary Benn: I would say that I think it is about both. It ought to be about both given the significant number of people who rely on agriculture for their livelihood. People said that the plans that we had set out in the draft CAP for involvement in agricultural and rural development and tackling the problems of rural poverty had been insufficiently detailed in the CAP. Agriculture is in fact central to our work. We are developing new programmes, and in the revised document I think we will spell that out better, and that is one of the benefits of having had the comments that we have received in response to the consultation. From our point of view, we would say that the key issue in agriculture is one, more effective public spending, and two, the development jargon again, the enabling environment, the framework within which people are able to improve their livelihoods as part of agriculture, and therefore we will be looking at a range of mechanisms in taking forward our work, grant, challenge funds, to try and address the issues in agriculture. Mr Wyatt: Two things perhaps. One is that since we did this draft, the government has now launched its strategy for the revitalisation of agriculture, and we have also had some very positive discussions with the ministry and have offered to provide some flexible technical cooperation which they can draw down as they want to support the further development and implementation of that. In doing that, we will be wanting to focus very much on questions of ensuring that resources reach poor people and that mechanisms are put in place to ensure that goods are not subject to patronage. That is the first point. The other one is that we are also working with a number of non-governmental organisations on questions of agriculture. We have had a very successful programme with Farm Africa in Meru, which has focused on improved goat breeding, and there are 30,000 people now benefiting from that improved programme, which is also sustainable. The lessons are being learned there, and although it is a project with a non-governmental organisation, there are very close links with government and the veterinary services and so on, so the lessons from that programme are able to be learned and hopefully replicated. So we are coming at it from two angles, if you like: first of all, with government at central level on its overall policy, but secondly, trying to ensure that our feet are on the ground by supporting specific initiatives which can then inform that policy. Q27 Chairman: I have some very quick questions. Firstly, the United States seems to be committed to a lot of money for HIV/AIDS in Africa generally, Kenya in particular. Do you see that as an area where you say that the United States is putting so much money into this that it is one where we can back off and let them get on with it? What is your line on that? Hilary Benn: No, that is not the view we take. We welcome very much the fact that the Americans have announced this additional funding, and indeed, Kenya is one of the five countries in which we are looking to develop a partnership with the Americans in the fight against HIV/AIDS following the visit that President Bush paid to the UK in November. No, we need more money in the international system, we need more effort, we need more co-ordination, and we are far from reaching the point where we can say, "Yes, there is enough money because the Americans or others are putting in and we can step back," and that, of course, is reflected in the fact that we have significantly increased the money that we spend as DFID bilaterally on tackling HIV/AIDS and supporting reproductive health, and according to UNAIDS, the UK is the second largest bilateral donor after the United States of America. So we welcome it, but we need more of it if we are going to address this absolutely fundamental challenge to development, not just in Kenya but right across sub-Saharan Africa and in other parts of the world where, if the epidemic gets out of control in the way we have seen in some sub-Saharan African countries, we have a really big problem on our hands as a world. Q28 Chairman: We will come on to talk about governance and other issues in a second, but Kenya, by any token, has made considerable progress on governance in recent years. If the United States Millennium Challenge Account comes forward, one would assume that Kenya would be one of the countries that would benefit from the new MCA. I just wonder what sort of dialogue anyone had had with USAID, to what extent you think further funds from the United States are going to come for Kenya in addition to money for HIV/AIDS, and whether you have any indication as to where that money is going to go and how it is going to be used, and to what extent DFID can steer USAID as to how that money should be used. Hilary Benn: The first thing is that obviously, the Millennium Challenge Account has been developing as both a process and a concept, and it is, of course, in the end for the Americans to determine, as is their right, how they wish to structure it, and how they are going to make an assessment of individual countries against the benchmarks which they set for entitlement for MCA support. What we need to do is to make sure that we understand the way in which they are doing that, and understand where the money is going to be made available, because obviously, we need to take that into account alongside contributions from other donors in looking at our programmes in particular countries, and in particular, promoting harmonisation and co-ordination so that we do not duplicate and we can work together as effectively as possible. But it is fundamentally a matter for them. I remember last Autumn attending a presentation which the Americans made in New York, I think around the time of the autumn session of the UN General Assembly. Their thinking was still developing, I must say, at that point, and obviously it has come on a bit since then, but they have to take those decisions, and we have to take account of them, and to understand where they are going to be deploying their resources and in what area. Q29 Chairman: Do you have any idea when the cheques are going to start turning out? It seems to be taking a very long time. Hilary Benn: I am afraid you are asking the wrong person. Ms Townsend: I was just going to add that Jeffrey Sachs and a huge contingent arrived a few weeks ago, I suppose, for consultations with the government and other stakeholders across sectors, and two or three of us attended meetings in our own sectors, which certainly included agriculture and education and health. I would like to support what the Secretary of State is saying about their thinking; it was mainly asking questions. There were a few speeches but not ones informed by the local situation in Kenya. It seemed to me that their interest was very broad. They had not focused yet. But we are talking. Hilary Benn: The truth is we all have to wait and see. Q30 Chairman: It does not sound as though much has changed since we were in Washington. It is a bit depressing really. Lastly, as we are focusing on the Kenyan Country Assistance Plan, Secretary of State, what in the various topics that we are covering would you see the Commission for Africa touching so far as a country like Kenya is concerned? How is the Commission's work going to relate to all this? Is the Commission's work going to be theme-led? How is that going to impact and engage on Kenya? Hilary Benn: The decisions about the way in which the Commission is going to do its work will obviously be determined when the Commission holds its first meeting, which is planned to be in May, but we do envisage that there will be a number of themes that will be identified. Individual commissioners will be asked, perhaps in pairs, to lead on those particular areas of work. That is the first thing. The second thing is it seems to me a fundamental that we should draw on all of this experience, in essence about what works to enable progress to happen, what does not work, what we need to do more of, what changes we need to make in the environment in which countries develop, in order to maximise the chances of making progress towards the MDGs, to encourage opportunities for private investment, in particular given the fundamental importance of economic development to making progress for all the countries of Africa. I see this very much, first, as we have already made clear, being about keeping the focus on the importance of Africa and progress in Africa, for all the reasons that I think we share and understand, and second, to genuinely ask the questions about what is going well and which we can do more of and how can we support it, and what is not going so well and what new ideas we can draw upon. This is a really difficult balance, it seems to me, in the work of the Commission for Africa and more generally: one the one hand, if people look at the sub-continent and have a perception that this is the part of the world where nothing works, this is an incomplete and an incorrect picture. That is unquestionably the case, because there are areas of success and progress that can be pointed to. On the other hand, given the scale of the challenges in many of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, we also have to maintain a sense of urgency and determination that we need to do more, because so much hinges on the progress of this sub-continent over the next generation if it is to avoid a repetition of the experience of the last generation, which is that it has actually got poorer, its share of world trade halved, all the things that we know and understand, and it is about getting that balance right. If you can demonstrate where progress is possible - for the sake of argument, we have talked about Kenya and the areas in which it has made progress - take a country like Mozambique, where they have doubled the number of children in primary school in the last five years; that is progress - then it seems to me that it will encourage people to say yes, if we can do more of the things that have enabled that to happen - peace and security and stability and having a plan and all of the elements - then we have a better chance of supporting Africa in many of the things that it is seeking to do itself, both as individual countries and through the EAU and NEPAD, and it seems to me it is how we get that balance right, to provide political impetus and support, which is going to help the continent to progress in a way that it has not in the last generation. That is why it seems to me that it matters enormously. It has had a very broad welcome, and a lot of people are keen to contribute to the process, including, I am sure, and I hope, the Select Committee. Chairman: We have made that clear. Q31 Mr Colman: My question is about governance, and I certainly think that Kenya is going to be one of those success stories in the next ten years. Governance is going to be very important within that. You have a very good analysis in section B11 and B12 on corruption in Kenya, and I note you say in B11 that Kenyan citizens reported bribes being demanded or offered in two out of three encounters with public officials. We met John G'thongo, the Corruption Tsar, when we were in Kenya and were very impressed by him. You seem to concur with that in your paragraph C3. Other than increasing civil servants' salaries, what can a government do to address the issue at the everyday level at which poor people encounter corruption and rent-seeking behaviour, and how can DFID support this? Hilary Benn: I think the first thing is that there should be a very clear lead from government, which indicates that they intend that things should change and that the daily experience which you refer to, and which we touch on in the paragraphs here, should not be how people have to live and should not be the things that people have to do in order to access services or to get their rights or to be treated properly and decently. I think one cannot over-estimate the importance of strong political leadership in this area, combined with an effective mechanism for calling people to account who do engage in corrupt behaviour, because then people can see that things are beginning to change. I think that is fundamental to enabling progress to happen, because if people do not think that things are changing on the ground, particularly at the lower level that you have been talking about, Mr Colman, then you can have the policy and we indeed have a very high opinion of the work that the anti-corruption tsar is doing, but it is how people experience it on the ground, and that is about setting the standards and then calling people to account if they breach those standards, so that in time people can see that things are changing. But I would just say that fundamental to it is strong political leadership. Mr Wyatt: In terms specifically of what DFID is doing, we are working with a number of organisations in government and outside government to try to help the government to implement its policy of zero tolerance on corruption. A couple of examples, one from each: we are working with the government and also with the World Bank and Swedish SIDA to put in place an integrated financial management information system which will reduce the opportunities for corruption and improve financial transparency within government spending. That is an example from supporting government. Equally, we are also supporting organisations outside government which are there to hold government to account and to draw attention to things that go wrong. A good example of that is the support we are giving for Transparency International, where we are providing core funding - it is quite an innovative thing for us to provide core funding to a Kenyan organisation, but we are doing that. We have had a long relationship while John G'thongo, who you mentioned, was the chief executive and now under Gladwell Otieno. So we are providing core funding for their work, so on both sides, the demand for reduction in corruption and also helping government to ensure that it is able to respond to that demand. Ms Townsend: May I just add that what we do in education is not only about getting children into school and improving their experience there. The combined effect of the government abolishing the fees from parents for primary education, which used to be, I think, the third greatest expenditure for people after food and housing, the accountability mechanisms now in place together with the abolition of that type of payment, which was very much at the discretion of the head teacher, has changed people's interaction with that particular arm of government services enormously. There is a huge area of possible corruption and conflict between the user and the provider that has just been taken away. We need to follow that in other areas. Q32 Mr Colman: A brief question on democratic accountability, parliamentary accountability. Bomas came to an end on the constitutional process. It has come out with its constitution, very much about having a prime minister, being accountable and elected from parliament. Do you see a role for DFID in terms of working within and encouraging a democratic process in Kenya? The political parties have long been on an ethnic basis rather than on ideologies or approaches. Do you think that DFID should in its Country Assistance Plan look to perhaps encouraging the emergence of new political parties, or is this a move too far? I think it probably is. Is there a comment you want to make about what has come out of Bomas? Hilary Benn: I do not think it is the role of us as a development organisation to be explicitly encouraging the development of new political parties. Q33 Mr Robathan: Hear, hear! You ought to be worried when we are the ones cheering you! Hilary Benn: I am grateful for the verbal support from members of the Committee, but that is my view. I do not think that is our role, but it is our role to encourage a climate, and we do this in the way in which we support voluntary and community organisations, the programmes that Matthew has just been describing, in trying to support the tackling of corruption, where as I said right at the start, I think the new government has shown commitment and has demonstrated progress, because we know that all of these elements of openness and transparency and people being able to articulate the needs that they have and encouraging government to be able to respond to that are all essential parts of a healthy, functioning political process, and it is our job to support that, but not individual parties. As far as the constitutional process is concerned, of course, it is a bit stuck at the moment because of recent developments. Our very strong view is that the outcome of that constitutional process is unquestionably for Kenyans themselves to determine. I think everybody's concern would be that the process for doing that should be respected. That is a straight answer to a straight question. Q34 Chairman: Perhaps I can just ask Matthew a quick question. When we were in Kenya we met a lot of parliamentarians. I just wondered on the process of the CAP civil society is engaged with, to what extent have Kenyan parliamentarians engaged in and responded to the CAP? Hilary Benn: You told me earlier, Matthew, that some of them had come to one of your consultation meetings. Mr Wyatt: We have sent the CAP to the heads of some of the parliamentary committees, so we have actually reached out with the draft to Members of Parliament. I am not aware that we have had written replies from them, but we did hold a public consultation in Nairobi last Thursday, where I presented the draft and we had about 150 people there, of whom four were Members of Parliament. So there has been some engagement with MPs there and at least one, I think, possibly two of them asked questions during that session and gave their views, so there has been contact with parliament on the CAP. Q35 Mr Robathan: Can I take you back to the governance and corruption issue? You earlier made a comment that it is of absolutely fundamental importance to this issue - a proposition I agree with entirely, as do many of our correspondents, not least, indeed in terms of economic growth. The Nairobi Stock exchange commented on the absolute importance of the rule of law for people to be dealing in the Nairobi Stock Exchange, and that they had to have redress in the courts, etc. The Kenyan National Chamber of Commerce and Industry made comments to the same effect. I also have something from the National Council of NGOs. You have mentioned the constitution - and it was in the newspapers either today or yesterday, as I recall - and the fact that people seem to be moving away from the process of a new constitution and, as you so rightly say, a constitution is a matter for the people of Kenya, but it is quite important, I suggest, that there is a constitution which all people in Kenya think is fair and correct, or as many as possible. In your CAP you in particular talk about the culture of patronage. If I might just quote to you from the National Council of NGOs: "From where I sit, the culture of patronage (political, ethnic or otherwise) is alive and well in Kenya today. The only thing that has changed is the pronouncements against it and the hand that hands out the largesse." Later on: "From a DFID Kenya perspective, it would be good to nuance the existing optimism with the reality of patronage." That is a comment. I know Rome was not built in a day and Kibaki has not been in power for very long, or the government change did not take place that long ago, but when would DFID decide, if it came to it, that in fact the changes which you say are fundamental - and I agree with you entirely - for the rule of law, for an end to such overt corruption - not to go along with this? We are talking about direct budgetary support. When might DFID say, "We are sorry. This is not working"? What progress do you expect to see? Hilary Benn: We are not talking about direct budgetary support currently. I explained in answer to an earlier question the lack of progress in areas which meant that we were not at the moment considering that, and I think that is the right approach in the context of the country at the moment. That is a very difficult question to answer, how long, because it goes to the heart of something that we think about a great deal, as does the Committee, which is what are the right expectations to have about rate of progress in countries where one is talking about quite fundamental changes? If we pause for a moment to reflect on our own history as a country, look at how long it has taken us, as I sometimes joke in stressing the importance of making progress. I say "We don't want you to take quite as long as we did," because we have done it all and made every mistake in the book and been through our own processes and experiences ourselves. Sometimes I sit and I think "Are we being over-ambitious and having excessive expectations about rate of progress?" and on the other hand sometimes one thinks, "Well, we know this is absolutely fundamental to dealing with some of the broader problems and therefore it is in everybody's interests that people should crack on as quickly as possible" and in the end it has to be a balance between the two. But I agree with you completely that it cannot be just a question of fine words being uttered, which is why, in answer to Mr Colman's earlier question, my view is what really matters is people's daily experience on the ground, because that is the best way of judging whether progress has been made or not. We are talking about Kenya today, but two weeks ago I was in Sierra Leone - and you, Mr Chairman, were also there - where corruption is a fundamental problem, and there have been two recent surveys in that country where the people have said "This is a big obstacle to progress, it is an obstacle to our perception that things have changed in our lives" - and there is great expectation in Sierra Leone because of the stability - and also it is an obstacle to the opportunities for private sector investment, because people have to come and decide whether they are going to connive with the culture of corruption or not. The fact that the government has identified this as an issue, has started to talk about it, is a big step forward, and I think one needs to recognise that, but the proof is in what happens on the ground, whether things change or not, and our job is to support the government in that commitment and the expectations that it has set out to enable that progress to be experienced by people in their ordinary lives. That does not answer your question as to how long, because I do not know what the answer is to how long, but that is the process I think that needs to be followed. Q36 Mr Khabra: Rather than trying to address each and every development challenge that a country faces, it appears DFID's approach is to focus its efforts on those issues on which it has a comparative advantage. There are a few questions around this issue. How does DFID prioritise and allocate resources across various sectors? As regards Kenya, what areas does DFID have a comparative advantage in, and what are the comparative advantages of other key donors? Finally, which donor has a comparative advantage in agriculture, which is a major part of the economy? Hilary Benn: That is a really big and fundamental question, which goes to the heart not just of this process but of the way in which we work in a number of countries, and I am sure Matthew will want to comment on some of the specifics. The honest answer is in part where we put our time and effort will have evolved out of what we have done in the past, and therefore, because we have done it in the past, we have developed knowledge and expertise, and therefore that is something that we seek to build upon. That is one route. Secondly, it is based on our analysis of what we think the circumstances of the country are, where we think we can best apply our assistance, and the ways in which we give support. One finds in a lot of programmes, including here, that providing support to capacity building on the one hand - and I think the malaria bed nets is a really good example, and I should correct myself because I think earlier I said that we felt we had already saved 40,000 lives; we are part-way through the first part of the programme, and when that is completed we assess that that will have saved 40,000 lives, and we are currently looking at ways in which we can extend the malaria bed net programme, in particular to bring the price down in the rural areas, where the sales of the bed nets are not going as well as they are in the urban areas, where people have a higher disposable income, because we are keen that we should spread the benefits as widely as possible. Thirdly, it is about trying to get this balance right between, on the one hand, not spreading ourselves too widely, and the questioning and encouragement from lots of people. They say "What about this, this and this? Thanks for what you are doing on these, but what about this?" and in the end we have to form a judgment about what is the right balance for the range of the programme, recognising that other people are going to do things and just because we are not working in a particular sector does not mean we do not think it is important; we do, but other people may be leading on it. In answering the earlier question about where we might scale back, having accepted that perhaps we have spread ourselves a bit too thinly, I gave the example - I am not sure whether it was before you had arrived, Mr Khabra - of procurement and civil service reform; the World Bank is doing work on that, and I think we can really leave it to them. That is the range of factors that we have to take into account, so it is a product of history and priorities. The last thing I would say, and it links back to an earlier answer I gave, in relation to the Millennium Development Goals, which are absolutely fundamental to everything that we do, and our PSA targets in particular, is that I have been emphasising the importance of asking ourselves, in deciding where to put our effort, how we are making progress against those different goals and, if that country is not making progress, whether we should be doing more, and that that therefore should be reflected in the CAP. Mr Wyatt: I think that is a very comprehensive answer. I would only add that the one other factor that is very important in our dialogue with the government is that they approach different donors for different things, and that also features in the discussion. If the government is particularly keen that we should be involved in an area, obviously we give a lot of weight to that, and similarly, if they particularly want another one, then we give weight to that too. Q37 Mr Khabra: How do you assess the comparative advantage and what it means? Hilary Benn: In the context of Kenya, we might be able to give the Committee an example of where we think we have a particular comparative advantage or comparative expertise. I think the truth is that it is going to depend on the circumstances of the particular country and the history. If we have been working in an area and we have built up knowledge, I suppose that creates a comparative advantage. Mr Wyatt: Perhaps one example might be in the education sector. For a long time we, perhaps with the World Bank, of the major donors were really the only two donors that were working to scale in the education sector. So historically, we have had a very deep involvement with that. We have been working on the books programme, which Felicity was talking about earlier. Now a number of other donors have come in and are supporting that, and we are thinking maybe books should not any longer be our priority and perhaps we should look at other things, and we are looking at school buildings and sanitation and so on. That is one example of where we felt we had a comparative advantage in one area and because circumstances have changed, perhaps it is beginning to shift, an example within a sector. Q38 Mr Davies: A very quick question on comparative advantage: is it your feeling that a priori, we would have a comparative advantage in a country that was a member of the Commonwealth, or that a priori the French would have a comparative advantage in francophone or former French Union country? I have to tell you, there is a pattern there, which you can quite clearly see, in terms of flows of aid. Hilary Benn: Unquestionably, because it is a product of our history. Q39 Mr Davies: Exactly. Do you regard that as a comparative advantage? Hilary Benn: I do not know what the answer is as to whether it is a comparative advantage. Q40 Mr Davies: History and familiarity could be a comparative advantage. Hilary Benn: That is a very good way of describing it. Yes, we do have familiarity with particular countries, and that is reflected in the pattern of programmes, particularly across Africa. But if I could give an example, not relating to Kenya, but if you take the Democratic Republic of Congo, where traditionally and historically we have not had a presence, but we are now a significant donor in the DRC, why have we done that? Because I formed a view, given the scale of the nightmare that the people of the DRC have experienced, the enormous loss of life, the huge challenge which the new transitional government in that country now faces, not to rebuild a state but to establish a state for the first time; not to restore people's faith in the government, but, as President Kabila said to me in December, to persuade people that there might actually be something called government which has something to do with improving the lives of the people of the DRC, and in those circumstances, and we have taken a decision, notwithstanding the lack of direct historical connection, that we should be in there supporting the peace process with increased aid in return for progress on that peace process, and addressing the challenge that the country faces in the future. Q41 Mr Davies: All that is splendid, but it has nothing to do with comparative advantage. It has to do with the perceived priority of the particular emergency that presents itself. Comparative advantage is a concept which is entirely linked to the supply side in the development equation, the question of why we should do it rather than somebody else. I think I have a clear answer that familiarity and historical connection is considered, a priori, other things being equal, as a comparative advantage. Hilary Benn: Yes. Q42 Chairman: Comparative advantage also involves trust, trust in institutions, trust in UK government, trust in our institutions. Without being mischievous, I would hope that history would judge our relationship with Kenya rather better than Belgium's relationship with the Congo. Secretary of State, you have been very generous with your time. Hilary Benn: I hope it has been helpful. Q43 Chairman: I think it has been. We tend as a Committee to look at themes. Most of our inquiries are into climate change, migration, those kinds of things, so it is not often that we actually focus on an individual country. Even though it has been brief, I think it has actually been quite helpful, and I think it has been quite helpful because it is actually fresh in our minds and helps us with some of these concepts. If time had permitted, I would have also been mischievous: when we were in Nairobi, we came across a group that I thought were on to a really good number, and these were the so-called Somali warlords, who either you or someone put up at the Safari Lodge Hotel. I think they were on their 24th round of peace talks. This seemed to me a really good number! Perhaps some other time we could ask you about that. You have been very kind in responding to a debate on Somaliland, but I think at some stage, perhaps we could have a discussion about those bits of Africa which are still problems, like Sudan, Somalia, Congo, failing states, maybe in the context of the discussions on the Commission for Africa, because that is quite important. Hilary Benn: Can I just say, Mr Chairman, it has been a pleasure, not least, having come back at six o'clock this morning from two days in Iraq, to have the opportunity to turn my attention to other matters. I have certainly found the questioning and the conversation helpful, and I hope you have too. |