Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
MR GARETH
THOMAS MP, MR
JIM HARVEY
AND MR
JONATHAN LINGHAM
17 JUNE 2008
Q100 Mr Singh: The problem is the
more sophisticated it gets the more invidious it may become.
Mr Harvey: Obviously there are
sensitivities to countries seeing themselves identified on this
list so WFP have asked us not to publicise exactly who is on the
list. There are political sensitivities. We hear about them in
the board, for example. Countries do not like to be labelled as
being in the difficult box. Nevertheless, within that, I think
the approach is perfectly appropriate and we do have confidence
in it.
Q101 Mr Singh: We are not going to
meet MDG1 and MDG4, are we?
Mr Thomas: I do not think I should
accept your premise. I think it is about political will as to
whether or not we meet MDG1. The government from the very top
down, Gordon through to Alistair Darling and certainly Douglas
Alexander are determined to do as much as we can to meet the Millennium
Development Goals. That is going to require not just the UK playing
its part but other rich nations and developing country governments
too. We have to re-establish that partnership which came to the
fore in 2005, rich countries providing more aid and developing
country governments doing their bit to reduce corruption and focus
on poverty etc. We know that some countries are off track to meet
their commitments they made back in 2005 and we hope that 2008
will be the time when they start to get back on track. That is
certainly the purpose of the Secretary General's meeting which
we have championed that is going to take place on 25 September.
I recognise you are being provocative but I do not accept that
we should be quite as gloomy as you have suggested we might be;
albeit there is a very substantial challenge there and we have
to get back on track quickly.
Q102 Hugh Bayley: I agree fundamentally
that it is a matter of political will and primarily a matter of
political will in countries of the south, where hunger is a problem.
Whereas in Africa it is absolutely right to say that without poverty
focus growth it would be impossible to meet the MDGs, it is clear
that growth in itself does not answer the problem. If you look
at south Asia, you have the highest proportion of children underweight
anywhere in the world, almost half—45 %—of children
being severely or moderately underweight. Why is that? What can
we do with countries like India, which are vastly industrialised
and where you have very strong and consistent growth, to get India
to address this problem? Why in India, why in south Asia as a
region, do you have a higher proportion of children underweight
than even in Africa?
Mr Thomas: I think there are the
same responses and some of the same challenges that face India
and China in Asia in terms of helping to tackle problems of underweight
children and hunger. There is no doubt that India faces significant
infrastructure challenges in terms of getting both goods to market
and assistance to people in very rural communities too. On occasion
it certainly faces challenges around the levels of productivity
on its farms. Some of the research that we are helping to fund
potentially will help Indian farmers increase their agricultural
productivity.
Mr Lingham: This is where we need
to focus down very much on getting this international partnership
sorted out and moved forward as quickly as possible. The vision
that we have for this and the process over the next few weeks
leading up to the MDG conference in September is really to try
and get that international buy-in to an approach which fits very
well with the task force programme that is being taken forward.
We want this coordination mechanism very much focused down at
country level. Governments themselves must take responsibility
for helping their people, taking the lead on all this work. Up
to now nutrition and agriculture have not really been able to
muscle in as the budget cake has been sliced up. Every country,
as you know, has a national plan for poverty reduction. The role
of agriculture has very often been moved down because of donor
pressure in education and health. Only recently have we started
to put more emphasis on agriculture and nutrition. I think the
World Bank report last year started this process almost of focusing
attention on the importance of agriculture. If we can get agriculture
properly reflected in national plans and properly funded as part
of that, which does not necessarily mean pushing money through
agriculture budgets—in Africa in particular, infrastructure
needs to be improved. We talked a little bit about infrastructure
in DR Congo and about the importance of having rural roads to
get imports to farmers and produce to markets. In Africa, particularly
as we look ahead to climate change, there needs to be a huge increase
in investment in irrigated agriculture to prepare the continent
for variable rainfall, not just storing water but protecting against
floods. Floods have had quite a devastating impact in Mozambique
recently and West Africa last year. All these investments need
to be pushed ahead and ramped up into a national plan. That is
the way we see the programme being taken forward to be able to
get proper resources put into agriculture and food production.
Q103 Hugh Bayley: Can I ask about
the new face of hunger, urban hunger, in India specifically? Here
is a near middle income country that has a space programme, that
has a nuclear bomb and that has the most shocking urban poverty
that I have seen anywhere in the world. I do not know India very
well but I remember taking a train out of Delhi to Agra and seeing
the quality of life in the slums. The train proceeds at five miles
an hour. Why does it move so slowly? Because people are on the
tracks defecating. Surely in India there has to be a social contract
of some kind that redistributes money from the middle class to
addressing problems of urban poverty as well as rural poverty?
Mr Thomas: That is a question
that frankly would be for you to pose directly to India's leaders
themselves. It is certainly the case that poverty was a very significant
factor in the last Indian general election, from what I understand.
In terms of donor countries' responsibilities to India, India
still remains the country where our biggest aid programme is in
existence. We have started to shift our programme to some of the
very poorest states, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar being examples,
a shift that I encouraged when I had responsibility for our aid
programme to India. That is something that fellow ministers are
taking forward now. In that very direct way we are seeking to
work with the Indian Government to provide ideas as well as finance
in particular state governments to help make change happen. As
Mr Lingham said, it is the developing country governments' own
responsibility to lead the drive to tackle hunger and poverty
in their country. Donors can help but the fundamental direction
has to come from the sovereign government.
Q104 Sir Robert Smith: In Darfur
and southern Sudan, have you an overall picture of how much taxpayers'
money was spent on food security there in 2007?
Mr Harvey: I think we will have
to research that one for you to give you a specific figure.[13]
Q105 Sir Robert Smith: It goes through
so many different pots it would be helpful to have some kind of
breakdown.
Mr Thomas: Do you want UK taxpayers'
money or the international response?
Q106 Sir Robert Smith: UK taxpayers.
Mr Thomas: We will be able to
tell you that for example in Sudan there is one of the pooled
funds and there is also the CERF from which money has been made
available and to which we contribute, so we will be able to give
you the overall figures that we are providing, but you may not
have it exactly as you would like.
Q107 Sir Robert Smith: How do you
monitor the effectiveness of this expenditure?
Mr Thomas: We have staff based
in Sudan whose prime responsibility is to monitor what happens
on the ground We have direct relationships with not only the UN
organisations such as the WFP but also the different NGOs who
we fund. We have a series of opportunities to road test and evaluate
the effectiveness of their own internal systems for making sure
money gets to where it is supposed to get to.
Q108 Sir Robert Smith: It is a very
challenging environment and one of the WFP's biggest programmes
is there. In the last four years has there been any impact on
hunger from the WFP's programme that you can measure?
Mr Thomas: Absolutely. They are
keeping people alive who would not otherwise be alive. What we
need is a political agreement and a conclusion to the fighting
that is taking place if we are really going to get the levels
of hunger and food shortages down in Darfur.
Q109 Sir Robert Smith: In southern
Sudan, where there is a relatively more peaceful environment,
is there an exit strategy yet for WFP to hand over to the government?
Mr Harvey: There has been established
a Sudan Recovery Fund, an SRF, which is a pool funding mechanism
to which the UK has pledged £70 million over the next two
years. That is to fund the transition, if you like. In the particular
terms of WFP, let me relate from my visit to Sudan in January
this year. They are working very closely with the Government of
South Sudan and are moving into what you might call a transition
mentality, which is thinking through the hand over strategy as
they carry out their programmes. School feeding has been integrated
into the Government of South Sudan's education programmes. WFP
has constructed 2,300 kilometres of road since 2005. It will take
about four years but they are thinking about how to hand that
over to the Government of South Sudan's transport ministry, which
is a small building. The WFP team are already in that building
and working with their Government of South Sudan counterparts.
The whole way they are doing things is with that hand-over mentality.
As a general point, hand-overs are something that the board has
pressed very hard with WFP and they are specifically reflected
in the new strategic plan. The thinking about hand-over is now
thoroughly embedded.
Q110 Sir Robert Smith: That is transferring
the understanding and the knowledge they have built up.
Mr Harvey: Absolutely. In the
case of the road building programme, they are getting out of direct
funding which DFID is part of into funding through the Multi-Donor
Trust Fund, which is managed through the World Bank. It will take
a little time. They estimate about four years but that is okay.
There is a road map to transition and hand-over.
Mr Thomas: I think your question
relates to the dilemma that Mr Bruce has posed about whether WFP
should be encouraged by the British government to not only focus
on humanitarian need but also on development. Perhaps I should
just clarify the answer I gave to you, Mr Bruce. We do think WFP
has a role to play in the development context. We just do not
think it should necessarily be the lead agency all the time, but
we do think it should be the lead agency on the immediate humanitarian
response. That is where we think it has a particular leadership
role to play. To take the example of roads, if WFP were to stay
in roads beyond dealing with the immediate logistic needs that
came up, it would be moving into territory which the World Bank,
the European Commission and the African Development Bank are all
in, which arguably are better placed to lead on. That is why we
say they have a role to play but their prime leadership role should
be on the humanitarian response.
Q111 John Bercow: Ghana, Ethiopia,
Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Lesotho and Haiti are just some
examples of countries that are likely to be hardest hit by the
current crisis due to their high levels of food imports. What
particular support do DFID and the WFP propose to offer to such
countries?
Mr Thomas: It will vary from country
to country. In terms of Ghana, Uganda and Malawi for example,
we have provided money directly through budget support so those
governments can, through their poverty reduction strategies, work
out what they need to do to respond to their own development needs,
including needs around hunger. We work with those governments
on the development of that poverty reduction strategy. Our funding
helps them to fund collectively. You have talked about Ghana.
We have a significant aid programme in Ghana that helps with issues
around education for example, because clearly getting more children
into school is part of the long term response that is necessary
to rising food prices and the right response in all sorts of other
countries. In Haiti we do not have a direct, bilateral programme
but our core funding to FAO and the World Food Programme is in
that way helping to make a response as those two UN organisations
are responding both to the immediate needs of Haiti's people and
the more medium term needs around access to seeds and fertilizer.
Q112 John Bercow: I know what you
told the Committee about budget support and poverty reduction
strategies but specifically in respect of the latter I cannot
help feeling that those strategies are for the medium and, in
some cases, even the long term. I am just quizzical about it,
wondering whether they are sufficiently flexible to respond to
often quite short term but very sharp fluctuations and, for this
purpose, increases in prices. Are you content that the host governments
have within those strategies sufficient flexibility to adapt if
there is an escalating crisis and a very sharp increase in food
prices?
Mr Thomas: We can always improve
early warning systems in the countries themselves. This comes
back to the point about making sure the international community
is joined up in how it handles issues around hunger. As you have
just heard from Mr Harvey, the World Food Programme does have
a mapping exercise. It does have its own system of alerting the
international community through its board members of particular
problems in particular countries. We use their tools and their
analysis as well as analysis from our own country staff to help
us make an assessment of where particular humanitarian crises
are potentially about to develop or are developing and what stage
those humanitarian crises are at. Am I confident that every developing
country's poverty reduction strategy is 100% flexible? I would
not want to say that and I certainly think we need to do more
to improve early warning systems, but there is a variety of tools
available to us as donors to understand what is happening in particular
countries. In most countries, that does enable us to respond quickly.
Where we do not have an aid programme, it is more difficult and
we do look to the leadership of the UN system in those examples.
Q113 John Bercow: Does the WFP do
enough to procure food locally in developing countries?
Mr Thomas: It has got much, much
better, so it is definitely on the right path. We want it to continue
to look at doing even more of its procurement locally, but it
is dramatically better than where it was, say, ten years ago.
Q114 John Bercow: Have you personally
been burning the midnight oil in readiness not only for today's
session with us but to ensure that you are fully familiar with
the evidence to us provided by the UK Forum for Agricultural Research
and Development, whose view it is that DFID should use its influence
within the WFP to ensure that local procurement of food aid is
given a higher priority?
Mr Thomas: I was certainly burning
the midnight oil last night. I would share the analysis that we
need to continue our work with WFP to get them to procure more
food locally. There has been a significant improvement in the
way WFP operate in this area and we welcome that, albeit we are
going to continue to encourage Ms Sheeran to do still more.
Q115 Chairman: It would be difficult
to discuss food prices and security without discussing biofuels,
winging around the discussion with a different emphasis. What
is DFID's view of the impact of biofuels particularly on prices
and to some extent security of supply? This was fudged in Rome.
I think a report in The Times said, "The final draft
declaration avoided a clear stance calling instead for in-depth
studies of biofuels to ensure their production and use were sustainable".
Mr Thomas: Bluntly, there was
a significant disagreement in Rome and there is within the international
community more generally about the level of contribution that
biofuels should make. There are a number of advocates, not least
President Lula of Brazil, who think that there is much to trumpet
about the contribution biofuels can make. There are others who
worry that biofuels can lead to crop substitution so production
that could have been made available for food would instead be
involved in the production of biofuels. Our own sense is somewhere
in the middle. There clearly is a contribution that biofuels can
make, particularly if they are produced from ethanol. There is
a global sugar surplus at the moment so biofuels from sugar cane
for example seem to us to have a significant contribution to make.
Where we would have more concern in terms of food would be biofuels
that were produced from maize. The concerns in this area have
helped to drive the Gallagher review which the Department for
Transport is undertaking. Our own sense is that we will probably
need to see some sustainability guidelines effectively drawn up
so that biofuels are being encouraged from areas like sugar cane
rather than from areas which might have been used for the production
of food.
Q116 Chairman: I would think that
is a reasonable response but in that context, given that it was
mentioned in the Prime Minister's Food Summit, I appreciate it
is not DFID's responsibility but is the target of 5.75% of biofuel
in petrol and diesel by 2010 compatible with that sustainable
supply? In other words, would sugar based or other similarly sustainable
sources be sufficient in volume to deliver that and would the
conclusion be that we should be getting out of maize and that
would help the food price situation? Will the Americans do it?
Mr Thomas: I apologise for giving
this answer but, as you say, it is not our area. The Gallagher
review is under way. We are expecting it to report shortly. Its
conclusions will help us to inform our stance on food prices,
particularly within the European context but also within the international
community. I do not have a ready, definitive answer to give you
at this stage. In terms of the American position, it is not clear
what the Americans will do. I think the Americans were significant
advocates for biofuels going forward. Whether they will be willing
to adapt their position as the debate on biofuels unfolds is not
clear.
Q117 Chairman: If it is any consolation,
a group of American congressmen who took part in a recent global
seminar in Brazil all took the view that the American policy was
unsustainable and they were from both parties.
Mr Thomas: You will not expect
me to comment other than to say that it is extremely interesting
to hear that.
Q118 Hugh Bayley: In April, DFID
announced that it was over five years doubling its research budget
for agriculture. What prompted the decision and what fields of
agriculture—large, commercial farming, small scale farming,
farming for export—will your research be focusing on particularly?
Mr Lingham: A significant element
is going into ramping up our investment through the CGIAR[14],
the international agricultural research body, which comprises
a number of institutions, that we are supporting. The research
is going to be across the board. The focus will be on trying to
get agricultural investment down to small scale farmers.
Mr Thomas: To answer the first
part of your question—what was our thinking in wanting to
increase the research budget in general and the agricultural research
budget in particular— Douglas Alexander since he has come
in has wanted the department to refocus its efforts on, amongst
other issues, economic growth. One of the key drivers of economic
growth is agriculture in developing countries. Therefore, our
sense was that we needed to look at how we could help increase
agricultural productivity, particularly in Africa and also in
south Asia.
Q119 Hugh Bayley: One of the things
that disincentivises poor farmers from increasing productivity
and output are the risks they face if they have a surplus, in
getting their crops to market and also the problems of investing
in higher productivity, whether it is irrigation or fertilizers,
because of the unpredictability of the climate. How can research
help small and poor farmers overcome the barriers to increasing
production?
Mr Thomas: I do not think they
can help solve lack of access to rural markets. That has to come
in other ways. In that sense, they cannot solve problems around
irrigation. We know the importance of both areas and we have to
make sure that money is being made available through other pots
to help make progress in that way. Where I suppose research can
help in the particular questions you are asking is around the
types of irrigation systems that you put into particular contexts.
In terms of the more general question, we would look for other
pots of money other than money for agricultural research to help
drive investment in irrigation and rural roads.
Mr Lingham: One of the investments
we have just got approval for is £7.5 million for Bangladesh,
to help develop new seed varieties which are much more adapted
to withstanding increased levels of salinity and waterlogging.
This is very important for wheat. The crop was just about wiped
out last year by cyclones. Crops like that would come back much
quicker.
13 Ev 46 Back
14
The Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research Back
| 
