Examination of Witnesses (Questions 65-79)
MR GARETH
THOMAS MP, MR
JIM HARVEY
AND MR
JONATHAN LINGHAM
17 JUNE 2008
Q65 Chairman: Good morning. Thank you
very much indeed for coming in on the final evidence session on
our report on the World Food Programme, which has turned out to
be fortuitously very topical and very relevant in the timescale
in which we are doing it. I just wonder for the record if you
could introduce your team?
Mr Thomas: Jonathan Lingham, on
my left, is the Deputy Head of the part of our policy division
which deals with agriculture; and Jim Harvey is the Permanent
Representative for the UK to the Rome agencies.
Q66 Chairman: Thank you for that.
Talking about the Rome agencies, as you know the Committee have
had evidence from Josette Sheeran here, and also visited Rome,
the WFP, the other agencies, and I think had a very useful visit,
but subsequent to that the Summit took place. Having read the
communiqué, or statement at the end of it, I have to be
honest and say it was full of benign good intentions but not an
awful lot of very specific promises. I wondered if from your point
of view, apart from the cash donations which obviously were immediately
valuable, what was achieved at that Summit which will be of practical
beneficial help, particularly on protecting the poorest people
from the current impact of food prices, because clearly the situation
for them that has got substantially worse this year?
Mr Thomas: I would encourage you,
Chairman, to see the Rome Summit in a sense as part of a scaling-up
of the international effort and not as a particular meeting on
its own. We would see the G8 having a role; we would see the UN
meeting in September having a role on food prices; and of course
we would see the European Council coming up later this week as
having an important role. Essentially what we have been seeking
to achieve is a ramping-up by the whole of the international community,
and welcome in that sense the UN World Bank taskforce which the
Secretary General established with the cooperation of Bob Zoellick
from the World Bank. The Secretary General reports back tomorrow,
I think, to the UN General Assembly on the work that taskforce
has done. We see the different players in the UN system—and
I am happy to go through them, of which WFP is one—bringing
their different expertise and areas of responsibility, alongside
the additional funding that has been made available both in a
humanitarian context to WFP, in a longer-term and medium-term
context through the World Bank, through regional development banks
(RDBs), and through IFAD[1],
one of the other Rome agencies; that policy advice, financial
advice coming together and being coordinated by a small secretariat
that would be part of an international partnership which would
emerge from this UN taskforce and that is what we are seeking
to get agreement for. We know we need more finance; we think we
are there in terms of short-term finance to meet the immediate
humanitarian needs; there is clearly more medium and long-term
finance that is necessary; and there is better policy advice to
governments that is needed. I suppose the other bit of the partnership,
Chairman, is that developing countries need to do more themselves
to invest in agriculture. You may be familiar with a target that
was agreed two or three years ago that developing countries, and
particularly those within Africa, would commit to investing some
10% of their budgets in agriculture. A number have achieved that;
others are on track to do that; so that would be the other part
of the perspective. I apologise for what is a long answer to your
question, but essentially we would not see the Summit in isolation
from a much broader effort to raise the issues of food prices
and investment in agriculture up the agenda.
Q67 Chairman: Obviously I can accept
that. I guess the communiqué gives some flavour to it.
There were obviously significant cash pledges—although the
actual delivery of the £755 million what I would call "standstill"
appeal, in other words money needed simply to pay the extra prices
for the World Food Programme which was already committed, was
mostly made- up by one donation of £500 million from Saudi
Arabia; which, welcome as it is, suggests that others were not
quite as quick to step up to the plate. This leaves us in a situation
(and we might explore this in more detail) that Josette Sheeran
gave to us about Kenya saying that even discounting the problems
they have of internal migration, quite a lot of farmers in Kenya
were not planting because they could not afford the seed or the
fertiliser. Is there anything in the Rome Summit that would give
those and other farmers in a similar situation any kind of sense
that they would actually be given direct support?
Mr Thomas: I will answer that
question but I would if I may (and perhaps early on in our select
committee hearing this is a risky thing to do) challenge your
analysis about donors not stepping up to the plate; because you
are right, one country did put a particularly large donation forward,
Saudi Arabia, which we very much welcome; but one of the things
we have sought to do as a Department for a number of years now
is to try to encourage more donations from a broader range of
donors. That is one of the reasons why we work with the Chinese;
but it is also why we are stepping up work with a number of Arab
donors. We were delighted when some of that effort was reflected
in the increased donation from the Saudi government. In terms
of the issue you describe about not wanting planting seasons to
be lost and farmers who need help with the cost of seed, to buy
seed, and also often the cost of fertiliser, we see the extra
money that the World Bank is seeking to raise, as well as the
extra money that is being made available to the World Food Programme,
as helping to address some of that need. Essentially that is why
you need a series of agencies and, in a sense, financing banks
to come forward and to work together more effectively both at
an international level but also at a country level too.
Chairman: Perhaps we can pursue DFID's
role in that particularly.
Q68 Sir Robert Smith: At the time
of the Summit the DFID press release talked about giving more
than £500 million to the food crisis. How much of that £500
million is new money; or does it come from current budgets?
Mr Thomas: Sir Robert, perhaps
I could just add to my answer to the Chairman and say that part
of the $1.2 billion the World Bank is seeking to raise includes
some $200 million which they are allocating immediately from the
profits of their lending to developing countries precisely to
deal with the issue you raise around seeds and fertiliser. Sir
Robert, in terms of your question about the money we announced
at the Rome Summit, is it additional money over and above the
existing budget that we had? No, it is not. It is part of the
overall spending settlement that we agreed in terms of the CSR[2]
outcome last July. For example, we announced an additional £22
million for Ethiopia for the social protection schemes there.
In total this year we will have now given some £44 million,
so that is additional money to what we were already providing
in that context. That is just one example.
Q69 Sir Robert Smith: So, it is altering
the priorities within the Department to meet the current situation.
Agricultural research—again the press release talked of
£400 million over five years, which says it is a doubling
of support in this area, so I suppose it is an extra £200
million over what might have been expected?
Mr Thomas: Yes, one of the priorities
which the Secretary of State set out in the decisions following
the Comprehensive Spending Review, was that he did want to see
much greater investment in research. One of the priorities that
he set out for the Department is to do more on economic growth.
Agriculture is a key part of the response to helping developing
countries increase their economic growth, and obviously wanting
to make more money available for how we can increase the effectiveness
of agriculture in particular in African countries.
Q70 Sir Robert Smith: Do you have
a total for the DFID contributions to the WFP this year?
Mr Thomas: My apologies, for Ethiopia
I said we had given an extra £22 million which brought our
total to £44 million—I beg your pardon—we have
now given £44 million to WFP in total this year; an extra
£30 million of which was included in the announcement which
the Secretary of State made at the Rome Summit. We have in total
given some £90 million plus to the Ethiopia Safety Net in
recent years, of which £22 million is new this year.
Q71 Sir Robert Smith: So £44
million for the WFP this year. Has DFID's contribution to WFP
changed over the past decade?
Mr Thomas: It represents a 40%
increase on last year. The funding for WFP has gone up and down,
partly reflecting the level of humanitarian emergencies; but also
partly reflecting the change in the way in which we finance the
UN agencies. You may be aware, Sir Robert, of the Central Emergency
Response Fund (CERF) which the UN has, and which the UK championed
to be significantly expanded, partly in response to what we were
seeing in Darfur, and also partly our experience in the Tsunami.
So WFP is funded through that, for example. We are also establishing
working with bodies like OCHA[3]
to set up pooled funds in countries to respond to particular country
emergencies. Again, WFP will draw money from those pooled funds
into which we contribute. We do not just give money directly to
WFP in perhaps the way that we did in the past; we are looking
to use our funding to continue to get the UN system to work more
effectively together. That is why we have helped to set up the
programme CERF and why we have got these pooled funds in-country.
Q72 Sir Robert Smith: You mentioned the
extra money for Ethiopia but how, at a practical level, is that
money being targeted by the World Food Programme to ensure a famine
does not actually develop?
Mr Thomas: The £22 million
in Ethiopia is to help the Ethiopian government develop its different
forms of social protection in-country. It is not directly to WFP
as such. As I say, we have given an extra £30 million to
WFP in general this year. WFP have strong systems in place to
track how they are working at country level. Our experience is
that those systems are effective. Mr Harvey, through his work
on the Executive Board, monitors the effectiveness of that funding
at country level.
Q73 Sir Robert Smith: Do you have
concerns for Eritrea and Somalia? Obviously that whole area is
now under stress.
Mr Thomas: We do have concerns
about the issue of the rising food prices and food shortages in
a number of areas, of which Somalia is certainly one, yes.
Q74 Chairman: At the Summit Douglas
Alexander was promoting the idea of an International Partnership
for Agriculture and Food involving donors, developing countries,
international organisations, the private sector and civil society.
Is there any progress on this? Was that a nice speech or was it
actually something of substance, and has there been any response
to moving that forward?
Mr Thomas: As you will be aware
from the answer I gave to one of your earlier questions, Chairman,
the Secretary General set up this UN-World Bank taskforce. He
reports back on the work of that taskforce. That was designed
to be relatively time-specific, to try and get us through an immediate
crisis period. What we believe is that we will need over the longer
term a sustained effort to increase donors' work on agriculture
with developing country governments. That is why we see a need
for an international partnership. We want that to be a relatively
light touch; so we want there to be a small secretariat that can
essentially act, as one of my officials described, as a "marriage
broker", between the needs of the developing country governments
in particular areas—it may be for finance; it may be for
policy expertise; it may be to think through particular parts
of the problems they face around food prices. The idea is that
they would go to that secretariat and the secretariat would be
able to match them to the relevant talents within the UN system
or, indeed, within particular donor agencies; if it involves finance,
financial leads to the relevant financing body be it the World
Bank, regional development banks or elsewhere. Where we have got
to is that a number of countries reacted positively to the idea
floated of variations of such a partnership. The French, for example,
talked about (they used different language) essentially the same
thing. We are hoping to use discussions around the European Council
and the G8 to see whether we can take the idea forward. We are
also waiting to see whether the Secretary General embraces the
idea in his remarks back to the UN following the work of the taskforce
and the Summit.
Q75 Chairman: It has got a life beyond
the speech?
Mr Thomas: Absolutely, yes.
Q76 Chairman: Off our agenda but
actually relevant to the Department's press release of 3 June
I was interested, as I think were those of us who visited the
Democratic Republic of Congo a couple of years ago, that you put
as a bullet point in the press release £38 million for road
building in the Democratic Republic of Congo to help farmers to
buy supplies and sell their crops. I think you will recall that
that has been rather a troubled venture. When we were in the DRC
DFID was all set to launch that programme two years ago with a
Congolese team of surveyors, engineers, whatever it may be, and
it was effectively hijacked by the minister; as a result of which
the money was withheld at that time. First of all, that original
idea, of having a Congolese team, did that survive or not survive;
or, alternatively, how is that money been spent to deliver it?
Mr Thomas: Chairman, if you will
forgive me, I think what I would prefer to do is to write to you
with a more detailed answer to those questions.[4]
Chairman: I appreciate that entirely.
I know it is off the agenda but, from our point of view, I think
it is quite interesting to see something that clearly got substantially
derailed in the troubled circumstances of the DRC which is back
on track.
Q77 Mr Singh: Minister, what we have
been told is that in the current food crisis we are increasingly
seeing what is described as the "new face of hunger"
with more and more people living in urban settings being caught
in the food hunger trap. We have also had evidence which suggests
that the WFP needs a more flexible toolbox to meet the new challenges.
What kind of toolbox do you think the WFP needs; and what kind
of tools should be in that toolbox?
Mr Thomas: My sense would be that
there are still a larger number of hungry people living in rural
areas as opposed to urban areas. I think you are right to raise
the issue not least because in many countries, because WFP and
other agencies have been working for a longer time, the systems
that they have to respond to the needs of hungry people in rural
areas are more developed. As you say, the awareness about urban
hunger is less developed. Given the complexities of helping people
in urban situations, perhaps living in very difficult conditions
in slum areas for example, makes the issue of how you target assistance
to people who are hungry that much more difficult. We welcome
the fact that WFP are beginning to do some more in-depth work
thinking through what type of policy tools they need to respond
to the issue. Our initial sense is that it will be forms of social
protection, cash perhaps, cash for work programmes or cash for
vouchers. It is that type of social protection system. They are
also looking specifically at how they prioritise the nutritional
needs of the under-twos—which I think again is a sensible
focus for their target aid. That is something we see them as needing
to develop, and welcome the fact that Josette Sheeran has recognised
that and has got people within WFP working on it.
Q78 Mr Singh: Is DFID looking at
any new approaches? Is DFID supporting the social protection programmes
as a concept? Are there any new approaches that DFID wants to
adopt or suggest?
Mr Thomas: We have been working
on social protection for a number of years now and, frankly, see
social protection as being increasingly effective; you have to
target it carefully. You have to get right the organisations with
whom you work; and make sure you have got a proper understanding
of the circumstances in each country. There is increasing evidence
to suggest that social protection does provide an effective form
of helping to prevent hunger, helping people deal with the consequences
of food shortages in their area or hikes in food prices that much
more. For example, in the case of Ethiopia which we were just
talking about, some of the research that has been done suggests
that three-quarters of households surveyed were consuming more
and better quality food; and that three in five of those people
who had received money through social protection schemes, or other
assistance, were not having to sell assets to get them through
particular food shortage periods. That does suggest that social
protection is increasingly seen as a way of building resilience
into communities.
Q79 Mr Singh: Can social protection
programmes serve to undermine the credibility of governments in
the country that they operate in?
Mr Thomas: It depends on the particular
context. You do have to work where you can and where you have
confidence in the government with that government's own systems.
For example, in Zambia in October 2005 I remember going to launch
a pilot for social protection and we were working with the international
NGO CARE and GTZ, the German donor agency. But crucially we were
working with both those organisations and the relevant ministry
in Zambia; so deliberately not wanting to undermine the Zambian
government, but also to use the expertise of those particular
agencies operating in the field who could make sure that the assistance
was properly targeted.
1 International Fund for Agricultural Development Back
2
Comprehensive Spending Review Back
3
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Back
4
Ev 45 Back
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