Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-90)
MR JIM
DRUMMOND, HON
DOMINIC ASQUITH
AND DR
ROGER HUTTON
16 NOVEMBER 2004
Q80 John Barrett: I feel that one of
the advantages of being on this Committee is that we are able
to make sure that we get good value for money, that DFID spend
their money wisely, the programmes are efficient and well-co-ordinated
and I would like to go on to that. However, can I just grasp what
you have said already? You have said there is a stable flow of
oil and oil prices have increased so we have an increased source
of income; at the same time you talk about grants, not loans.
You were talking about free power still existing in the country
and you were also talking about the World Food Programme maybe
supplying 60% or even more.
Mr Drummond: Not the World Food
Programme; the Iraqis' own budget. They are using their oil revenues
to buy food, which is then provided pretty much free to people.
Q81 John Barrett: One issue that has
cropped up is, is there a detailed plan or was there a detailed
plan in advance of the conflict and what stages are we at so far
as co-ordinating what we do for the future now? Bearing in mind
that this is a country that potentially has a reasonable source
of its own income, but at the same time there are a number of
donors—including ourselves—what mechanism is there
in place for co-ordination between the donors at national level
and also looking at co-ordinating with the future Iraqi interim
government and then longer term the new Iraqi Government as to
how best and how most efficiently can funds, development and that
long term plan be implemented then unfold in the years ahead?
Mr Drummond: Can I just make a
point about the income levels because the per capita income level
in Iraq last year was estimated at $400 to $500, which is pretty
low. It is going to rise this year, we think, to around $700 but
this is still actually pretty low. Iraq in two or three years'
time ought to be—security and other things permitting—on
a path upwards and well back into the middle income category.
It is still formally speaking categorised by the OECD as a middle
income country because they do the calculation every three years.
It is not a rich country and there are a lot of poor people, particularly
in southern Iraq. I do not think it is ready yet to be moving
onto commercial loans but in a few years' time, sure. On the donor
co-ordination question the Ministry of Planning and Development
Cooperation in Baghdad is at the moment in charge of co-ordinating
the donors locally. There are relatively few donors with development
experts on the ground in Baghdad. We have them; the US has them.
We are providing liaison people for the World Bank and the UN.
There is quite a tight knit donor community in Baghdad which meets
regularly informally as well as formally with the Ministry of
Planning. Internationally there is a wider donor community. We
talk to each other every month in telephone conferences and we
meet every four to six months at a suitable place, usually in
the region.
Q82 John Barrett: Can we move on from
the co-ordination at national or international level to co-ordination
at a more local level. What has DFID planned to ensure that this
co-ordination down through civil society, through local governments
and through what remaining NGOs there are there (because obviously
with the security situation a lot have moved out)? For this money—and
as we said before they are substantial sums—not just the
money we have donated but the international community has given,
it is absolutely vital that there is an effective and co-ordinated
system at local level to make sure this is also effectively spent.
Is there a plan in place to make sure that through to more devolved
levels, there are systems in place for efficient use of the resources?
Are these being developed and if so, what is DFID's plan for this?
Mr Drummond: We are involved in
this in the south in Basra. We do not have staff in other parts
of Iraq apart from Basra and Baghdad at the moment. In Basra there
is a co-ordination mechanism which is run jointly by us and the
Americans which includes the UK military and includes Iraqi representatives
of course. There are separate regular contacts with NGOs,
particularly around the political participation and civil society
funds that we mentioned. I think there is good contact locally.
I can only speak for Basra, as I say.
Q83 John Barrett: Is there a plan B in
place? Plan A is obviously that the security situation improves
dramatically in the years ahead but is there a plan B if that
is not the case? Are there alternatives where people can say that
after the election the security situation would improve and troubles
would cease, but if it turns out that this does not quieten down
in the year ahead is there an alternative scenario able to be
rolled out?
Mr Drummond: The alternative scenario
is that we have to do more immediate relief or immediate post-conflict
reconstruction and that the development process is delayed. What
we have tried to do in designing our programme is to be as flexible
and as quick on our feet as we can with that. We are adjusting
at the moment what we are doing in southern Iraq so that we are
helping a bit more on the quicker impact stuff than we thought
we would need to do five months ago.
Q84 Mr Battle: One of the questions I
asked at an earlier session just after the military action
in Baghdad was about the policy of de-Ba'athification—it
is an ugly phrase but I think we all know what it means—of
Iraq, that everyone who had been in the Ba'ath party should be
sacked from their job which meant that we cleared out most of
the `civil service'. I was a little bit sceptical of that policy
because I thought (a) we would lose the capacity of people who
were trained and (b) we would alienate people and they would turn
against any plans of reconstruction. I just wondered whether that
policy has been reconsidered; whether that was the effect of that
policy. Where is the capacity in providing essential services?
Where are the personnel and what is the present situation? Or
are people who were de-Ba'athicated being allowed back in now
and encouraged to join in? What is the present situation?
Mr Asquith: That whole issue was
very much in the forefront at the end of Coalition Provisional
Authority days when it was indeed reconsidered and it was left
open very specifically in the education field for teachers to
come back in; not just teachers but across the whole educational
spectrum. The level at which you had to reach in the Ba'ath party
in order not to be readmitted into the system was set and it was
set quite high. Those below that were allowed back into the employment
pool. That remains so in terms of, as it were, lower level Ba'ath
party people; they are still employable. The de-Ba'athification
became increasingly targeted on those who were senior members
of the Ba'ath party. In terms of the effect, speaking from personal
experience, I was always surprised how many people there did seem
to be still in the civil service but it is a capacity building
problem; they were there but, with the greatest respect, they
were not the most effective. That was because of the circumstances
in which they had been operating for 30 years.
Q85 Mr Battle: So there are not thousands
of people who were, put loosely, made redundant who are standing
around unemployed and disgruntled by the whole project.
Mr Asquith: There are, of course,
a large number of people who were in the security forces with
whom there have been problems in terms of amalgamating them into
or allowing them to re-join civil society. That is, as you are
all very well aware, the pool in which there are some disgruntled
people operating. In terms of employment, one of the predictions,
particularly as the American supplemental funding has started
to increase, is that the employment pool will begin to shrink
quite dramatically.
Q86 Mr Battle: In the end if people in
other parts of the world collaborated in any way with a regime
that has been oppressive and has abused human rights, those people
would hopefully either be brought to trial or a line is drawn
and they can come back productively to co-operating in the economy
of that society at the appropriate level. Is there a plan for
that or are these people just locked out and stood on the street
corner throwing bricks—if not worse—at the military
forces?
Mr Asquith: I should be clear
that it is an issue since 28 June which the Iraqi Interim Government
is responsible for in determining the policy and has been debating
amongst themselves quite extensively and is one which will be
taken up by the transitional government after January.
Q87 Mr Bercow: We are told that unemployment
stands at somewhere between 40% and 50% but the figure for women
is much higher than that. What is the rate of unemployment among
women?
Mr Drummond: There are not actually
any very good measures of unemployment across Iraq. There is not
a system so we are dealing with estimates. The most recent estimate
I have seen—which may have come after the submission that
we put to you—was that women's participation in the labour
force is 13%, so very low. That same study produces unemployment
rates of 12% in urban areas, 6.6% in rural areas with some differentiation
across the poorer governorates where the unemployment rate is
much higher. As I say, there are no accurate figures for this.
Q88 Mr Bercow: I think it might be quite
useful to know—pursuant in a sense to the sort of line of questioning
that my colleague Mr Davies was developing earlier—to
what extent that unemployment is the result of a cultural pattern
and possibly even a specific choice not to work, and to what extent
is the result of lack of skills or training, and to what extent
it might be the consequence of displacement or other features
of the conflict. What I am getting at here is that I think a lot
of people would say that if we could provide development assistance
that will bolster the economy and extend opportunities for women,
then up to a point that is certainly something that we should
be prepared to consider. Nevertheless there is a total pot and
it is not infinite for development assistance from this country
and indeed multilaterally for that matter. In the context of what
is—or should be—again a middle income country with
a substantial revenue stream from oil not very far away on the
horizon, we obviously cannot sign up to some holistic goal which
says that all women should be employed or our cultural preferences
dictate that they should be. What I am really getting at is, amongst
people who are or could relatively inexpensively be trained and
who want to work in the category of Iraqi women, what proportion
are not able to do so?
Mr Drummond: I do not think we
have the information to answer that question frankly at the moment.
I think a lot more studies are needed to get a good statistical
base for Iraq.
Q89 Mr Bercow: In that case, could I
just say as somebody who is massively sympathetic to these objectives—and
of course empowerment of women and general equality is a very
important Millennium Development Goal (MDG)—an MDG I support—that
we do need precisely that wealth of information. Can I put it
to you that there is a concern otherwise that we can find ourselves
going along with declarations of good intent that are entirely
laudable in themselves but to which potentially there is an unlimited
price tag and that is not something that we can credibly do in
development policy, given that there are other countries around
the world perhaps a great deal poorer.
Mr Asquith: Could I just add,
although I am not sure whether it is relevant or not, in the case
of the elections for the national council we set ourselves a target
for a percentage for women which was exceeded. In the case of
the transitional assembly for which the vote will be taking place
at the end of January this coming year, the target is that 25%
of the national assembly will be females. For that reason in the
electoral arrangements every third candidate has to be a woman.
In certain areas, certainly on the political side, there are targets
set and arrangements put in place that are kept.
Mr Bercow: That is helpful.
Mr Drummond: On our side quite
a lot of the civil society and political party participation funding
that we are providing will go towards organisations that are promoting
women's engagement.
Q90 Mr Battle: In the light of the evidence
you have given us today some of us will hopefully be visiting
Iraq in the New Year and I was wondering if it were possible to
have a map, as in my constituency there are rough maps showing
us the areas of high unemployment, areas of economic stress, I
am looking really for a development map as opposed to a military
strategic map. Could we, as a development committee, have a development
map so that we would have a clearer idea of the areas where good
work can go on, where work is going on and where the needs are
in Iraq? I do not think I have that pattern yet. I accept the
points you make about the difficulty in getting the data, but
I think if we could get somewhere closer to that it would enable
us to say that the focus is on development in the wake of the
military and security questions rather than we are trying to second
guess where we move the troops all the time.
Mr Drummond: The data is incomplete
but we can put together what we have for you[8].
Chairman: Thank you very much for helping
us with our understanding of these issues.
8 Copies of maps placed in the Library. Back
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