Examination of Witnesses (Quesitons 120-139)
RT HON
DOUGLAS ALEXANDER
MP, MR MARTIN
DINHAM AND
MR ANDREW
STEER
30 OCTOBER 2008
Q120 Mr Crabb: You are probably unique
amongst your Cabinet colleagues in enjoying double-digit percentage
increases in your budget in the next few years. Many of the other
Whitehall departments are responsible for very real public services
that matter to people in this country and they are going through
some extremely tight spending round decisions at the moment. How
concerned are you that public support here within the UK for this
continuous ramping up of our aid budget will be sustained at a
time when people are losing their jobs, losing their houses and
starting to endure a level of economic pain we have not seen in
this country for quite some time?
Mr Alexander: I shared a public
platform, as the Chair of the Committee knows, with Simon Maxwell
of ODI,[10]
earlier this week, and he spoke graphically about this being a
moment of real danger for development, and I am far from complacent
in terms of the hard-won consensus that has been built in recent
years. At the same time—and Presbyterian ministers' sons
are not known for their natural good cheer and optimism—I
have an uncharacteristic optimism on this particular point. If
you take my constituents, who are genuinely concerned at the moment
as the impact of higher gas bills, higher electricity bills, the
cost of filling the car and the cost of buying the weekly shopping
impact on household budgets, if you look at the experience of
those constituents over the last six or seven months, on one level
it has been a unique example of the extent to which we now live
in a genuinely interdependent world, because if you take each
of those issues—food, fuel or finance—by any reckoning,
no country can adequately respond to those challenges by saying
"We are going to pull up the drawbridge. We are going to
have uniquely national solutions." In that sense I think—and
this places a heavy burden of responsibility on all of us as politicians—if
we find the right public language, that recognizes the real concerns
that people here in the United Kingdom feel about their living
standards, about the cost of petrol, about the cost of food and
about the cost of their general household budgets, I do believe
there is an opportunity for people to understand the extent to
which recent events remind us that we have a genuinely shared
interest in delivering a world that is less unequal, more peaceful
and more sustainable than the world of recent decades. In that
sense, that is far from a given. It will require a quality of
argument and a seriousness of intent and repetition that will
challenge us all, but I do believe that the circumstances are
there where, if we get right the public discussion that we have,
people can come to an even clearer understanding of the extent
to which the impact of a drought in Australia now directly impacts
on the price of bread in Paisley, the extent to which the change
in the oil price will directly impact on the lives of all of our
constituents. Given that reality of interdependence, I think the
opportunity to make the case for development spending being an
investment in our shared future is actually quite strong.
Q121 John Bercow: I very much welcome
what you have just said, Secretary of State, and I entirely understand
the point about interdependence and the sense that we are doing
what we are doing, or the Government is doing what it is doing,
aided and abetted by others, not merely out of some spirit of
altruism but in the collective interest of the world as a whole.
However, even if one leaves that point aside and even if one does
think of it substantially in terms of a duty to those less fortunate,
I confess that I think there is good reason to be fairly optimistic
because, frankly, the growth of the 24-hour media, and in particular
the graphic physical depiction on our screens of people enduring
grinding poverty, are such that I would hope in all sorts of different
constituencies, Labour, Conservative, middle-class and working-class,
there would be a sense that, whatever our privations, they are
minimal and insignificant by comparison with those of the people
whom it is our business to help, and you should help most those
who have least. On the subject of seeking to extract from other
governments commitments to stick to what they said they would
do, and recognizing that you cannot possibly be expected to be
the financier of last resort if other people renege on their commitments,
how confident are you that you are going to get those commitments?
Secondly, leaving aside the bird's eye view, if you look at the
worm's eye level, and individual, in some cases multilateral programmes
in which we are engaged as taxpayers, are you at all concerned
that some of those programmes might suffer even though we have
retained our commitment to them and perhaps increased ours because
other people have, frankly, copped out?
Mr Alexander: Let me try and deal
with each of your points in turn. I think you were right to pull
me up in recognizing that I think there are two parallel arguments
we need to make for development in a downturn. One is to see we
have a shared interest, and to that extent, whether it be the
benign consequences of an interdependent world, with unprecedented
opportunities for travel, for sharing of ideas and mobility of
capital, there are also very dangerous consequences, whether it
be disease, terrorism, a script with which all of us in this room
would be familiar, but there is undoubtedly an argument around
interdependence. It is important however not to lose sight of
the fact that the moral case for development expenditure endures.
If you look at the latest World Bank figures, published only about
five weeks ago, the estimated number of people vulnerable to hunger
are not down but up, inevitably, as a consequence of the global
food price rises, from 850 million to 967 million people. Because
the cost of food has risen does not change the value of a human
life. If we are called upon to act when there are 850 million
people going to bed tonight vulnerable to hunger, if there are
967 million people, now is the time to re-dedicate ourselves to
that moral obligation. In that sense, I do think that—and
I would put all of us in this category around this room—we
need to be committed to the interests of effective development
expenditure. We should not be shy in these circumstances from
continuing to make the moral case as well as the shared interest,
interdependence case. On the second point you make in terms of
the United Kingdom Government cannot be the financier of last
resort, of course that is true. There is always a tension and
a balance here because there is always the opportunity to accentuate
the extent to which Britain is meeting its commitments at the
expense of other governments and say "Well, look how well
we are doing relative to others." Frankly, as all of us as
practising politicians would know, that perhaps is not the most
astute strategy if you are trying to simultaneously influence
those governments to make their pledges. You sometimes, in discussions
like this, get into a cat and mouse exchange where we say "Will
you name which governments are not meeting their commitments?"
and you say "There is a number of partners" and we all
know the script. That being said, we have thought a lot about
this and continue to think a lot about it. One of the approaches
we have taken is, firstly, to ask how we create those moments—and
that is in part what we were trying to do over the last six months—to
replicate the focus and scrutiny on the conduct of other governments
as well as, to be fair, our own, which will oblige other governments
to recognize the extent to which they are or are not meeting their
commitments. The very fact that you had a range of celebrities
in New York undoubtedly attracted a degree of media attention
to the event and to the MDGs that would not have been the case
had it simply been a heads of government meeting in New York for
a standard United Nations meeting. We thought long and hard in
terms of the structures and the events that we could put in place
to create those moments of evaluation both for the public and
also for the governments themselves. In addition to that, we are
consciously working at the moment to ensure that the structure
of the global architecture, in particular in relation to financing
but more broadly thereafter in terms of the global multilateral
institutions, is better equipped to meet the development challenge
of the coming century given that they were broadly devised 60
years ago at the time of Bretton Woods and the establishment of
the United Nations. We are trying strategically to anticipate
what will be the structures that will allow other governments
with confidence to make their commitments. Thirdly—and this
was a very large focus of our work in Accra in September—it
is to close the door on the argument that development expenditure
would be fine but the money is somehow being wasted because it
is being spent ineffectively. One of the reasons that I worked
so hard in Accra to deliver an ambitious communiqué rather
than the communiqué that greeted me when I stepped off
the plane was because I fully anticipated even in September that
the issue of the effectiveness of international expenditures was
going to grow rather than diminish in the years ahead. In that
sense, those of us who want to see continued commitment to significant
public resources being spent on aid need to properly address that
concern. Beyond that, I would also say that the credibility of
our own Prime Minister frankly helps a great deal. It was the
first occasion I had travelled internationally with the Prime
Minister to a major international meeting since he became Prime
Minister. If I just tell you that at the Class of 2015 event,
which was the event brought together by the Global Campaign for
Education to refocus attention on the number of kids who are still
missing the target in terms of having a school to go to, Kevin
Rudd, the relatively new Prime Minister of Australia, said, "I
have now come to realise that there is a kind of established pattern
at the start of these meetings, which is that everybody pays tribute
to Gordon Brown." He said, "I don't have difficulty
saying that because, quite candidly, I have known Gordon for many
years before he became Prime Minister and before I became Prime
Minister and, quite simply, he has been the moral conscience of
the G8 for a decade." In that sense, I think it is hard to
overstate the personal credibility that Gordon, as an individual,
brings to the work that all of us engage in to try and persuade
other international partners, either in Europe or internationally,
to meet their pledges. The final point that I would make, which
is specific to Accra but I think of general reference, was that
the reason we were able, in the dying hours of the negotiations
in Accra, to get very significant movement, which I could not
with any confidence have been assured of prior to the meeting,
was because we had a common European position. So essentially,
when I was in the room negotiating with principally the Americans
and Japanese but others, along with the French presidency, I was
not spending my time looking over my shoulder saying, "How
can I deliver the Europeans to an ambitious outcome?" It
was the fact that we had quite an ambitious European common position
which meant that on the three occasions that the Council of Ministers
met almost in permanent session during those hours when we were
resisting the communiqué that was offered to Ministers
and saying "No, we can do better and must go further,"
I was able to appeal to a European sentiment saying, "I am
not asking you to go any further than we have already agreed."
That was an extraordinarily powerful thing, partly because it
freed us up to negotiate proactively rather than to be discussing
amongst ourselves. It brought together the Commission and the
Council of Ministers because Louis Michel very graphically at
the meeting said, "We face a choice here in Accra. We have
always been big players. The question is, is Europe going to be
a big player in these negotiations?" In that sense, I have
made lots of speeches as a former Minister of Europe about the
importance of a common European voice in international affairs.
I lived that reality in Accra because, had we not had the strength
of 27 behind us, notwithstanding the sincerity of our belief,
notwithstanding the credibility of our Government, notwithstanding
the urgency with which we would have tried to negotiate, I doubt
we would have been anything like as effective.
John Bercow: Secretary of State, can
I tell you that your incisive rebuke to the most blinkered Euro-scepticism
is duly noted. I will circulate it amongst colleagues. Thank you
for those answers, which were extremely helpful.
Chairman: We are not proceeding very
quickly through the questions, interesting as that exchange is.
Q122 Sir Robert Smith: The Business
Call to Action event in May 2008, according to your website, was
aimed to inspire companies to commit to concrete transformative
initiatives that used their core business and to access up-to-the-minute
information, money and business expertise as well as create new
business and employment opportunities. Out of that High Level
Event what sort of private sector initiatives were agreed?
Mr Alexander: Let me give you
three very specific examples. One is Yara International, who are
a Norwegian-based fertiliser supplier, who are now making, as
a result of pledges made at the High Level Event, a $60 million
investment to build a fertiliser terminal in two key African ports
in Tanzania and Mozambique to significantly improve port efficiencies
for agricultural inputs, crucial for small-scale farmers in particular.
A second one is Map International, who are a financial infrastructure
technology provider. When I asked my officials at the time of
the meeting "What does that mean?", they provide electronic
banking facilities to 2 million people in Uganda. Basically, what
they are going to do is to provide facilities for an additional
2 million people within Uganda, as a result of a pledge made there,
fast, easy and secure access to banking services, which will greatly
reduce the time and effort required to make and receive payments,
generate substantial efficiencies for farmers and others within
the country. The third example, which I was personally attending
at the meeting of, was Eriksson, who are establishing an Innovation
Centre that will develop mobile applications for phones to focus
on health, education, agriculture and small businesses in sub-Saharan
Africa. They will establish three hubs in Kenya, Nigeria and South
Africa and they will initially concentrate on applications tailored
to the needs of 400,000 people in these countries. There are about
27 individual companies who have now made pledges but those were
three very specific pledges that were made at the Call to Action
in September.
Q123 Sir Robert Smith: What are the
next steps for the Business Call to Action?
Mr Alexander: Essentially, what
we have formed now is a consortium which involves a limited but
continuing role for not only the UK Government but the International
Business Leaders Forum, the Clinton Global Initiative, the World
Economic Forum, the UNDP,[11]
who have in many ways been the body to whom we have looked for
confirmation as to the development gains from the proposals that
we have received from these companies. That consortium will continue
to take forward its work. The next significant event, we would
anticipate, will take place in Davos at the end of January, where
there will be a further opportunity to review progress that has
been made. We would not anticipate that the consortium in the
immediate months between now and Davos will be looking to secure
lots of additional new pledges, although, of course, if people
want to come forward with serious propositions they will be considered,
but a big part of the work will now be in taking forward, monitoring
and supporting the announcements that have been made whether prior
to the event or at the event in September.
Q124 Sir Robert Smith: How do you see,
from when those commitments were made in a different economic
world, private sector companies actually being able to deliver
through this current financial crisis?
Mr Alexander: Fortunately for
myself, I asked this question ahead of coming to the committee.
We have had no indication from any of the 27 companies that the
commitments that they have made have been compromised by the economic
downturn now, or not across the balance sheets and business models
of each of these companies, but there has been no indication whatsoever
of any of the companies drawing back from the commitments that
they have made in recent months.
Q125 Sir Robert Smith: Presumably
the recruitment of new companies could be somewhat less?
Mr Alexander: Listen, I cannot
predict, because, frankly, we do not have in our own mind a target
number that we were working towards. We have made a huge effort,
both around the event that we hosted here in London in May around
the launch of the Business Call to Action and then for another
moment in New York on 25 September; and there was, inevitably,
after those two spurts to the line a necessary changing of the
consortium in the sense that new partners have emerged and we
want to get this onto a sustainable basis, but we were anticipating
even before the financial events of September a period of immediate
consolidation after the specific meeting in May and the specific
events in September.
Mr Dinham: I think what was interesting
particularly about the event in May but carried forward to September
was the amount of interest and almost competition that was going
on between private sector companies really attracted by this proposition.
This is not us going to them and asking for charity or philanthropic
contributions but something which actually made sense with their
bottom line, which was making a huge contribution to employment
and other services particularly in Africa. There was a real sense
of excitement from the CEOs that were there, and I think that
will carry forward quite a long way and I think all the indications
in New York were that that sense of progress was being taken forward.
Q126 Sir Robert Smith: A related
thing to do with the private sector. I understand that a silver
lining of past complaints about Africa is that the African banking
system has been very conservative and very highly regulated, but
the consequence of that is that they were not involved in sub-prime
markets and that sort of thing. Does that give some confidence
that maybe, at least when it comes to going forward, that the
African banking system may be better placed to cope?
Mr Alexander: I think it is quite
difficult to talk in generic terms about the African banking system.
I think there is probably an easy distinction. On the one hand
you have quite an advanced banking system in South Africa, you
have, again, a quite large and powerful banking system in Nigeria
and then you have a third category, which is banking systems which
are often much less connected to the international financial system
than would be the case in other more developed markets. I certainly
would not want to sit here today and, hand on heart, say there
will be no difficulties being visited upon the African banks or
the African countries that I have mentioned, but you are certainly
right in recognising that the fact that they are not themselves
large enough or connected enough in many countries to have already
felt the impact of the global financial crisis offers some grounds
for optimism that they will be able to undertake the work they
have been undertaking in recent years. On the other hand, I would
caution against blanket predictions at this stage because there
may well be individual institutions that have particular problems
related to the commercial decisions they are taking.
Mr Steer: I think that is absolutely
right. There is no question; the banks there are just not as integrated
and so there is opportunity; there are grounds for hope. Linking
that to your previous question, I think the trick in the coming
year is going to be to monitor these 27 companies to make absolutely
sure that our hypothesis of investing in Africa actually will
still be attractive for these companies. If you go down the list
it is remarkable—Microsoft, Pepsico, SABMiller, the Standard
Chartered, Sumitomo—they are all doing things, all 27 of
them, and about two-thirds of them are in Africa, that actually
are good for their long-term development; and Africa is still
going to be, we hope and pray, growing at a rate that is significantly
higher than has been the traditional rate. So if it is now 6.5
%, let us imagine it comes down to 4.5—it is still going
to be attractive for these companies. The trick is to monitor
whether or not these companies are going to have access to enough
capital to make these investments, but actually the size of these
investments in the initial part is not going to be so large. So
we are going to work very hard to monitor precisely that.
Q127 Sir Robert Smith: So on a scale
it may not be a big thing, but if it sets an example and encourages
others and shows the way, then it is an important start.
Mr Steer: That is what this is
all about. There are some investments that are fabulous that,
quite frankly, we do not need to highlight because everybody knows
them, there is a lot that is not attractive. There is a zone in
the middle which is now growing because the quality of policy-making
in Africa over the last ten years has gradually been improving.
The risk premium has stayed reasonably high. Literally in the
last couple of years you are starting to see investors that are
saying, "Wait a minute. The rate of return is good, the risk
premium has shrunk a lot"—the real risk as opposed
to the risk premium—"because of quality of policy."
We were talking to the Secretary of State a couple of days ago
about this. He was saying the trick now is to in some ways do
what the countries did in the East Asian crisis. Africa now needs
more than ever to demonstrate transparency and governance reform.
Why? Because that will strengthen even more and make this investment
more likely to continue.
Mr Alexander: Can I add one brief
point on this? Relating to our earlier conversation as to how
you make the case for development on a downturn, when I was in
the United States that weekend in New York I watched an interview
because the High Level Event was happening simultaneously with
the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York. In my personal
judgment, Bill Clinton is almost without peer as a political communicator,
and I was therefore fascinated to watch an interview which he
gave answering the American equivalent of the questions that we
will all be being asked in terms of why we should be spending
in developing countries when there is a global economic downturn.
In response to the specific issue, which was why should the CGI
be continuing to work in these African countries, he offered two
very interesting answers which I have been reflecting on a lot
in the subsequent weeks. First, he, said, if you look at the Pew
Global Attitudes studies, where in the world is the United States
more popular today than eight years ago? It is in central and
Southern Africa where a combination of the Clinton Global Initiative,
MCC,[12]
PEPFAR[13]
are working in significant numbers. Simply in terms of our national
interest, this is a huge game for us to be seen to be part of
the answer to the challenges facing these countries. The second
answer he gave though, which sparked in my mind when Andrew was
speaking, was, "I would have a plea to all journalists covering
these issues. Please do not ever use the word Africa again, because
actually Africa carries with it an association of failure, however
unmerited, which makes it difficult to make the case, which actually
is compelling if you look at the evidence of the individual countries
in Africa's achievement over the last five to ten years",
and he said when you get to the level of talking about what has
happened in a country like Rwanda, what has happened in a country
like Ethiopia, they comfortably bear comparison in terms of economic
progress with more developed markets in recent years, and in that
sense I think one of the challenges for us is to find a way of
telling the story of the continent in a way which does not take
people back to a perception of failure and famine but actually
recognises the objective truth, which is that many of these countries
have been growing at five or six % for a number of years now,
albeit with high commodity prices. We still anticipate they will
continue to grow. There will continue to be very real commercial
opportunities there. If, critically, the public policy choices
which have been one of the ingredients of sustained growth, along
with relatively easy credit and high commodity prices, continue
and one of the conversations we are having at the moment with
African governments is to say, if you are to seize the opportunity
of having higher rates of return on investment in the years ahead,
you cannot afford now to do anything than to put the foot to the
floor and accelerate the kind of regulatory and governance changes
which make you a safer and stronger business environment in the
years ahead than you have been in past years.
Q128 John Battle: Can I come back to
the Global Malaria Plan that was announced at the High Level Event,
because it set an aim of achieving near zero preventable deaths
by 2015, but people assess that that would take investment of
a billion dollars a year being raised from now until then, and
that was drawn up before the credit crunch, so how realistic is
that plan? Can it possibly be achieved or will it just be another
target that disappears into the distance?
Mr Alexander: One of the reasons
that we are optimistic in terms of the progress that has been
made on growth by the launch of the Global Malaria Action Plan
and also the event that took place in New York is it is probably
the best exemplar of putting together a different kind of coalition
than that which has been put together in the past, in the sense
that with the engagement of private sector people like Ray Chambers,
Peter Chernin at News International, there is real private sector
engagement on the issue of malaria in a way there has not been
in the past. Secondly, in a more co-ordinated fashion than has
been the case on previous diseases or in previous years, we have
the real engagement of people like the Gates Foundation, and in
that sense you have got the philanthropic piece, you have got
the private sector piece and you also have the kind of government
commitments that Gordon made when he was appearing on Pop Idol,
or American Idol, in the United States earlier in the year with
an additional 20 million bed nets to make a contribution to filling
the bed net gap. So in that sense our measure of the capacity
to achieve the Global Malaria Action Plan is not solely contingent
on the level of public investment that is secured. That being
said, you are absolutely right in recognising that our estimate
is the Global Malaria Action Plan will require $5.3 billion in
2009 worldwide, about $2.2 billion for Africa and $6.2 billion
worldwide in 2010, $2.86 billion of which is for Africa to expand
the malaria control programmes, and will also require an additional
$750-$900 million per year to meet the needs for research, vaccines,
drugs and other tools. So we have made some progress, but it is
right to recognise that the plan identified numbers that need
to be moved forward. Again, it bears on the point that Martin
made earlier, the very specificity of the Global Malaria Action
Plan and the gap that still needs to be filled to meet it to me
is an assistance in meeting the challenge of malaria rather than
a threat to meeting the challenge of malaria.
Mr Steer: I think one of the things
that we need to be able to do in malaria, which I think we can,
is to demonstrate that this investment is really a wonderful investment.
It costs $17 to reduce a disability adjusted life-year in malaria,
and that is the standard measure, the so-called DALY. Anything
under $100 is traditionally regarded as actually a pretty good
investment. That means if there are 500 million cases of pretty
serious malaria every year and a million deaths, and it is mainly
children, for $17, using the technologies, a combination of spraying
and bed nets, you can basically restore a lost year of life either
through death or, more likely, through disease. If that is an
adult, even if they are only making $150 a year, that is an incredible
rate of return. If it is a child, it speaks for itself—that
is just a wonderful investment. What we have to be able to do
is demonstrate that, and who would not want to put money in with
that kind of rate of return, but we have to be able to demonstrate
it, which I think we can.
Q129 John Battle: Could I apply that
across to the Task Force on Innovation Financing for Health Systems,
because there, as far as I understand it, the first year is going
to be spent exploring funding mechanisms rather than getting on
and doing the job. Are we losing a year by doing planning? Why
do not those mechanisms for financing that you applied to the
malaria initiative apply to this taskforce, or am I being too
sceptical? The reason is, we need not just set to targets but
to make sure that the stones to reach down that road are in position,
do we not?
Mr Alexander: I am reminded of
Barack Obama's response when challenged as to why he is not taking
part in the debate while dealing with the global financial crisis,
and he said, "As President of the United States you need
to be able to do more than one thing at once." In that sense,
it is not for us a choice between looking and exploring this issue
of innovative financing mechanisms in terms of health systems
and getting on with the job. If you look at the sum that I confirmed
when we were in New York in terms of the eight first wave of IHP
countries and the money that we are spending on health, there
is for us no contradiction between getting on with the work of
supporting health system reform and at the same time consciously
raising the bar for the international community as we sought to
do in Hokkaido by identifying the need for additional health workers.
Q130 John Battle: But unless—and
this is where I am not clear—there are parallel financing
structures, or will the money go through things like the Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and malaria or the Global Alliance for
Vaccines and Immunisation? Will it be used in the existing funding
mechanisms or will you be setting up parallel ones?
Mr Alexander: No, there is no
presumption that we will be setting up parallel structures at
all. We are saying, however, if you look at the opportunities
that we have, for example, anticipating the Italian G8 Presidency
next year, this is now a very serious and credible task force
that we have established. We have got Bob Zoellick co-chairing
with Gordon, we have got Prime Minister Stoltenberg, if I recollect
we have got Margaret Chan from the World Health Organisation,
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Bernard Kouchner, Giulio Tremonti, the
Italian Finance Minister, anticipating the G8 Presidency. We have
put together a serious group of people which we believe will give
us clout and authority as a taskforce internationally. We consciously
have recognised this. The main criticism is not have you just
set up a planning process that will takes months and months and
months. If anything, we have put ourselves under a huge degree
of pressure in terms of can we start work immediately, and, although
we are still working on this, we would probably anticipate that
there will be a task force meeting in Doha at the Financing for
Development Conference, our first opportunity for the task force
to get together and start its work, and given the normal planning
timescales for these kind of tasks forces, that is quite quick,
anticipating that we want quick results. But we are convinced
that, given the collective experience that we have, whether through
the AMC,[14]
whether through other forms of innovative financing, the challenge
is to apply that to a sector which historically has not had the
focus on innovative financing in particular in relation to health
workers.
Mr Dinham: That is right. We are
genuinely open about what this taskforce could come up with. There
is a whole range of possible outcomes. As you say, some form of
IFFIm (International Financing Facility for Immunisation) arrangement,
increase donor support for health results, more debt for health
SWAps,[15]
private participation and the financing and delivery of health
services, insurance-based health schemes, whatever. There is a
range of possibilities and this is genuinely a way in which we
can lever more resources.
Q131 John Battle: As long as it is levering
more resources in. The reason I asked the question is that in
this room, perhaps not that long ago, we were looking at funds
to increase assistance for anti-retrovirals for HIV/AIDS, and
we are doing an inquiry on AIDS, as you know, at the same time
as this. I am rather hoping we can guarantee that it is not just
a shift in facility and malaria becomes more important than HIV.
Similarly, when we went for the anti-retrovirals we neglected
the TB elements, so we have got to go back to it. How can we keep
all of them, increase the maximum drive for all of these, so that
we actually get nearer the final goals that we are aiming at?
That is the issue really, is it not?
Mr Alexander: We very much see
this as new resources for health in developing countries. The
other point I would make would be I personally greatly welcome
the involvement of Bob Zoellick, in the sense that I know there
has been some criticism in the past in terms of the record of
the World Bank in terms of investment in health and it is an issue
which I think he is gripping within the bank, but also it holds
out, again, a kind of false multiplier effect that not only can
we look to lever in new resources, but also it will mean that
you have as President of the World Bank somebody who is across
quite simply the best thinking anywhere in the world on innovative
financing for health and, simply in terms of the World Bank piece,
never mind the additional resources, I think that is a significant
gain.
Mr Dinham: They are also, of course,
the treasurer for the advance market commitment for vaccines.
Q132 John Battle: Mr Zoellick is
still there. If the elections go in a certain direction next week,
he may move on.
Mr Alexander: Could you possibly
tempt me into a prediction on that!
Q133 John Battle: He might be treasurer.
Mr Alexander: We will have a view
by the next time we meet!
Q134 John Bercow: Secretary of State,
to ensure that the Millennium Development Goal of all children
completing primary education by 2015 is met, it logically follows,
of course, that universal access to schooling has to be achieved
by 2010. What specific steps is DFID taking to ensure that new
teachers are trained for schools built as a matter of urgency
to facilitate the achievement of this important objective?
Mr Alexander: The context in which
all of our spending on education takes place is the pledge which
preceded my arrival in the department, but I am delighted that
it was made in terms of the £8.5 billion that has been pledged
between 2006-07 and 2015-16, and in that sense, we have been working
very hard. I personally have witnessed the results. I saw for
myself in three countries that I recall most recently, one was
in Uganda, where I visited a school with the Prime Minister, where
extraordinary results have been achieved in terms of additional
kids coming into schools. I then travelled on and saw for myself
in Tanzania the progress that has been made in terms of primary
schooling and, most recently, ten days ago, two weeks ago, I saw
in Ethiopia the progress that has been made. In some ways the
great frustration that we face is we know how to get kids into
school, we have seen progress and brought 40 million more kids
into school, but we have still got 75 million children who this
morning had no school to go to. That is why there is a balanced
approach that we take working with specific country plans in terms
of the Fast-Track Initiative (FTI) seeing what individual countries
require. Is it physically the building of a school? The school
that I visited ten days ago was built by World Vision but then
all the on-run costs were being met by the Government in Ethiopia.
Is it actually teachers themselves and the training of teachers,
which we are very clear has a consequential impact in terms of
rates of retention in the school? Is it the provision of something
as basic as sanitation facilities at the school? Again, I was
sharing a platform, or speaking at a meeting with the Chairman
earlier in the week at the launch of our new water and sanitation
policy and, in truth, both the mothers that I met in Ethiopia
and the mothers that I met in Kenya said, "We simply would
not consider having sent our daughter to the school if it had
not been for the fact that there were separate toilet facilities."
So whether it is the provision of decent toilets, whether it is
the provision of decent teachers, whether it is the provision
of, in some cases, feeding programmes to ensure that kids have
an incentive to come to school or whether it is as basic as the
abolition of school user fees, which in a case like Tanzania resulted
in a million more kids turning up the following week, we work
with the Global Campaign for Education to highlight the issue
and we work with the Fast-Track Initiative to make sure that the
country plans meet the particular needs of the countries in which
we are working.
Q135 John Bercow: That is a very
helpful answer, but I wonder if, as a follow up, Secretary of
State, I can ask you whether the Class of 2015 Partnership, announced
at the High Level Event, includes specific gender targets within
its aims? Because you will be aware of, and I am sure duly disappointed
by, the fact that the 2005 MDG gender equity in education target
was missed and, sadly, missed by a mile.
Mr Alexander: It is impossible
to build credible strategies for getting those 75 million kids
into school unless you recognise the centrality not just of gender
but disability. From my recollection, I do not have the figures
in front of me, but I think one in every six of those children
is in Northern Nigeria in which there is predominance of lack
of opportunity for girls in particular. So in that sense it is
a constant dynamic in the conversations that we have with other
partners in terms of how do we get those additional kids into
school. You are right that the gender target for 2005 was missed,
I think, in 94 countries, a huge number of countries, and in that
sense progress has been hampered for a range of different reasons,
and understanding the factors that stopped the last target being
met is instructive in terms of how do we make progress. It is
partly a lack of international political leadership and people
articulating exactly the discussion we are having; the global
funding gap has itself contributed to the problems; a lack of
plans and capacity, which is why the FTI is so important, because
it gives the donors no place to hide in terms of a credible plan
being developed by the national authorities, and locally, the
number of poor families who simply cannot afford to send all of
their children to school has a differential impact in terms of
girls there. So in that sense it is absolutely essential to the
planning that we put in and the work that we do with the Fast-Track
Initiative to try and anticipate that, and in that sense it was
a repeated theme in the Class of 2015 meeting which I attended
and at which our Prime Minister spoke.
Q136 John Bercow: As a very brief
follow-up, Secretary of State, may I say thank you again for that
and for your commitment to build upon the work that you have already
done. I wonder if I could just, in a sense, suggest that this
committee can offer reinforcement and ballast to you in your efforts:
because on the one hand, obviously, cultural factors very often
are of longstanding and they are not easily tackled, and one has
to be both sensitive to them but not, ultimately, led by them,
and, to put it very bluntly, there is a compelling case, I think,
for affirmative action in this context. It logically follows that
if girls are far behind and if there is a general default presumption
in a family with devastatingly inadequate resources in favour
of sending the boy rather than the girl, or if a judgment has
to be made to withdraw a child where there are school user fees,
to withdraw the girl rather than the boy, frankly, that needs
to be revisited, and it is perfectly legitimate if DFID is paying
the piper for it, at least to some extent, to call the tune. The
second point, if I may say, Secretary of State, is that I think
it has been a recurrent feature of our visits as an International
Development Committee, there are a number of different places
in respect of a range of projects not specifically related to
primary education, to find that in so many cases we go to these
meetings about women's issues and it is men who are speaking.
On one occasion Malcolm and I and Ann McKechin, whom of course
we are delighted now to see as a member of the Government and,
sadly, no longer a member of this committee, were absolutely infuriated
that there was a woman—I can think of one at least, and
there were other examples—who had a Master's degree, who
was standing there serving the tea while men prated on eloquently
at very considerable length and it is a fair bet that a number
of them will have lesser qualifications.
Mr Alexander: Sounds a bit like
my kitchen! I simply observe the fact that probably none of us
are well qualified to comment on this, given that all of the witnesses
and all of the questioners are men, and I am conscious that we
are having this discussion against that backdrop. I would also
say with humility that, following the reshuffle, all of the ministers
at the Department for International Development are men. Partly
as a result of that, I have taken on the responsibility of being
the minister responsible for gender issues within the department,
because I wanted an unequivocal message sent out that at the highest
level of the department that we do and continue to take extremely
seriously the gender dimension to the challenge of poverty reduction.
In the best traditions of the Civil Service, I have been surreptitiously
passed two notes clearly determined to make sure that I present
an accurate picture of the department's work. One note, if I may
quickly indulge the committee, says, "Target missed but progress."
In 1999 there were 94 girls per 100 boys in school and, happily,
in 2006 that number has at least risen to 97 girls per 100. So
there has been progress, but I am far from complacent and there
is more to be done. The second torn piece of paper I was passed
was just confirming that the Fast-Track iInitiative endorsement
of which I spoke requires very specific attention being paid to
the issue of gender. So I can assure you that, if there are further
opportunities for dialogue with the committee, we will continue,
I hope, to prove the sincerity of our concern, but it is a very
fundamental part of our thinking about the challenge of education.
Mr Steer: Just to support your
point about affirmative action, yes, affirmative action is required
and that is why actual cash is handed over to parents to enable
their children, their girls, to go to school in countries like
Bangladesh, and we will be financing that. It is hard to imagine
that degree. Twenty years ago this would have been so radical,
the idea, it would sound like a bribe, but in fact it is not at
all, it is enabling their children to go to school in a very direct
way.
Chairman: I am pleading with the Labour
whips to ensure that Ms McKechin's replacement is female; otherwise
we will have an all male committee.
John Bercow: That will be deeply unsatisfactory,
and then there will be questions of pots calling kettles black
and all that sort of thing, as people start moaning about these
matters.
Chairman: We genuinely try to feminise
ourselves with at least one woman.
Q137 John Bercow: Mr Dinham wants
to say something, I think.
Mr Dinham: No, it was just to
re-emphasise that the Class of 2015 event had this issue about
girls' education shot right through it, and if you look at the
UN document, which sets out all the various pledges which have
been issued, a number of them refer to girls' education and specifically
Norway put in $180 million specifically for that through the UNICEF
Programme, so it was quite a strong motif really.
Q138 John Battle: We have, quite
rightly, referred to the Prime Minister and, indeed, his wife.
There have been defaults on MDG5 on maternal health, which has
fallen the furthest behind, but if gender is to be driven as a
theme throughout all the MDGs, it does seem that some of them
are both too narrow and others are not even taken into scope.
For example, with HIV/AIDS the question of violence against women
is a theme that we are waking up to perhaps late in the day. I
just wonder whether, on the whole question of gender equality,
if we set each of the targets against gender equality most are
really far off track. Should we not be setting specific targets,
perhaps along John Bercow's lines of affirmative action, for women
and girls in all the MDGs? Would that not help set a framework
to be much more inclusive, although we are still hoping they will
trickle down and reach through?
Mr Alexander: It is interesting.
I had a similar conversation relatively recently with my Danish
counterpart, Ulla Tørn?s, who is responsible for taking
a strong leadership role on the issue of gender at the High Level
Event, and you can have quite a theological conversation as to
whether it is better to have a vertical or horizontal target:
do you think of the target in terms of gender equality as running,
like a theme through a stick of rock, through all of the MDGs,
or is it better to identify and specify specific gender outcomes
in terms of poverty reduction? I think the real test is the progress
that we make, and in that sense my answer on gender would echo
my broader response when people say why is it that the MDGs do
not have enough emphasis on climate change, or conflict, or other
issues which, were the MDGs being written today, probably would
have a stronger emphasis. At one level you can have a critique
of the MDGs to say they are, by definition, if there are eight
of them, somewhat reductionist, they do not cover everything.
Frankly, it is an important conversation to have, but at the moment
it is the best framework we have, and I do not want to give people
the excuse to spend months or years reflecting your earlier question,
having conversations about how to redraw matrices for the MDGs,
I want us to get on with the job, and in that sense at the High
Level Event in New York the UN estimate $265 million was specifically
committed to women's education. That to me is a better use of
the collective time of the international community than at this
point in the progress towards the MDGs or, indeed, the failure
to make progress redrawing the matrix.
Q139 John Battle: I take your point,
and I am not redrawing matrices, but the reality is on the ground
as it were. To cross-reference a conversation that this committee
is having co-terminis with this conversation, if you like, on
HIV and AIDS, is the question that 60 % of women that suffer HIV/AIDS—and
pregnant women—there is a massive issue there—and
one of the issues that DFID have been good at has been doing some
work on the ground on violence against women and HIV/AIDS, I think,
if I remember, in Bangladesh, Nepal and South Africa. Can I flag
that up with you and say that as well as setting a matrix out,
perhaps some of the practice on the ground that DFID has implemented
already ought to be disseminated right across the international
agencies to make sure that it is built into their practice. We
may then make some more progress as a whole. I make a plea to
say that there is some good work going on on the ground. It may
not be in the matrix, but unless we get there, we will not get
the outcomes that we would want.
Mr Alexander: I have got the figures
in front of me for South Africa, Nepal and Bangladesh and we have
made real progress, and I can certainly show the committee if
it would be helpful. When I left the press conference last September
in Downing Street, and we had Prime Minister Stoltenberg, Gordon
was there and I was there, as we left we had managed to get a
single column in the Glasgow Herald and half a column in the Financial
Times after months of international effort out there and, as we
left the room, Gordon said, "I wonder if this proves that
we need to have more focus in our publicity on individual diseases",
because we know that the IHP (International Health Partnership)
is the right response in terms of health system strengthening
and co-ordination but in that sense what attracts attention about
DFID's work is not always the same as your point: what actually
we are proving by our policy leadership on the ground. In that
sense, although there was a big discussion of malaria and other
issues in New York, we relentlessly take the opportunity to make
the policy argument in terms of gender and other issues as well,
and I can assure you, whether it is Bangladesh or South Africa
or Nepal, we have the examples already of where that combination
is making a very significant difference, and in that sense we
are sharing that with fellow policy-makers all the time. The truth
is we struggle at times to get the public recognition of the interaction
of these factors, whether it be gender and education, whether
it be sexual violence and HIV, whether it be how to simultaneously
attack malaria and attack HIV and AIDS and tuberculosis by building
a sustainable health system which is the foundation on which any
of these three diseases can be tackled, but our public recognition
is not always the best guide to the integrated nature of our policy
work.
John Bercow: The committee has the same
problem Secretary of State.
10 Overseas Development Institute Back
11
UN Development Programme Back
12
Millennium Challenge Corporation Back
13
US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief Back
14
Advance Market Commitment for Vaccines Back
15
Sector Wide Approaches Back
|
