Examination of Witnesses (Questions 196
- 199)
TUESDAY 28 MARCH 2006
MR PETER
CAMERON AND
MR PETTER
MATTHEWS
Q196 Chairman: I would thank you
both for coming in and apologise, first of all, for the disruption
at the beginning and the consequence that we are now overrunning.
What I am going to suggest, so that we all know where we are,
is that we aim to finish this at about 12:40. We want to hear
from you so please do not misinterpret that, but if you could
bear that in mind, the crisper you are the more information we
can get. Otherwise one or two of my colleagues will leave and
this will not be good for the dynamics of the event. Thank you
very much for coming in. I trust that you were listening to the
earlier exchanges. Clearly, we have made references to infrastructure
and it is infrastructure issues that we particularly want to hear
about from you. Can I ask you very briefly to introduce yourselves
and tell us your main areas of expertise in the field.
Mr Cameron: Thank you very much
and thank you for inviting us. My name is Peter Cameron and I
am a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and Chairman
of the Institution's Appropriate Development Panel (ADP). For
those of you who do not know what that is, it is a panel organised
through the Institution of Civil Engineers but, unusually, it
brings in a very wide level of expertise from DFID support, various
NGOs, WaterAid, TRL[4],
the School of Tropical Medicine and so on. So it does have a very
wide impact and brings in expertise that has done a lot of work
in developing countries, developing and encouraging small-scale
improvements generally that will reach millions of people rather
than the large ones that have a much more limited impact. My evidence
has tended to be more towards the philosophical side looking at
the key issues that surround the development rather than the development
itself.
Mr Matthews: My name is Petter
Matthews. I am Executive Director of Engineers Against Poverty,
known as EAP. We are an independent, non-governmental organisation,
set up about six years ago by the UK's leading professional engineering
institutions, including the Institution of Civil Engineers and
the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. We enjoy a very close
working relationship with the professional engineering institutions
and do a lot of programme work with the Institution of Civil Engineers.
We work on large engineering-related projects in low and middle-income
countries, predominantly in infrastructure and the extractive
sectors. One of the key propositions that underpins our programme
work is that social improvements, particularly poverty reduction,
can in many instances be delivered through mechanisms that will
also create commercial opportunities for the companies.
Q197 Chairman: That is obviously
central to what we are interested in. May I say also, Mr Cameron,
that the ICE submission[5]
was both interesting and not what we would immediately have expected.
I think your introduction has explained where you are coming from.
There were a lot of very interesting comments in that. Perhaps
I could start by saying that the Committee interacts regularly
with NGOs, who obviously have a range of opinions but have a little
bit of nervousness and sometimes opposition toward the engagement
of the private sector in infrastructure. I think many of us recognise
that the capacity is in the private sector, but I just wonder
whether you have any take on the way that NGOs feel that there
is a conflict between private sector involvement in infrastructure
and poverty reduction, or perhaps the other way round, how you
feel we can engage the private sector in ways that are central
to delivering poverty reduction, particularly in the infrastructure
area?
Mr Cameron: Certainly, yes, NGOs
do have and have had some poor views of infrastructure developments
that have been carried out, supposedly in the interests of the
poorer people. Jay Naidoo referred to a clause called "development
vision", and we would translate that into four specific areas.
Firstly, engage and empower the end user. In other words, many
developments up until now have tended to be imposed on indigenous
people, "We believe what we are suggesting is right",
rather than engaging them and finding out exactly what the problem
is and how they will best use it. Secondly, that we have in the
past swept away the indigenous rights of people. We think particularly
of major dam projects like the Sardar Dam in India where people's
rights of fishing downstream rivers, and grazing the fields alongside
the rivers have been swept aside in the interest of "major
infrastructure development". Growth needs to be sustainable
and often therefore bottom-up as part of engaging the local people.
It is understanding exactly what they want but also ensuring that
it is a development that they can maintain, that they have the
capacity to deal with it. It is developing roads that they have
the capacity and machinery themselves to be able to look after
rather than like witness Zambia years ago where we built tarmac
highways which quickly fell into potholes and they did not have
the facilities to mend those properly, or the supply of water
pumps through a cheap source but there is no immediate access
to all the spare parts so after a year or so the water pumps fall
into disrepair. It is avoiding social anxiety and marginalisation
where if we come in with a big development, be it an extraction
area of mining, where a certain part of the community immediately
gets good jobs, immediately you have the marginalisation of those
who have not got those better jobs and therefore you develop a
social insecurity that can cause problems. However, I think that
with a clearer understanding of what is needed for growth, the
private sector and the government agencies can combine together
very much more to develop that. However, it could be slow growth.
We need to be prepared to go slowly in places rather than a big
hit.
Mr Matthews: If I could maybe
add a specific around the non-governmental organisations. I think
that civil society—and NGOs are a key part of civil society—is
a good deal more diverse than it was 10 or 15 years ago. I sometimes
think that non-governmental organisations in their interaction
with business exist on a kind of continuum. At one end of that
continuum you have campaign organisations like Friends of the
Earth and Greenpeace, whose role it is to expose some of the shortcomings
of companies, and on the other end of that continuum you have
organisations like Engineers Against Poverty, some of the Care
organisations and the Overseas Development Institute which work
with business in a far more collaborative way. I am often asked
as the director of an NGO who works in collaboration with business
if I see that as being in conflict with some of the activities
of the more campaigning organisations. My answer is the same:
absolutely not. We work closely with companies and we have the
trust of the companies that we work with. I am aware that one
of the reasons they are working with us is a consequence of the
pressure they are getting from the campaigning organisations,
so I believe that there is a synergy between the campaigning and
the collaborative NGOs. In terms of their attitude to the role
of the private sector in delivering infrastructure, I think there
is a far more nuanced understanding of the importance of the private
sector now that probably was not there 10 years ago. I shared
a platform recently, as did Peter, with a representative from
ActionAid who has done some really good work in Tanzania and produced
a report called Turning off the Taps before the Biwater
pull-out debacle last year from Tanzania. The individual from
ActionAid was saying, "Look, it is not an ideological position.
We have done some work to identify some of the problems that there
have been when the private sector has been involved in the delivery
of infrastructure but it is not an ideological position."
They are an absolutely key player and what we need to do is create
an environment where they can make a positive contribution and
avoid some of the problems there have been. There are still misunderstandings
between NGOs and companies. There are different organisational
cultures and different decision-making processes, but I think
there has been an enormous amount of ground made up over the last
10 years.
Chairman: That is helpful, thank you.
John Bercow?
Q198 John Bercow: I am still keen
to get a sense of the extent of the changes in practice that you
think are required to bring about greater, quicker and sustainable
progression? Do you, for example, agree with the Commission for
Africa recommendation that donors should re-think their approach
to infrastructure development in order to co-ordinate more effectively,
to involve the local private sector, and to issue grants rather
than loans?
Mr Cameron: The simple answer
is, yes, we certainly do think that there should be a much closer
co-operation with the local people to develop what they actually
need. A grant can be a good way of moving that forward, but so
often the problem has been the conditionality attached to those
grants. If it becomes too onerous, as I think they have been in
the past, then the whole thing collapses.
Q199 John Bercow: But on the other
hand there is a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayer, is there
not, and therefore there is a question of trying to establish
a balance between on the one hand wanting to give a relatively
free or in some cases almost complete free rein to local operators
and, on the other hand, having some regard to the fact that one
has responsibilities domestically?
Mr Cameron: Yes—and Petter
will explain more—the Institution and the ADP have been
looking at procurement methods that would help procure sustainable
solutions for projects overseas. I think that is probably the
way to go. What we do not want is the conditionality such as in
order to do this development it must be totally privatised because
so often that does not buy in and empower the community for whom
it is designed.
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