Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
BARONESS ANDREWS
AND MRS
ANNA TIBAIJUKA
21 NOVEMBER 2006
Q20 Mr Davies: This is you encouraging
another body, the African Union, to encourage somebody else, the
governments, to do the job which you think is required to be done.
You just said to the Committee that one of your achievements is
to persuade governments to adopt pro-poor mortgage systems. How
many governments have adopted such systems in response to your
representations? Do you have a figure for that?
Mrs Tibaijuka: I would like to
say that the proportion of governments—
Q21 Mr Davies: Can you give me a
number for that, how many governments, you know, five, 10 or fifteen?
Can you give me a number on that?
Mrs Tibaijuka: I would rather
go by proportion.
Q22 Mr Davies: You might rather go
by proportion; does that mean that you do not know the answer
or there is not an answer?
Mrs Tibaijuka: I would like to
say the following, the work we are doing—you know you have
to have the before and after, or you have to imagine that if this
agency was not on the scene, definitely slum upgrading would not
have been a target of the millennium development goals.
Q23 Mr Davies: Can we stay with the
pro-poor mortgage issue, because you raised that and I am just
asking you to evaluate yourself in terms of what you said was
the first one of the objectives you set yourself that you gave
me. Do you know how many governments have adopted your recommendations
on pro-poor mortgage systems?
Mrs Tibaijuka: At the moment,
in terms of the pro-poor mortgage systems, we have designed pilots,
as Baroness Andrews said. We have to field-test these pilots—
Q24 Mr Davies: Do I take it from
these answers, Mrs Tibaijuka, that the true answer to my question
so far at least is zero?
Mrs Tibaijuka: I do not say zero
because if you want one or two or three could well be—
Q25 Mr Davies: Is it one or two or
three then? Perhaps you can tell me which ones. If it is only
three you might remember their names.
Mrs Tibaijuka: I do not know the
tradition in this Committee but I would like to submit that proportion-wise
about 20% of the governments have heeded this call. If you take
the Government of South Africa, for example, if you take the governments
in East Africa where we are based, many governments have—
Q26 Mr Davies: Which governments
in East Africa?
Mrs Tibaijuka: Kenya, Uganda,
Tanzania.
Q27 Mr Davies: The governments of
Kenya, Uganda and South Africa have adopted your recommendations
and set up pro-poor mortgage systems according to your suggestions,
is that right? Before we go round the whole of the world, can
I quote you as saying that those three governments named have
adopted your recommendations in that particular area, is that
right?
Mrs Tibaijuka: Many governments
have taken on board our recommendations, yes. For example, in
terms of forced evictions many governments have taken on our—
Q28 Mr Davies: Mrs Tibaijuka, I do
not know whether you normally answer questions with such a lack
of precision, but I have to say that it does concern me that someone
who is managing so much international public money gives me such
very imprecise responses and should be so reluctant to state absolutely
clearly whether or not there are any figures when you suggested
that there might be. You have said to me all these governments,
many governments, most governments, and when I say can I quote
this particular government, that they have adopted such a system,
you shy away from it, you do not give me a yes or no answer.
Mrs Tibaijuka: I do not shy away
from it but obviously there is no one size fits all because when
you promote a policy governments then take it into their own situation
in their country.
Q29 Mr Davies: You might well make
different recommendations to different countries; my concern is
how many of your recommendations have been adopted. Mrs Tibaijuka,
unless you want now to give me that quantified answer I have been
seeking for the last 10 minutes we will have to drop this part
of the discussion and see if other colleagues of mine can achieve
better results.
Mrs Tibaijuka: It is a question
of the mindset also because I have answered your question very
clearly. I have said yes, the campaign still goes on because the
problem is not solved.
Q30 Mr Davies: The problem is not
solved, people have not adopted the models that you have been
proposing.
Mrs Tibaijuka: It is a problem
of development. The problems of development—if they were
solved we would not be in this Committee sharing experience, you
would not be there representing the people you represent. This
is about life itself, it continues, so I do not exactly—
Q31 Mr Davies: Mrs Tibaijuka, we
know the problems are there, the question is whether there are
improvements and the second question is whether those improvements
can be measured, whether we can be clear about them.
Mrs Tibaijuka: Absolutely.
Q32 Mr Davies: The third question
is who is responsible for those improvements and can we establish
a relationship between the funding of your agency and these favourable
results or these improvements. That is the reason for my questions,
it is the only reason for my question, and I have to say that
I have not been able to draw from any of the responses you have
given me any causal relationship at all between your funding and
your activities and whatever improvements might have taken place.
Mrs Tibaijuka: I feel that I have
answered your question but I have met a closed mind on that one
so there is nothing I am going to be able to do. I have answered
you very clearly that there has been value added, that without
this work we would not be where we are, but that work has not
yet finished and so we continue.
Mr Davies: Mrs Tibaijuka, you have been
very clear but, if I may say so, you have been very clear in evading
my questions.
John Battle: It is fair to say that our
committee on international development had a very long session
with Mr De Soto, looking at his proposals and asking whether they
were working. We had a similar session, to try and press down
to see what the practical results are, so it is a question that
has been drifting around in our committee and Quentin pressed
it in those terms.
Q33 Dr Starkey: Can I address my
questions, firstly, to Baroness Andrew. Minister, you were there
from the DCLG but representing the British Government so also
DFID. Can you say whether you have actually met with the Secretary
of State for International Development or one of his ministers
since you returned to discuss the next steps, and in what way
the policies and programmes of DCLG or DFID are going to be developed
or modified as a result of your visit?
Baroness Andrews: Certainly I
met with the Secretary of State last week, in fact, to talk about
the outcomes from Vancouver and to think about our own policies
in relation to UN-Habitat. If I can just talk about the way we
go forward in terms of the relationships between the two departments
first of all, there has been a close relationship between DCLG
and DFID. I have to say when DFID had an urban and rural change
team with a single contact point it was clearer, in a way, to
be able to relate to a group, but the policy within DFID has been—rightly,
I think—to spread the urban work in relation to the various
elements of water, sanitation and so on and so forth. We have
put together a programme of a joint activity—for example,
only yesterday I was at a conference on homelessness with international
members and we worked together with the Royal Town Planning Institute,
for example, in developing the planning offer that we make to
developing countries in the future. There is a great deal of shared
work that we can do in terms of the bilateral and multilateral
arrangements on exchanging knowledge about city development. I
have mentioned climate change, for example, and we want to take
forward our bilateral arrangements with Canada, which means working
very closely on infrastructure issues across Canada, particularly
in cities. I will write in some detail in terms of the programmes
that we intend to take forward in the future, if I may, across
DFID.
Q34 Dr Starkey: That would be extremely
helpful. Do the two departments share budgets on these projects?
Baroness Andrews: No, we do not
have a joint budget. We have a planned programme of quarterly
meetings to take us forward into the coming year, but certainly
our budgets are separate.
Q35 Dr Starkey: For your civil servants
really, we are going to be discussing the annual report in a week
or two, it might be useful to have highlighted in that what part
of the budget relates to this agenda.
Baroness Andrews: Yes, indeed,
we can do that, we can send that as a submission to you.
Q36 Dr Starkey: That would be very
helpful. You mentioned that you were doing some joint work with
Canada; was that resulting from the UN-Habitat meeting itself,
or from the meetings you had in the margins?
Baroness Andrews: It preceded
UN-Habitat. We met in Cardiff about a year ago because Canada
and the UK were both at the stage of looking at the state of their
cities and we had a lot of things to share in terms of what was
happening in terms, for example, of rapid growth, social cohesion
issues, congestion and transport issues, the sort of choices that
we are making to try to make our cities more competitive. Growing
out of that, when I went to Vancouver I met bilaterally with ministers
who are responsible for infrastructure in Canada to talk about
raising money for infrastructure priorities, the various techniques
we all have for doing this. They have a particularly fine report
called From Restless Communities to Resilient Places: Building
a Stronger Future for All Canadians where they have explored,
in very new language I feel, some of these things which cities
are now doing around culture and creativity for example in terms
of promoting social cohesion, because Canada has a big challenge,
as we do, in terms of making its multi-cultural cities at ease
with themselves and so forth, so that was a particularly useful
exchange that we had.
Q37 Dr Starkey: Can I just then briefly
ask a question about the Bristol Accord, Minister, because you
have mentioned it several times. Can you say whether the group
has actually met subsequent to the meeting in Bristol and whether
there are any interim findings?
Baroness Andrews: Yes, what has
happened since Bristol has been quite an interesting journey;
the most important thing was last week, in fact, in Leeds where
we met with the European countries to take forward the skills
agenda, because there were really two outcomes that were particularly
important from the Bristol Accord, apart from the eight principles.
In order to make sustainability a practical option we were looking
at the impact of European Investment Bank loan finance on promoting
development and we are working very closely with our European
partners on taking forward that particular aspect of the work.
Our own contribution is about place-making skills and coming out
of Bristol there was a sense that we certainly needed to be clearer
about how we were going to actually define and develop the skills
that we need to develop our communities. The Academy for Sustainable
Communities was set up roughly a year ago in Leeds; it has developed
quite rapidly and it has a skills agenda and a curriculum which
has got something to offer not just for other European countries
but also developing countries—for example, on how to build
capacity in developing countries and I talked to the Secretary
of State about the usefulness that it might have for Africa capacity-building
programmes. The European Skills Symposium was held in Leeds two
weeks ago and we debated a draft European skills commitment to
take that sort of curriculum forward. Both those elements of the
Bristol Accord, the European investment loan, plus the skills
agenda, will be taken forward by the German EU ministerial informal
meeting in Leipzig next May and it will be on the agenda of the
next Presidency. The Academy is already proving its worth, it
is producing material both for young people in terms of the educational
value of place-making—what do we mean by place-making essentially,
is it just something that architects or developers do—and
how can we get this into the minds of all people as a profession
which is of benefit, and how do we get communities themselves
to take responsibility, as they do, for example, through the New
Deal for Communities, for developing communities? They have a
lot of skills in communities; how do we encourage and enable that
to happen and make the professionals and the local communities
work together successfully. We have got a lot to do in that respect.
The final report, of the EIB working group, is going to be presented
at the Leipzig meeting and its recommendations are going to be
incorporated into a charter at that point.
Q38 Emily Thornberry: Can I just
ask a follow-up question to the first question that Phyllis asked
when you were saying that you were looking at DCLG's policies
in relation to UN-Habitat. I was looking at this State of World
Cities in particular on overcrowding in urban households,
which is at page 68, which begins with a description from a slum-dweller
in Nairobi: "This one room is my bedroom, my kitchen and
sitting room." I have to say that that describes the conditions
which an awful lot of my constituents suffer, and in fact some
of them have to share that room with other members of the family.
I was interested to see that the UN-Habitat definition of overcrowding
began with two people per room, but has been amended now to be
three people per room. Does that include the kitchen and bathroom
and how many people in inner cities in England are overcrowded
according to this definition.
Baroness Andrews: I do not know
whether it includes kitchen and bathroom in the international
definition. Certainly, you will know that we are working on overcrowding
as a priority ourselves in Communities and Local Government and
across London, for example, it is acute, and we are putting special
advisers into five local authority boroughs to actually address
the issue. Definitions of overcrowding are pretty complex, as
you know, and I will have to ask Anna to actually respond to the
international definition.
Mrs Tibaijuka: Overcrowding is
of course when more than two people who otherwise should not be
sharing a sleeping place are sharing; that is the way we define
overcrowding. Normally this would be based on the sleeping quarters,
the place where people sleep normally, excluding the kitchen and
the bathroom. In many situations in the world even the bathroom—sanitation
as you know is the biggest challenge—is not there, so we
are talking about a situation where about 300 households are sharing
maybe one sanitation facility if at all. So the reality out there
is that some people are using what we call flying, that means
people to relieve themselves are using plastics or whatever. The
situation out there is quite serious, therefore. A slum, as I
said, is a place which has no access to water, to sanitation,
to permanent building materials, without security of tenure and
overcrowding, so some people live under this much deprivation.
If one of these basic facilities is not there, then we say it
is a slum. According to our previous report before this one, 6%
of the people in the north—in Europe and America—are
living under what we call slum-like conditions, so it is not a
phenomenon which is only restricted to the developing countries;
6% of the people in this country, in America and in the other
places are indeed living under slum-like conditions.
Q39 Ann McKechin: Can I turn to the
questions specifically on the issues of water supply and sanitation
in urban areas? Given the huge increase in population in urban
areas and the developing world over the next 10 to 15 years I
wonder what your organisation, Mrs Tibaijuka, has concluded is
the best strategy for developing water supplies to those who currently
have no supply at all, and I also have noticed with interest the
research recently that indicates that even at 3% of income water
fees are still unaffordable to the very poorest in communities,
so on that basis what does your own organisation recommend as
the best strategy for people to try and develop their water supply?
Mrs Tibaijuka: We have a large
programme on water and sanitation and we have a special trust
fund which is trying to assist communities, specifically on the
ground, in accessing water and sanitation but even more so on
what we call demand management because also water governance is
a challenge. In many parts of the world water is wasted by the
rich people who normally pay for a municipal supply, while the
poor have to depend on vendors in countries where water is expensive.
Our activities in this particular area are in governance, particularly
in the management of water, to discourage wastage of water. In
the slum settlements and indeed in many places we are promoting
what we call a lifeline tariff, and in terms of specific activities
agreed, the Government of South Africa was the first one to adopt
our policy where they declared a lifeline tariff, which means
everybody is guaranteed a minimum amount of water free of charge,
because we subscribe to the principle that water is a right. Beyond
the basic needs, some people waste water, so we are also encouraging
graduated user fees so that those who want to waste water will
have to pay more for it. This is how we are working now. In terms
of actual needs, the water target, halving the population without
safe drinking water by 2015, I am afraid that many countries are
not on target in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia we are
off target. It is a big problem. The poor are buying water; in
cities you cannot go to the river to fetch water, the rural communities
are surviving with water—it is difficult but you can still
try to get some amount of self-reliance.
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