House of Commons - Work of the Committee in Session 2007-08

Work of the Committee in Session 2007-08 - International Development Committee Contents

4 Inquiries into departmental actions

34) It has been our practice in this Parliament to examine different aspects of the challenge presented by HIV/AIDS each year and to publish a report to coincide with World AIDS Day. DFID published its new HIV/AIDS Strategy in June 2008;[14] this provided the natural focus for our 2008 inquiry.

35) We published our Report on 30 November in anticipation of World AIDS Day on 1 December. We acknowledged DFID's position as a global leader on HIV/AIDS and welcomed the £6 billion funding commitment made in the Strategy to strengthen health systems in developing countries which we believed would be effective in building up the capacity of health services in low-income countries to provide the prevention, treatment, care and support which people living with HIV/AIDS desperately need. However, we found the Strategy to be strong on rhetoric but lacking the necessary detail on how it would be implemented at country level. It contained few measurable targets for how the money would be spent or how its effectiveness in achieving the desired outcomes would be measured. We were concerned by the initial absence of a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework to accompany the Strategy although this was subsequently published at the beginning of December. We look forward to the Government Response providing answers to the many questions that we felt were not addressed in the Strategy or in DFID's evidence to us.

The Humanitarian and Development Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

36) In February 2008 we began a short inquiry into the Humanitarian and development situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This followed up the findings in our Report on the Occupied Territories published in January 2007 and took account of the worsening humanitarian and security situation in the region, and in particular in Gaza.[15] We heard evidence by videolink from John Ging, the Director of the UN Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA) Operations in Gaza, as well as from NGOs and the Secretary of State, and from Rt Hon Tony Blair in his capacity as Middle East Quartet Representative. Our Report was published in July.

37) Our view was that it was essential for Israel to reopen Gaza's borders. The humanitarian situation in Gaza had been (and indeed remains) acute. Food, fuel and water were in short supply and the public health system had been under severe pressure. We found that Israel had not fulfilled its obligations to ensure the health and welfare of the Palestinian population and believed that the international community had allowed this situation to continue for too long.

38) We welcomed attempts by Tony Blair to reduce strategic checkpoints and his initiatives to support economic development in the West Bank, although we were cautious about supporting measures which might reinforce the occupation. We also discussed his efforts to improve Palestinian security in the West Bank. A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was agreed shortly before our Report was published. We were hopeful at the time that this would provide an opportunity to move the peace process forward and improve the humanitarian situation by opening the borders. However, after some initial improvement the borders remained closed for a large part of the six-month ceasefire and the security situation deteriorated. The situation became far more serious following the breakdown of the ceasefire, the resumption of rocket attacks on southern Israel and the Israeli assault on Gaza which commenced in late December 2008. This has involved massive loss of civilian life and has deepened the humanitarian crisis facing the people of Gaza. This report is not, however, an appropriate vehicle for us to comment on the situation. We expect to return to the subject in the future.

Burma: follow-up

39) Our 2007 Report on DFID assistance to Burmese internally displaced people and refugees on the Thai-Burma border was debated in Westminster Hall on 6 December 2007.[16] We described in last year's annual report how the Government had in the end gone a long way towards accepting the recommendations made in our Report about the substantial increases needed in aid for Burma, although this acceptance came after the Government had given us its formal response.[17]

40) We undertook to return to the issue within a year as we regarded the issues as sufficiently serious to require an early follow-up. The situation in Burma had changed significantly in the months since the publication of the Report. The regime had harshly repressed demonstrations in September 2007. This was followed by devastation of many parts of the country when Cyclone Nargis hit Burma at the beginning of May 2008, affecting some 2.4 million people and killing many thousands. The Committee held a one-off evidence session with the Secretary of State for International Development and the UK's Ambassador to Burma in July to discuss progress on the recommendations we had made and to assess the UK's contribution to relief efforts after the Cyclone.

Reconstructing Afghanistan

41) Our inquiry into Afghanistan began in the last parliamentary Session and the process was covered in our annual report last year. Our Report was published in February. We were dismayed that, as a result of 30 years of conflict, Afghanistan remained one of the poorest countries in the world and one which would clearly not meet any of the Millennium Development Goal targets by 2015. We believed the UK and the international community had a responsibility to assist Afghanistan to achieve lasting peace, stability, reconstruction and development and fully supported the UK Government's effort in Afghanistan. We highlighted that much remained to be done on improving women's rights; donor co-ordination and interaction with the Government of Afghanistan; counter-narcotics; security, particularly the role of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police; justice reform; and civil-military relations. We concluded that Afghanistan would need substantial development assistance for a long time to come. Our Report was debated in Westminster Hall on 10 July.[18]

DFID and China

42) We began our inquiry into DFID and China in February 2008. The UK's development relationship with China is in transition: DFID expects to phase out its £30 million annual bilateral programme by 2011 and is moving instead towards a development partnership with China. This forms part of a joint agenda across the UK Government to influence China's role in global sustainable development issues such as climate change and energy security. We thought it was timely to look at the appropriate size and scope of DFID's aid programme in China; the Department's 'added value' compared to other donors to China; and its strategy for phasing out its bilateral programme by 2011.

43) China's economy has experienced massive growth which has helped to reduce poverty in the country. However, 10% of the population still live on less than $1 a day, concentrated amongst ethnic minorities, the elderly and people with disabilities. Huge inequalities exist in terms of access to basic services such as education, healthcare, sanitation and water, which remain out of reach for many poor people. The effect of China's rapid growth is being felt far outside its own national boundaries and means that China has become an influential development actor in its own right. Securing sufficient natural resources to drive growth and finding new markets for Chinese goods has led to an increasingly close relationship with many African countries, in particular.

44) We were due to visit China in June 2008. However, the Sichuan earthquake in May resulted in the postponement of the visit. This was rescheduled for December. We held two evidence sessions in May 2008 and a further session in November. We will take evidence from a DFID minister and officials in January.

Humanitarian response to natural disasters

45) We visited Pakistan in June 2006 as part of our inquiry into the Humanitarian Response to Natural Disasters and saw for ourselves the reconstruction work taking place following the South Asia earthquake in October 2005.[19] On our return we decided to commission the National Audit Office (NAO) to conduct a review of the response by the Department for International Development and others to this disaster. The review was published in June 2008.[20] We are grateful to the NAO for its contribution to our work which we will draw on when we next look at the UK's humanitarian response to major disasters.

Climate change

46) Poor countries will suffer most from climate change, which threatens to reverse development gains and halt economic advances. DFID is therefore stepping up its efforts to assist developing countries to respond to climate change. In October 2008 we announced a new inquiry into Sustainable Development in a Changing Climate. In the run-up to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in 2009, this inquiry will examine the potential conflict between economic development and climate change mitigation. It will consider how the UK Government can best promote development which is sustainable and lifts people out of poverty and the steps it is taking to encourage effective adaptation strategies in developing countries. We intend to begin oral evidence sessions early in the new parliamentary Session.

Support for Development

47) The current economic downturn is creating a dangerous time for development. Initial predictions that the developing world would be insulated from the worst of the financial turbulence have not proved correct. The financial crisis is also testing the depth of international donor support for development. Reductions in the level of official development assistance would clearly compound the problems which developing countries are already facing as well as putting at risk the global targets set for development expenditure and the likelihood of reaching the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Public support is essential to an effective development policy and this could also be threatened if the economic downturn continues to affect the real economy. We have therefore decided that our next inquiry will examine these two facets of support for development under the title "Aid under pressure: support for development in a global economic downturn".

14 DFID, Achieving Universal Access: the UK's strategy for halting and reversing the spread of HIV in the developing world, June 2008 Back

15 Fourth Report of Session 2006-07, Development Assistance and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, HC 114-I Back

16 DFID Assistance to Burmese Internally Displaced People and Refugees on the Thai-Burma Border, HC 645, Tenth Report of Session 2006-07; HC Deb, 6 December 2007, cols 321-352WH Back

17 Third Report of Session 2007-08, Work of the Committee in 2007, HC 255, paras 19-23 Back

18 HC Deb, 10 July 2008, cols 489-536WH Back

19 Seventh Report of Session 2005-06, Humanitarian Response to Natural Disasters, HC 1188-I Back

20 NAO, The UK's Response to the South Asia Earthquake, June 2008 available on the NAO website at http://www.nao.org.uk/publications Back