Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260
- 279)
TUESDAY 20 FEBRUARY 2007
RT HON
HILARY BENN
MP, MR ELWYN
GRAINGER-JONES,
MR GREG
BRIFFA AND
MR IAN
CURTIS
Q260 Ann McKechin: Do you not think
you should be carrying out such an assessment?
Mr Curtis: We have an assessment
of the next three years of our needs and that shows a slight increase
in capacity.
Q261 Ann McKechin: One or two or
do you mean 20?
Mr Curtis: One or two. I would
add something that has not come up yet which is the role of resource
centres as well. We are very fortunate that we have an extension
of our own capacity through arrangements that we put in place
with expert groups that enable us to draw on some very good advice
and support and we use that quite extensively. You need to see
it in the round.
Q262 Ann McKechin: How are you going
to extend that, if I go onto the question which I was originally
going to ask, into this inter-sectoral co-operation between education
and health? How are you going to use your resource centre to include
a strong water and sanitation focus amongst your advisers in the
other fields?
Mr Curtis: I think this is a work
in progress. What others have said, and the Secretary of State
has said earlier on, is that both within our education plans and
also within our health plans we are talking more about them all—
Q263 Ann McKechin: I hope you do
not mind me saying but it does seem to be very weak in terms of
you seem to be saying, "We might be changing it, it is a
work in progress." You made an absolute commitment to double
aid in water and sanitation, but we do not seem to, as yet, have
a definite plan as to how we are going to resource that.
Hilary Benn: With respect, I think
that is unfair because the fact that we have been able to increase
the bilateral spend in Africa, which as I reported earlier to
the Committee looks as if it is going to come out at about £78
million in 2005-06, up 50% on 2004-05, does not to me demonstrate
the lack of capacity to do that and, yes, it is the case that
we are planning ahead three years in terms of the staffing resource
that we need but we also happen to have a spending commitment
that takes us beyond those three years and that process will continue,
and I hope the Committee will rest assured that we will have the
right capacity in order to deliver on the commitment that we have
had made, and I am very conscious of that.
Q264 Ann McKechin: I understand that
you are going to publish a new health strategy this year. Would
water and sanitation issues be mainstreamed into that strategy?
Is that your intention?
Hilary Benn: Yes.
Q265 Joan Ruddock: I want to return
to the question of girls, gender and education, and the linkages.
It was very interesting, Secretary of State, that you immediately
came in early on in these discussions with the point that the
provision of sanitation at schools is quite critical to girls
continuing education, yet when we as the Committee made reference
in our report on the DFID Departmental Report 2006 on the
issue of failing to meet the MDG targets for seeking gender equality
in primary education, you came back with a long list of all the
things that were relevant and that DFID was doing in respect of
improving access to education for girls, but there was no mention
whatsoever in that considerable response to water and sanitation,
so I think you have illustrated in that, if I may say so, how
much a gender equality strategy or action plan is required in
the Department because there is a real failure, at least in what
is being written, to indicate how water and sanitation is a vital
factor in increasing girls' attendance at school.[11]
Hilary Benn: It is and we probably
did not do ourselves justice if that is what we wrote because
all I can say, as you will know Miss Ruddock from your travels,
is if you look at education programmes that we are supporting,
there is a very strong emphasis on water and sanitation. At the
school that I visited in Malawi the week before last, where we
had helped to support the construction of some new classrooms,
round the back there were new toilets that had been provided as
an integral part of the work we had done there precisely because
we absolutely get the point that if you want to keep girls in
school you need to provide loos; that is the truth and we know
that. I think the fact that it was not mentioned in that particular
reply does not mean a) that we do not get it and b) that we are
not doing it. On the broader point of the Gender Action Plan,
yes we do need it, and that is why we produced it because, despite
what we have done, we have not done well enough and we need to
do better, and that is what the plan is about.
Q266 Joan Ruddock: Is it clear that
there really is a strategy so that where education provision is
considered by DFID, water and sanitation is considered as integral
to the education process? It is quite clear that is the strategy?
Hilary Benn: Yes, that is clear.
Q267 Joan Ruddock: And funds are
appropriately allocated to that?
Hilary Benn: Yes.
Q268 Joan Ruddock: I believe you
may have made reference to this but again just for clarity, is
water and sanitation also part of the curriculum? Is that very
clearly something that DFID would advance?
Hilary Benn: We would certainly
encourage schools to ensure that as part of the education they
provide to the children that they understand the importance of
washing their hands and so on. DFID does not control the curriculum
in the countries in which we are working.
Q269 Joan Ruddock: I accept that
entirely but I think if DFID is providing the facility then it
is a kind of quid pro quo, is it not, that it would be
clear to all of us that the provision of that facility can be
enhanced further if it is linked to the education of the children
who use the facility?
Hilary Benn: Yes, I accept that,
and in the school that I visited two weeks ago where we had provided
the new buildings and helped them in building the loos, there
was a sign saying in large letters "now please wash your
hands", so that is a school that has got the message and
is getting that across to their students.
Q270 Joan Ruddock: May I suggest
it can be taken further because taking a message from school children
back into the community or into the village can be part of that
social marketing which might create a demand for latrines in the
village as in the school.
Hilary Benn: Absolutely and that
is exactly what the WASH campaign does, which we support.
Q271 Joan Ruddock: I think, Secretary
of State, you were not sure if you were supporting it everywhere.
What I am saying is you have given us so many examples of good
practice and initiatives, but we are not quite clear overall that
there really is a coherent strategy on water and sanitation in
DFID.
Hilary Benn: Well, in the end
the Committee will form its own view but I think there is a pretty
clear strategy. That is what I have been working on for the last
two years to get us to the point where we are at, and since we
are talking about education in particular, all the education programmes
that we have been involved in that I have ever seen have included
very clearly water and sanitation as part of the work that we
are doing, so I do not think I accept the characterisation that
somehow we are not consistently focusing on it because I think
we are. Can we all do more? You bet we can all do more.
Q272 John Bercow: Secretary of State,
I am very interested in this because although the Department very
rightly takes pride in the increased attendance by girls at schools
in a number of places, including Ethiopia, am I not right in putting
it to you that there is a very, very, very significant problem
of the drop-out rate and that the drop-out rate is greater amongst
girls than it is amongst boys. If you look at the headline figures
for increased participation, you get a warm glow but if you dig
into the detail you see there are very, very, very significant
problems, and one of the contributory factors to that increased
drop-out rate is probably the absence of proper sanitation. I
am merely reinforcing what Joan said. I have a sense that there
is good work being done and good ideas being accepted, but I do
not get a sense that there is an absolutely single-minded and
remorseless drive to ensure that the best practice is universally
adopted.
Hilary Benn: Are you talking about
our drive or a drive on the part of the governments and communities
and those responsible for the schools in the international system?
Q273 John Bercow: Both but I think
the two need to go together.
Hilary Benn: I accept your point
entirely about the factors that lead girls to drop out and the
headline primary enrolment rates do not really tell you the full
story about the drop off. As it so happened, I talked to a group
of girls who were out of school in Malawi on that visit. In this
particular case there are toilets provided at the school but there
were the other factors, the other factors being that their families
did not have enough money to buy pencils and exercise books so
they would say, "What is the point in going?" One young
girl said to me, "Even if I do stay at school and get to
standard six, no-one is going to pay the fees for me to go to
secondary education, so what is the point?" They all said
they would like to be in school but they have got to help the
family working on the land or whatever, so it is a combination
of those factors. One of the characterisations of our single-mindedness
as DFID is working with countries to help them to get rid of the
formal fees. If you have got formal fees and a family has got
a number of kids, surprise, surprise, in a number of cultures
it is the boys that get the fees paid so that they can go to school
and not the girls, so you have to look at it in the round and
try and address each of the factors that leads girls to drop out
of school—and water and sanitation is one, affording the
fees is one, and then the question of progression is another.
Q274 Chairman: It has been said to
us by many of the people who have spoken to us, Secretary of State,
that there is not the remotest possibility of approaching the
Millennium Development Goals in education unless sanitation in
particular but water and sanitation are put higher up the list.
Hilary Benn: I agree.
Chairman: Can I bring in John Battle.
Q275 John Battle: As someone who
visited Ethiopia and came back with some visit snaps of a few
latrines and a few taps, when I showed somebody in my constituency,
the comment was that I would need to replicate them about 1,000
times even for Ethiopia to get access to clean water and sanitation.
The World Bank report suggests really that we are about 50 years
behind, so it is the scale of it, and Ethiopia had quite an ambitious
programme that we were challenging. However, I think there is
a bigger background question. I am with colleagues who are pressing
to get a stronger sense of strategy and drive from the Department,
but I worry about what I might call policy following fashion in
development policy through the years. You will remember this from
before when this Committee had to push very hard to make sure
that agriculture was not taken off the agenda but brought back
on, and now I am beginning to think maybe water has come forward
for a while onto the agenda, and the real background question
is where will the water come from? I think there are real issues
about water resource management. We went to one of the best places—Ethiopia—but
without doubt Sub-Saharan Africa as the desert is blowing in raises
massive challenges, with the drying up of the rivers and the whole
of climate change. When you spoke about the resources in the Department,
I am wondering whether you are going to have staff who are trained
as experts in water resource management to really put some energy
and drive behind the World Bank, the IMF and the international
community, to fuse together the agendas of water resource management
and climate change, because I think at the moment we are really
tinkering at the level of individual projects, good though they
are, but in 150 years' time there may be no water to actually
provide the wells and the latrines.
Hilary Benn: This is indeed the
big question of the future. Why did donors take their eye off
the ball; indeed, why have country governments in some cases taken
their eye off the ball? Frankly, it is a mystery in one sense
given that water and sanitation are absolutely fundamental to
human existence, but anyway the fact that we are on an upward
curve in terms of interest and effort is a good thing but, you
are right, Mr Battle, we have to maintain it. About 20% of our
total bilateral expenditure goes on water resource management
and you are right that in a world in which water is going to become
in shorter supply, the population is going to rise, climate change
is going to have an impact, you do need countries to get all the
people who have got an interest in the management of this—making
sure there is enough water for the pipes if you can build them,
making sure there is enough water to irrigate the plants—to
come together a) to understand what is happening in terms of the
pattern of rainfall and the supply of water, what is happening
in the rivers and so on, b) working out how they will divvy up
what they have got, and c) seeing whether they can harness their
water better. In some cases where you get flash flooding—and
I saw that operating in India in a programme that we were supporting—it
was a question of building an earth bund so that the water stood
for a bit and then it went down into the water table as opposed
to just running off and nobody could then use it. In those circumstances,
you need to get people to come together to look at this in the
round. What are we doing? We are providing support to the Global
Water Partnership which is all about trying to get this kind of
conversation taking place within countries, but there are certain
areas where you need countries to talk to each other. A good example
of that is the Nile Basin Initiative of which we have been a really
strong supporter for a long time, which is getting all of the
countries that contribute to the Nile and feed off it to discuss
how they are going to share out this resource. The other area
I would say in Africa where we have not yet got that but we need
it is the Congo Basin. There are complex reasons as to why that
is the case, not least the instability and conflict in that region.
I would point to South Africa as being a country where water resource
management is in reasonably good condition. That is what we are
trying to do but you need the governments in the end to come together.
Q276 John Battle: I like your analysis
of the problem and I think there is a depth of analysis of the
problems there, but do you have a champion for water resources
management, for example, who goes to take part in the Comprehensive
Spending Review with the Chancellor's Department to say that since
in the Government-commissioned report Nick Stern suggests a third
of water loss through climate change, perhaps when we are looking
at resources for DFID, staffing and training, championing these
issues in international fora, we need a rather stronger back-up
than you are giving us? Does a person go from your Department
to discuss with DEFRA the environmental issues in that way? In
other words, is there some kind of drive within the whole of our
government system to say it is not just a job for DFID on their
own to champion water internationally but this is quite big crisis
for everybody everywhere so can we now start to join up the agenda,
to use a phrase, and can you lead that?
Hilary Benn: The answer is yes
and we are doing that because both in relation to water resource
management, which we are talking about, and climate change, we
are working increasingly closely with DEFRA on that and building
our capacity to deal with the consequences of climate change is
an important priority of the Department, including increasing
our staff. Elwyn looks as if he wants to say something.
Mr Grainger-Jones: I think we
share your sense of urgency on this. As I said, last time I was
here, we are very worried about the kind of numbers we are seeing
coming out of the various climate prediction models captured in
the Stern Report. We are strengthening our capacity to work on
some of these issues on climate change or water resource management.
We want a big push in this area. We are working to help strengthen
the World Bank's capacity on adaptation. By that I mean looking
at how the international system can help work with countries on
responding to the increased risk of climate change which puts
all kinds of stresses on the water resource management system.
We are working very much in Whitehall. In fact, we lead the bit
of the Whitehall international climate change strategy on adaptation,
helping countries adapt to climate change, and in the context
of the CSR[12]
we are also looking at the possible implications of climate change
and the costs and implications for governments of adapting to
climate change.
Q277 John Battle: I did not learn
it from the Stern Report, I actually learnt it from the people
in Ethiopia, from a woman who had got water for the first time.
I just asked her, "You have got running water for the first
time in your life; why don't you splash it around and hose it
over your kids?" and she told me that it was important not
to waste it and that she was really keen that the water should
be managed well and not squandered, and I thought what a lesson
in those circumstances. When I asked her why, she asked: did I
not know that the world could dry up? I think I should have brought
her here to Britain to pass on the messages here, frankly. I just
do not think as an international community we are taking that
message sufficiently seriously through our budgets and our planning
and our activities in all areas of the economy and political and
social life. I just wondered whether there was any way in government
we could grab that agenda and champion it for once because the
people are understanding the agenda faster than governments and
systems are now.
Hilary Benn: You referred to the
Stern Report and that is one of the ways in which this Government
has championed it by commissioning Nick Stern to do the report,
which has had a lot of impact around the world because he has
crunched the numbers and building on the science which seems pretty—
Q278 Chairman: He was in Addis Ababa
the week before we were.
Hilary Benn: And he is on a current
tour getting the message across to people, so that is one of the
areas in which we are providing leadership. The second thing I
would say is when people start fighting about water—
John Battle: Indeed.
Hilary Benn:—then the world
really will wake up to that because we know this very precious
resource without which we cannot live is going to be under increasing
strain both from the rising population and from climate change.
Q279 John Battle: And that is why
governments, whoever they are, need to think and not wait for
the water wars to happen but pre-empt them.
Hilary Benn: And that includes
talking to their neighbours.
11 See International Development Committee, Third
Special Report, Session 2006-07, DFID Departmental Report:
Government Response to the Committees First Report, Session
2006-07, pp 9-10 Back
12
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Back
| 
