Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from the Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for International
Development
During your Committee's session on Private Sector
Development on 23rd May, members asked for further information
on three specific issues.
With regard to our contacts with the European
Commission on the Investment Climate Facility, the ICF team have
been in contact with the EC over a period of six months. Most
recently, on May 18th and 19th in Brussels, Chris Darroll from
the ICF design team accompanied Pierre Guislain from the International
Finance Corporation, to discussions with Bernard Petit (Director,
Economic Cooperation/Private Sector Development), Damien Levie
(Member of the Cabinet of EC Commissioner Louis Michel), and Gilles
Hervio (Head of Unit, Economic Cooperation).
The EC's interest in the ICF has grown through,
for example, the meeting between Louis Michel and Paul Wolfowitz
at the IMF Spring Meetings, and as a result of the April 23rd
meeting for donors on the ICF in the same week. You will be interested
to hear that, at the formal launch of the ICF in Cape Town at
the World Economic Forum on 1st June, the EC made a public statement
of support for the ICF. Their press statement noted that the "EC
pledges its support to the ICF and to its participation to the
funding of the ICF. In the weeks to come we shall work out the
details and modalities of this participation with the ICF Secretariat"".
With regard to your own enquiry on DFID employees'
secondments to the private sector, we have had one secondment
in that direction (who worked for BP as an Analyst in their Shareholder
Team for 12 months in 2004). We have also had six secondments
into DFID from the private sector during the last 3 years. Two
of these have included a financial sector expert from Rio Tinto
Zinc, and an international lawyer working on private sector and
water and sanitation programmes. Working on other issues we have
had two public financial management experts from PwC, and another
secondee from The Independent newspaper who worked with us on
the Commission for Africa. These secondments are typically for
a year, and the latest is a secondee from Prudential working on
human resources within DFID.
Finally on Joan Ruddock's enquiry on other donors'
contributions to the Africa Infrastructure Consortium, the Consortium
was not planned as a funding organisation, but as a co-ordination
and project preparation mechanism. Donor support is being provided
in a number of ways. Japan has provided a secondee to the Consortium's
Secretariat office in Tunis, working alongside a DFID secondee,
and the World Bank have offered to provide another secondee. The
African Development Bank has provided offices, equipment, a co-ordinator
and support staff for the Secretariat.
Russia has formally indicated that it will provide
support, but is yet to confirm the level or nature of this support.
Of DFID's $20 million contribution, $15 million is allocated for
infrastructure project preparation, $2 million for a study on
infrastructure investment, and $3 million directly for the work
of the Consortium. Other donors, such as the US, Germany, France
and Canada will also be supporting co-ordination activities, alongside
their direct support to infrastructure investment in Africa.
I hope this is helpful.
8 June 2006
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