CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 493-ii

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

 

 

THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME AND GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY

 

 

Tuesday 17 June 2008

MR GARETH THOMAS MP, MR JIM HARVEY and MR JONATHAN LINGHAM

Evidence heard in Public Questions 65 - 124

 

 

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

1.	This is a corrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.
2.	The transcript is an approved formal record of these proceedings. It will be printed in due course.

 

Oral Evidence

Taken before the International Development Committee

on Tuesday 17 June 2008

Members present

Malcolm Bruce, in the Chair

Hugh Bayley

John Bercow

Richard Burden

Mr Marsha Singh

Sir Robert Smith

________________

Memorandum submitted by the Department for International Development

 

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Mr Gareth Thomas MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for International Development, Mr Jim Harvey, Permanent Representative to the UN Food and Agriculture Agencies in Rome and Mr Jonathan Lingham, Deputy Team Leader, Renewable Natural Resources and Agriculture Team, Department for International Development, gave evidence.

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.

Q80 John Bercow: Minister, should cash and food transfers be adopted as a primary approach to helping poor households cope with food price increases? I do not know whether you have a sense of the criteria DFID will expect the World Food Programme to deploy in deciding whether a cash or food transfer should take place?

Mr Thomas: I am not going to say that in every circumstance social protection systems should be the primary way in which we respond to an emergency involving a lack of food or high food prices. It really does depend on the particular situation in-country. Let us take an area that you have been very interested in, the issue of Burma, where there is significant devastation of livelihoods, of farms, because of an external event-in this case flooding brought on by the cyclone. Then there are occasions when you do need to bring food directly in. We would ideally want that food to be procured locally. Where you are dealing with more ongoing challenges around famine then there may still be a case for that direct food aid; but more likely you need to build up the resilience of particular communities to cope with that ongoing famine situation. That is where social protection, cash for work, is perhaps more efficient and effective in the long-run. You obviously need to do that alongside much greater investment in agriculture more generally as well.

Q81 John Bercow: The distinction, in broad terms, would be between a sudden crisis and a slow burn crisis, rather than between a humanitarian crisis, on the one hand, and food insecurity or worse that resulted directly from a grievous human rights abuse by a dictatorship?

Mr Thomas: I think that is perhaps a good way to put it, but I would use your caveat "in broad terms". You need to look at the particular circumstances in each country. Yes, I agree with food aid where there is a particular immediate humanitarian crisis, as opposed to a more ongoing challenge around famine, absolutely.

Q82 Richard Burden: The global crisis/challenge around food security has obviously focussed attention once again on the multiplicity of UN agencies, boundaries between them, overlaps between them, and so on. You have touched on that in some of your answers so far. I will come in a minute to ask you a bit more about the taskforce you referred to. Could I start off by just asking what actually the UK really wants to see in terms of reform there? Simon Maxwell[5], when he came to see us, put it quite interestingly and said, "It would be helpful if the large countries like the UK were to say to the UN system, 'We want one ten-page summary of what you want to do as a UN system', signed by the Secretary General, delivered to the series of meetings that is happening through the summer, the Call to Action, the G8 and so on". If you were to summarise (and I am not asking you to come up with ten pages) what specific actions the UK might see in terms of UN reform what would they be?

Mr Thomas: I suggest to you, Mr Burden, that is a whole select committee inquiry of itself. Essentially we want the UN to bring together the different expertise of its different agencies to work, at country level in particular, more effectively than in many cases they are doing at the moment. We want the UN agencies "to deliver" in the jargon-to deliver as one. If you think about the different agencies, and just look at the differences between those based in Rome, you have got WFP in particular focussing on the short-term immediate humanitarian needs; you have got IFAD looking at the longer term financing needs; you have got the FAO[6] providing, in theory, policy advice to developing country governments. At different times you are going to need all three to be in place; then you could usefully use the expertise of the World Bank with all their additional finance and expertise again around long-term needs of countries and their good use of public financial management systems et cetera. UNICEF[7] has got particular expertise around the needs of children and nutrition, for example. Do you also bring in UNHCR[8] which has particular responsibility around helping the hunger needs of refugees and internally displaced people? There are a huge number of agencies that have a role to play in responding to particular needs at particular times. What we want to do is to try and empower the lead person for the UN in those contexts-be it in the humanitarian coordinator or the resident coordinator-to be able to corral those agencies into giving advice in a way that best suits the needs of the country governments and looks at their medium-term and their long-term needs. That is why we are putting as much effort in as we are to the whole UN reform process-be it a humanitarian system of reform which Hilary Benn, when he was Secretary of State, initiated in particular; through to a development system reform which Gordon Brown set up-a high level panel on development system coherence back in 2005 to look at this and which Douglas and I are now trying to take forward still further in our current roles.

Q83 Richard Burden: Do you favour one UN agency being the lead agency? Some have suggested that could be a role for WFP in the future. Or do you think it is a question of horses for courses and it depends on the situation as to who should be the lead player in the leadership team?

Mr Thomas: I do not favour one agency having the overall lead. Different agencies have different strengths and different areas of expertise. All their experiences and talents et cetera are going to be needed in different places at different times. What I think we need is commitment from all those agencies to work together and to work under the leadership, as I say, of the key UN lead person in-country, which will be either the humanitarian coordinator, if there is an immediate crisis, or the UN resident coordinator. They need to be willing to accept the leadership of that person in-country and provide their expertise behind the work that resident coordinator, or humanitarian coordinator, sets out to do. Again, that must be in support of what the developing country government themselves want to see.

Q84 Richard Burden: Could I just ask you a little bit about the taskforce that Sir John Holmes has been coordinating. You described it potentially as something of a "marriage broker" in terms of having a relationship between the needs of the particular developing country, the country facing the emergency and so on, and the different range of UN organisations and potentially other donors. Do you see that work being essentially one of coordinating the front door, or have you got hopes for it in terms of changing the architecture behind the front door?

Mr Thomas: I described the International Partnership for Agriculture and Food, which the Secretary of State called for at the Rome Summit, as being a potential marriage broker; but we do see that hopefully emerging from the UN-World Bank taskforce, which the Secretary General has got, which John Holmes and David Nabarro are about to be leading. What we wanted to see was both a ramping-up of the UN systems response to the so-called food crisis; and in the longer term we want there to be an easier port of call for developing country governments to go to when they recognise they need particular expertise. That is where we see the partnership playing a role. If you break down the different elements of that partnership you will need more money for long-term investment in agriculture; and that is partly potentially through the World Bank, partly through regional development banks and partly through IFAD. Then you do need better policy advice available to developing country governments; and that is where we think the FAO has a key role to play going forward. As I say, you will have particular needs in particular areas of the response, so UNICEF can respond in terms of nutrition, or UNHCR in terms of refugees. Do I hope that there will be a greater appetite for working as one as a result of this taskforce? Yes, absolutely. There is no doubt that particular bits of the UN system need to accelerate their efforts to reform themselves; and FAO is the classic in that sense. Josette Sheeran and Lennart Båge, Head of IFAD, in different ways have led reform drives within their own organisations. We do need Jacques Diouf at the FAO to accelerate the reform efforts that have begun within FAO but are still behind the curve in terms of where the others are at.

Q85 Richard Burden: In the current status of the taskforce's recommendations, its draft action plan was presented at Rome. It is still in draft, so what is the next stage?

Mr Thomas: We met with the Secretary General yesterday and he was telling us he was due to report back Wednesday, I think, to the UN. We are obviously waiting to see what his conclusions are from that. We then want to use the European Council, the G8 and then the meeting on the Millennium Development Goals that the Secretary General has called in September to take forward the work of the taskforce both in raising additional finance and in getting the policy response right as well. That is where we are going to be taking forward our ideas around an international partnership to try and see if we can make that happen.

Q86 Chairman: Mr Thomas, according to Bob Zoellick, I think, the increase in food prices has probably put 70-100 million people back into the hungry bracket, as he put it, wiping out almost ten years of achievements on development. I am not criticising because I think what you have said is entirely understandable within the framework of policymakers, and policy advocators, but if you are a hungry person or a representative of hungry people in a poor country being led through a cat's cradle of acronyms and UN agencies does not sound like a very dynamic approach to tackling world hunger. Simon Maxwell of the ODI said that this is the moment where we really need to cut through all of that, take the opportunity of the crisis to simplify the process and perhaps suggest that hunger should be tackled under the leadership of one organisation. In other words, they deal with all these acronyms and bringing all these people in, but from the external agency people know who is leading. In that context, would that not logically be the role for the World Food Programme?

Mr Thomas: At one level the easy answer is to say, yes, Chairman, to your question; but I think the idea that you would get one single agency leading the response to hunger and putting in place the longer term responses to issues around food prices is just simply unlikely. With respect, I think our idea of trying to get a partnership going to see that you do bring the different agencies and the different developing countries and the different parts of developing country governments who have particular needs for particular policy advice, or for particular pots of money, together in a way that I have described, with a light touch secretariat rather than a great new body, or a great new reform process that takes up huge amounts of time and uses huge amounts of political energy, we know that people in a range of UN agencies-within the World Bank, within other donors, do want to help. The question is: how do we make that help available more quickly? Our sense is that this light touch secretariat as part of an international partnership is the way to do it: to bring the needs, on the one side, together with the people who have got both the money and the ideas to respond.

Q87 Chairman: I do not know what Simon Maxwell will be doing when he leaves the ODI next year, but I suspect he will not be disappearing off the scene. He said to us that, "It would be very helpful if the large countries like the UK would say to the UN system, 'We want one ten-page summary of what you want to do as a UN system', signed by the Secretary General, delivered to the series of meetings that is happening through the summer, the Call to Action, the G8 and so on". Do I take it from your last answer that DFID is not planning to do that?

Mr Thomas: Not in quite such a direct way. We are pressing the different bits of the system to do more in the areas where they can do more. For example, the World Bank have provided $200 million immediately available for helping developing country governments buy more seed and buy more fertiliser to help farmers who are short of resources as the planting season begins. That is an immediate response. We have worked with the World Food Programme, both directly providing additional resources ourselves, and encouraging other governments to put money up. We are encouraging the different bits of the UN system that provide the policy advice to developing countries to do more themselves. The longer term issues around the mismatch in terms of poor incentives for developing countries to plant more food so they can sell it for export-through the Doha round of trade talks there is obviously a huge amount of effort that has gone into (and is still going into) trying to secure a deal in that round of trade talks, which potentially would help to sweep away some of the tariffs and export subsidies which do act as a major disincentive for some developing country governments to scale-up their investment in agriculture.

Q88 Hugh Bayley: Does DFID really support the role of WFP in relation to non-emergency intervention, such as nutrition and school feeding? Or would you like to see them spend a greater proportion of their time and money on responding to emergencies?

Mr Thomas: We would certainly like them to continue to focus on responding to emergencies. We think that they have a critical role to play in post-conflict situations too. They are very good at providing logistics and to help in all sorts of humanitarian situations, not just in terms of the food context but, for example, the road building programme in southern Sudan which they have helped to generate, which has provided all sorts of agencies with the ability to get assistance to the people of southern Sudan much more effectively. You are right in the premise of your question when you say are we less positive about their developmental work. We see that certainly being an area where they have less of a comparative advantage to other bits of the international community; but we are one voice among many on the WFP board, and we have to recognise that others on that board do want WFP to continue to play a role in a developmental context. We accept that there is a role for them to play, but we think where they bring real added value into the response is in getting aid to deal with the acute needs of very hungry people.

Q89 Hugh Bayley: I want to pursue the question of malnutrition and under-nutrition. Perhaps the best starting point is in relation to your own Department. Robert Zoellick said in his recent speech about the food crisis that hunger and malnutrition are the forgotten Millennium Development Goal. In your Department's PSA[9], in relation to Development Goal One, DFID is required to use as an indicator the percentage of a population living on less than $1 a day; but Millennium Development Goal One is specifically about hunger and the indicators that are tied to it are to do with the percentage of a population who have a sufficient, adequate, minimum calorie intake and the prevalence of underweight children. If the Department was seeing reducing hunger as a lead goal, as one of its most important outcomes then, surely to goodness, you would use as an indicator something more closely tied to hunger when assessing your performance against Millennium Development Goal One?

Mr Thomas: I accept you are not putting it in these terms, but I think the suggestion that we have not done enough on trying to tackle hunger is one that I would want to challenge. I accept that there is always more we can do, but we have always sought to provide for the immediate humanitarian needs. We have always been a significant funder of the World Food Programme; the largest funder of the CERF. We have always championed the ability of the UN and the World Bank to provide policy advice to developing country governments to help them get their own agricultural policies right. Again, we remain a very significant funder of all sorts of different UN agencies. In terms of long-term finance for tackling problems around the shortages of food, we are now the biggest funder of the World Bank; a significant funder of IFAD; and a very significant funder of the regional development banks; and that is in addition to all the different things we do directly as a bilateral donor, be it through social protection and schemes in-country, or by the agricultural policy paper, for example, that we published in 2005 to try and provide greater policy support to our staff in-country, working themselves directly with developing country governments. Agriculture is an area where the Department has worked. At different times it has had media profile and profile in Parliament. I do not think it would be fair to imply (and I accept that you have not implied it, as such) that we are not taking it seriously. I do accept, however, we can always do more.

Q90 Hugh Bayley: I am glad to hear you saying that final point. As a large development agency with a rapidly expanding budget, I would certainly accept that DFID does a lot in this field; but I think my conclusion-and I hope our report reflects this when it is published-is that DFID does not focus closely enough on under-nutrition directly; and that given rising food prices that that is a policy correction I hope could come about (and I hope we will see coming about) in the Government's response to our report. A third of children who die under the age of five die because of under-nutrition. This is a very serious problem. If you care about child deaths you had better have a policy on nutrition. We know that is going to get worse because of rising food prices. Is there work being done currently within your department to look at indicators that you could use to focus your poverty alleviation policies more specifically on malnutrition, for instance using the prevalence of underweight children as an indicator?

Mr Thomas: There are two responses, Mr Bayley, that I would give. Firstly, in response to the consultation on our HIV/AIDS and health policies, one of the clear messages coming back from both developing country governments and civil society with whom we spoke was that they would welcome DFID giving more policy attention to nutrition. As a result we have set up a policy team on nutrition to look specifically at what else we should be doing in this area. In terms of the actual response in developing countries, our support for social protection, our support for investment in education, our support for investment in health, our support for championing economic growth in developing countries, all of those help to tackle the issues around child nutrition. I would not accept that we have not taken the issue seriously, but I do accept that we could give higher profile to the work on nutrition. That is why we have set up a nutrition taskforce to look at what else we need to do.

Q91 Hugh Bayley: Just one last question to do with the UN system and where responsibility for tackling this problem lies. It is clear from the answers you have given already that a number of different UN agencies have responsibilities: UNICEF-but they have a responsibility only to children. To quote Bob Marley, "A hungry man is an angry man", and you can see what angry men do in Bangladesh, in southern Africa or a number of other places. Should there not be one clear UN lead agency that regards its role, one of its primary purposes, as ensuring-in a world where there is enough food to feed everybody if only it could be distributed to the right people-that that happens? To ensure that under-nourishment is not the daily and life-stunting grind that it is for millions and millions of people?

Mr Thomas: If you look at the mandates of the three Rome agencies - never mind some of the agencies that are headquartered in New York or in Geneva-WFP, IFAD and FAO all have at the heart of their mission the purpose of responding to the needs of hungry people. The question is: in the immediate and short-term is it possible to get just one rationalised agency across the whole of the UN system? My judgment, given how difficult UN reform has been to this point (and we have put substantial effort in, and we are going to continue to put substantial effort in) is that there is not an immediate prospect of one specific UN food agency. Our sense therefore has been: can we marry the different responsibilities, different talents and different financial flows from the banks and the different UN agencies more effectively and more quickly to the needs of different developing country governments, and different bits of those developing country governments? Absolutely we think we can do, and that is why we want an international partnership, as Douglas Alexander set out, to take forward that ambition; whilst at the same time we are continuing to champion UN reform, given how long we know that is going to continue to take.

Q92 Hugh Bayley: I would agree with you. I would have the ambition for one UN food and nutrition department, but it is not going to happen in the short-term. The FAO has not taken a lead and is not seeing itself as having a key responsibility in addressing nutrition needs directly; and, I would say, it is one of the less functional UN agencies. WFP is one of the more effective agencies; it is doing work on school feeding and nutrition in non-emergency situations. Should not our government then say, "For the time being, until we have a better, more fit for purpose UN structure, since WFP has capacity we ought to be more supportive of them using their capacity to remove the burden, scar, of under-nourishment from sections of the global population"?

Mr Thomas: That is why we are giving more money to the World Food Programme. What we do not want the World Food Programme to do-perhaps by scaling-up its work in another part of responding to the food crisis, the long-term development challenges-is to lose its focus from how it can continue to help very quickly and very effectively, as you rightly say it does do, the needs of the very, very hungry now. Our worry would be that if we asked Josette Sheeran to suddenly completely change the mandate of the World Food Programme you actually risk making it less effective in the area where it has got an internationally recognised reputation for doing a very good job. I would also say that there are parts of FAO that do work well. There are many, many parts of IFAD that are doing a very good job. We certainly have not written off any agency by any means. Where I would agree with you is that we do need the UN system to continue to reform, to continue to improve the way it operates. We see both the long-term work that has emerged within the UN as a result of the high level panel on development system coherence, which we were big supporters of and are continuing to champion, alongside the international partnership that Douglas has called for, taken forward to deal with the immediate situation. Both the processes are in hand and, we believe, are making a difference in terms of UN reform already; and we think the international partnership can continue to help us make progress in the long-term as well. Then there are individual conversations that you can have with agencies. For example, as well as WFP being my responsibility, FAO is my responsibility; so we have gone to Rome; we have challenged Jacques Diouf both in private and in public, in the public meetings of the board, to support reform and to accelerate the reform efforts. The fact that there is a reform process underway in FAO I would like to think is partly because of UK efforts working with allies. I would not write off any agency, but I agree with you that there some which are more effective than others.

Q93 Chairman: Just as a footnote, in your own Department's submission you quite explicitly say that "the UK does not support WFP's non-emergency food aid activities, and our view on school feeding is that it needs to be carefully considered in relation to other policy interventions".[10] That is pretty explicit. There is a divergence of view I think between what the WFP can do and what the Department thinks it can do. Unless you want to comment on that, I would just leave it as a difference of view.

Mr Thomas: In that sense, Chairman, you are right there is a difference of view. Our sense is that there are many different ways of making sure that, for example, school feeding takes place. Our sense is that WFP has got a particular leadership role to play on responding to the immediate humanitarian needs, as opposed to developmental needs. We would not want to lose that clear focus that WFP has on responding to the needs of the very hungry. On school feeding, we would say you need to build school feeding into the longer-term education programmes that developing countries have. There may be a role for WFP but there are other agencies that can also play a crucial role and are regarded as effective in this area, be it UNDP[11], be it on occasion UNESCO.[12] All those different agencies have a role to play in education. You can bring in expertise from those agencies to help to deal with particular issues around school feeding. Let us not lose, has been our message to WFP, any focus from your clear skills and your clear comparative advantage in helping the very, very hungry immediately.

Q94 Richard Burden: On the situation of humanitarian emergencies, that is one area where, if I read you right, you feel that WFP does play a useful role?

Mr Thomas: A very, very useful role, we think.

Q95 Richard Burden: In relation to is its performance as the sector lead in the cluster relating to logistics can you tell us any more about what your assessment is of that performance; and if there are any lessons that can be learned in the way WFP goes about its role in that cluster, either for other clusters or some of these broader questions we have been talking about?

Mr Thomas: In a sense I think their effectiveness in the logistics cluster and their effectiveness in terms of dealing with immediate food needs and humanitarian emergencies point to the success of the cluster system. Where you have an effective agency in the lead then you can get a much more improved response to that emergency on the ground. I think the lesson, frankly, from the scenarios that you describe is that we need to continue to champion that humanitarian reform agenda which Hilary Benn set out back in December 2004 or 2005. We think there has been a lot of progress, both in terms of the CERF and in terms of agencies stepping up their work around the cluster leads, but we do not think we have cracked humanitarian reform completely by any stretch of the imagination. I suppose the lesson from the success WFP has had is we need to bank that success but also challenge not only WFP but other bits of the UN system to continue to do more.

Q96 Mr Singh: The scale of the problem is really quite staggering, is it not? It is really hard to take in when you realise there are 850 million or 860 million people who are suffering from some form of malnutrition. An easy way to understand it is that one child dies every six seconds from malnutrition, and yet the World Food Programme is only able to cater for 73 million people in terms of meeting their nutritional needs. What is happening to the rest?

Mr Thomas: Whether you use the figure of 850 million or for example you use some of the other figures around development that are there, the one billion who live on less than a dollar a day or the two billion who live on less than two dollars a day, what those statistics are a reminder of is just the sheer scale of the development and humanitarian challenge that we face as an international community. That is in part why Gordon Brown has sought to use this year, when we are half way to the MDGs, to persuade the UN and the international community more generally to refocus on what we need to do to meet those Millennium Development Goals. It is not just the hunger goal that we are going to be off track on; it is all the other goals that we are potentially not going to meet in particular countries. Many of those goals have both a direct and an indirect impact on the needs of some of the most hungry people. We have sought not only to do more in terms of our role on the issue of rising food prices, but also to look more broadly at what we can do to ramp up attention on responding to the Millennium Development Goals. That is one of the reasons why there is this meeting taking place on 25 September and why the European Council and the G8 are going to be looking at how the rich nations of the world can do more to help progress on the MDGs.

Q97 Mr Singh: Out of that 850 million or whatever figure you want to use, there is certainly a proportion that we cannot reach either because of conflict, the nature of the regime or some other factors. What proportion is it that we cannot reach because of certain factors and what proportion are we leaving unreached that we could reach?

Mr Thomas: I do not have a direct figure for you. To be honest, it would change on a daily or a monthly basis. Even in countries like Zimbabwe or Burma, where the governments treat their people-let me put it delicately-extremely poorly, we still can get interventions in to help those often very hungry people by working with UN organisations, and people like the Red Cross and NGOs who work in that context. There are always things that we believe we can try to make happen. You are right in a sense in hinting that there is not only an immediate how do we help the very hungry people now but, in a sense, how do we try and reduce the number of hungry people worldwide. There must be more to our response than just more money to the World Food Programme. We also have to look at what are the trade rules which discourage developing country farmers from perhaps expanding their operations. That is why we want a trade deal. It is how do we get increased investment in agricultural research so that we are increasing agricultural productivity in developing countries. We are helping developing countries adapt their agriculture systems to the climate change that is happening. We need to look at how we can get the private sector to do more in agriculture and that is looking at what the investment climate is like in developing countries. You need the immediate response which WFP has been doing a fantastic job in leading, but you also need the medium and long term response. Frankly, we need to do more as an international community in all of those areas. That is why Douglas Alexander has been saying that, out of this UN worldwide task force, can we establish an international partnership that brings together different people with their talents in particular agencies and access to pots of money in the different financing arms of the international community, the World Bank and the RDBs with developing country governments and the particular people in developing country governments who need help to deal with particular parts of their food crises or shortages.

Q98 Mr Singh: You are saying that the only way we will be able to confront this problem on any kind of scale that is required is if our and the world's poverty reduction strategies work in country. Without those working we will never meet this problem, will we?

Mr Thomas: Absolutely. We have welcomed for example, as part of countries looking at what they can do on poverty reduction strategies, the commitment that countries in Africa have made to increase their own investment in agriculture. They have set a target of 10%. The encouraging thing is that a whole series of countries-Mali, Madagascar and Namibia, just to give three examples-are already investing at that level. We know a number of other countries are increasing their amounts of money going into agriculture too. There is a series of encouraging long term signs about the future direction of agriculture but, as you rightly say, there are still 850 million and potentially another 70 million to 100 million who need our immediate help as well.

Q99 Mr Singh: The World Food Programme uses some kind of mapping exercise to direct resources at those in most need. How confident are you in the rigour of that mapping that we are reaching the ones who have the most need?

Mr Harvey: We have a lot of confidence in this because they have not done this simply by themselves. They have involved other agencies in developing this modelling that I think you heard about when you visited Rome. They have brought in the World Bank and they have consulted a number of NGOs in getting that right. It is a fairly simple set of models which look at the vulnerability of different countries, looking at how much they depend on imports, how much they are also affected by energy price and oil import costs. What that now needs to be matched up with is in country beneficiary assessment surveys which they are now getting into, to then precisely target, having identified the countries at risk. The model continues to evolve. Last week they presented a slightly more sophisticated version than the one you heard about when you visited. We also use it ourselves. They share this data with us and our own humanitarian advisers in country are using this and ground truthing it with WFP in country.

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 Executive 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 member 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.

Q120 Hugh Bayley: I think there is going to be a great need for the developed world to develop technologies, seeds and processes to help farmers in developing countries deal with the consequences of climate change. Given that there are very different policies on GM on the two sides of the Atlantic, where does GM feature within your research? I remember four or five years ago, at the time of the southern African famine, the famine before last, there was enormous controversy about food aid being supplied in the form of South African and American grown GM maize with some southern African countries refusing to accept it because of pressures from Europe to avoid the risk of GM contamination. There seems to be some closer working between the development and environmental communities now than there was then but is GM on the agenda when there are possible benefits in terms of developing new crops for developing countries or is it off?

Mr Thomas: Part of our practice in terms of the way we use our agricultural research fund is to try and build up the capacity of African and Asian scientists to do their own research. When we fund UK institutes, we want to see them working with African peers on GM. Some of the money that we have made available to the CGIAR is being used to help provide research into possible new GM crops. Indeed, we know that for example in the Philippines 300,000 hectares of GM maize were planted last year. My sense is that GM crops do have a role to play. I do not think they are going to be the magic bullet which solves the issue of rising food prices, but they are going to have a contribution to make. There was a very politicised debate about GM crops and we do need to allow developing countries to make their own judgments about whether or not to allow GM crops to be planted. As well as funding the initial research into different types of GM crops, we are also providing support through the UN's Environment Programme to help developing countries develop their own ability to manage the decision as to whether or not to allow their own people to use GM crops.

Q121 Hugh Bayley: When I talk to bioscientists from York University they stress to me that when you are developing a new strain or a new seed or a new agricultural technology you need to test its environmental impact in terms of the amount of water it will use, whether it degrades the soil, how much fertilizer will be used, what the yield is? Whether the new seed is developed with GM technology or conventional cross breeding technology, the same kind of environmental impact assessment needs to take place. Would CGIAR adopt a similar approach and does your department?

Mr Thomas: I would agree with you but the one other issue you have to look at as well as the issue of cross contamination, which has been our concern in the past, is the whole implementation of GM crops.

Mr Lingham: The protocols are pretty well established now in the development of any new varieties to make sure that they are fit for purpose before they are released for commercial use. There is no difference between traditional development of seed varieties and GM crops.

Q122 Hugh Bayley: You mean there is a similarly rigorous process of assessment of environmental impact?

Mr Lingham: Yes.

Mr Thomas: The international process which has put those protocols into place is the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. I think I have said that correctly. If not, I apologise. I was looking at it after midnight.

Q123 Chairman: Paul Collier has argued that the whole system of agriculture in Africa needs to change to be larger scale and more intensive. Does DFID have a view about that and, in the same context, if poor, smaller farmers are to be encouraged to increase their productivity, is any thought being given to some kind of insurance scheme, given that if they succeed in improving output prices could fall sharply, just as they harvest, and they simply do not have the resilience to absorb that?

Mr Thomas: On small versus big farmers, I am not sure we would go all the way down the Paul Collier line of saying big is always beautiful. We certainly would not go down the George Monbiot line either of saying small is always beautiful. We are going to need both. There are certainly significant improvements in agricultural productivity which you can achieve in small farms. Given that those small farms will often spend the money they make in the local area, they will have significant multiplier benefits in that way. On insurance, this is perhaps where one comes back to the longer term because ultimately the key insurance surely to movements up and down in food prices is to have a system of fair trade rules internationally so that you do not have all the different distortions in the international trading system which are then exacerbated by the types of export bans that we have seen being imposed at short notice. That is why so much effort is being put in by the government from the Prime Minister down to try to get a good outcome for developing countries through agreement in the world trade talks.

Q124 Chairman: Can I thank you and your colleagues for the time you have given us. It has been an important exchange for us. I think our report is timely and I hope that it will be constructive. I think you have probably already gathered from the exchanges that we are likely to have some recommendations on policy which I hope the Government will consider seriously. I know you will respond in the spirit in which they are given. Thank you very much indeed. We are intending to get this report published before the summer. We hope it is still very relevant to the current situation.

Mr Thomas: We will look at what the select committee recommends and I am conscious that I need to write to you, Mr Bruce, with a response to your specific questions about the DRC. I will also include in that a response to Sir Robert's questions about Sudan.

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[1] International Fund for Agricultural Development

[2] Comprehensive Spending Review

[3] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

[4] Supplementary memorandum submitted by DFID

[5] Director of the Overseas Development Institute

[6] Food and Agriculture Organisation

[7] UN Children's Fund

[8] UN Refugee Agency

[9] Public Service Agreement

[10] Memorandum submitted by DFID

[11] UN Development Programme

[12] UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation

[13] Supplementary memorandum submitted by DFID

[14] The Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research