Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200
- 218)
WEDNESDAY 1 JULY 2009
MR GARETH
THOMAS MP, DR
YUSAF SAMIULLAH
AND MR
PETER DAVIES
Q200 John Battle:
Can I just push the India example a little bit further? In fact
the Committee visited Cochin in Kerala, and one of the facts I
remember is that its literacy rate over the last 40 years is 98%—there
is nowhere in Britain with that literacy rate. Why I mention it
is their capacity is substantial in a way and I wondered if you
had a contrast with somewhere like Cochin and Calcutta, where
there are big, dense urban populations, where people are crowding
into the city with their animals that they brought from rural
areas and their families with them. What is the experience like
of the mega-city funding?
Mr Thomas: Calcutta is an interesting
example because the work programme that we have in Calcutta, which
is still going on, has already had a series of successes, not
only in terms of community empowerment but what that community
empowerment has led to, so there has been a whole series of work
achieved on basic infrastructure, be it better drains, better
access to water, to toilets. Over 600,000 slum dwellers have been
helped directly as a result of that programme in terms of access
to those basic services. One municipality—and it may seem
an odd thing to want to celebrate but I think it is important—has
been declared the first open-defecation-free municipal area in
India which, given the challenges around sanitation which the
Committee will be aware of, is a remarkable achievement. One of
the things that has also emerged from community demands has been
around youth employment and training, so the Calcutta programme
has helped to lead to training and job placements for a substantial
number of young people and about 30,000 self-help groups have
been established—again, another example of that community
empowerment.
Q201 John Battle:
If I might add on a personal note, Chairman, water and sanitation
projects are absolutely vital. I say that because the Committee
has also been to places like Sierra Leone where youngsters that
some of the Committee had to meet were walking around with AK47s.
But some time before I was in Parliament I stayed in a favella
in inner city Sao Paolo and I think the most dangerous thing I
have ever had to do in my life was actually to drink water to
make tea with, taken from an open sewer. I am sure that was far
more dangerous than meeting a youngster with an AK47 because sanitation
in cities is a massive challenge, and it is really pleasing to
hear what your department is doing in Calcutta.
Mr Thomas: Thank you.
Q202 Mr Sharma:
The Consortium for Street Children expressed concern about the
absence of a DFID strategy for street children and the lack of
attention to the issue by other donors, especially the UN Children's
Fund (UNICEF). Why do DFID programmes not target street children
especially?
Mr Thomas: We work very closely
with UNICEF and in the work programme we are developing with UNICEF
going forward there is the potential for indicators to measure
UNICEF's success in helping to protect vulnerable children from
violence, so there may be ways in which we can perhaps indirectly
but nonetheless in a significant way address the concerns around
street children. We also have a whole series of social protection
programmes around our programmes, not least in Kenya, which are
helping to get cash to extremely needy families including the
sorts of children who would end up on the streets and be at risk
in the way that has been described to you.
Q203 Mr Sharma:
When will you publish your revised institutional strategy with
UNICEF?
Mr Thomas: I am currently working
on it at the moment, so I suppose the answer is soon—hopefully.
Forgive me, Mr Bruce, maybe I should add that it partly depends
on how UNICEF respond to some of the issues that we are raising.
We are hoping to publish that institutional strategy in agreement
with a number of other donors—because obviously it gives
us more leverage with UNICEF—so it is a more complex negotiation
than just the traditional discussion that we might have had with
UNICEF in previous times.
Q204 Chairman:
Obviously we have had representations about street children worldwide
and the Consortium for Street Children of course exists because
they believe that they are a discrete group that are not always
properly addressed. Their contention is that they are not convinced
that UNICEF has the same engagement as they have, so really what
we are trying to probe is whether or not the department recognises
the specific needs of street children and whether or not you should
be doing more to address those needs specifically.
Mr Thomas: I will take that away
in the context of the preparations that we are engaged in in terms
of the institutional strategy with UNICEF. I would suggest that
both the work we are doing on social protection for access to
primary schools and access to healthcare are all examples of work
which will benefit street children, as indeed they will benefit
other children. I do accept the premise of the question and there
are nevertheless some discrete challenges around street children.
I will bear that in mind for the work we do in terms of the discussions
we have with UNICEF.
Q205 John Battle:
If I could revert to Water and Sanitation in urban areas, the
funding for Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor that is in
your budget runs out this year, does it not? Will that funding
be renewed—I think it was £3.95 million from October
2005 to April 2009. Is there another slice going back in?
Mr Thomas: Possibly.
Q206 John Battle:
Is it part of the negotiations of the overall budget in other
words?
Mr Thomas: What we are going to
do is an evaluation of the success of the programme or not and,
depending on what that evaluation flags up, we will then make
a funding decision.
Q207 John Battle:
You gave the very good example of water and sanitation in Calcutta
but are there any other examples of basic services for slum dwellers
that your department is involved in providing outside the India
programme, because the India programme does take the bulk of DFID
money and I just wondered whether it has been able to be extended
elsewhere.
Mr Thomas: There was a series
of other examples that we gave in the memoranda that we sent through
to the Committee but I will have a look at that memoranda again
and see whether there are other examples we can offer to the Committee.
I think of the work we are doing for example in Bangladesh where
we have a £60 million urban programme. Forgive me, I think
that is included in the memoranda but I cannot find it.
Q208 John Battle:
That is £60 million over six years to UNDP, is it not?
Mr Thomas: That is right.
Q209 John Battle:
I suppose what I am looking for is whether it is in the bracket
of the India programme, which is a big one, or whether it is a
kind of strategic line now cutting right through into the budgets
elsewhere.
Mr Thomas: I do not think it is
a strategic line in that sense because we do try and look at each
individual country's needs and what it asks of us as a donor,
which do tend to be different. It also partly depends on what
other donors are doing in country. Certainly we are seen as having
particular expertise in India and £246 million, which is
what we are currently spending or planning to spend through the
life of our India programme on urban programmes. That is a very
significant spend as you say.
Q210 Mr Sharma:
My question is on crime, violence and social unrest. Does DFID
have a strategy for dealing with the links between urban poverty,
unemployment and crime?
Mr Thomas: Yes, we do, but again
it is in a country context. Let me give you the example of Jamaica
where we have a community security initiative which we provide
funding to and indeed put placements of police officers into the
Jamaican national police force to help them better deal with some
of the organised crime that there is in some of the urban environments
in Jamaica. At the same time as key organised criminals are arrested
and taken away to face justice, so we help to ensure that public
services are able to move in to, in a sense, fill the gap left
by those kingpins. They have been around helping to get access
to water and sanitation and other basic public services, so both
helping to deal with some of the security challenges and crime
challenges and then making sure that it is much more difficult
for those new criminals to take over the space that has been left
as other public services are provided.
Q211 Andrew Stunell:
When we were in Nigeria we saw a scheme being supported by DFID
in Kano which was about community policing, which appeared to
be very promising and was being replicated elsewhere; I wondered
if you had plans to expand that. That is part one of my question;
part two of my question is if you are sending senior police officers
to Jamaica to deal with crime and racketeering and its impact
on the UK could you say anything about plans to develop a similar
support for Nigeria where we have also taken evidence that there
are serious problems there relating to corruption spreading across
the two countries?
Mr Thomas: In answer to the first
part of your question our work on security and policing in Nigeria
now covers 18 of the 36 states and I hope to get a better feel
myself for that programme when I visit shortly. On the question
of secondments or otherwise of police officers, in a sense it
partly depends on whether we get a direct request and whether
there are the officers who can be released. It was a very specific
request from the Jamaican police force and the Metropolitan Police
were able to respond in that particular way.
Q212 Andrew Stunell:
We have taken some evidence that maybe the corruption inquiries
in Nigeria have slowed down because of a lack of good co-operation
between the two sets of authorities. Do you have any input into
re-engaging people on that?
Mr Thomas: Mr Stunell, if I may
perhaps I can take your question away and look at that when I
travel to Nigeria directly. I will take that as advance notice
that you are likely to ask a question in that area when I come
back to be re-interviewed about Nigeria.
Q213 Chairman:
Can I suggest, Mr Thomas, that you might want to look at the evidence
we took yesterday which I understand will be published online
tomorrow, to which Mr Stunell was referring. To be fair part of
the implication was a slight disengagement at the Nigerian end,
I do not think the implication was necessarily focused at the
UK end. The net effect was the same but the feeling was that whereas
there had been quite effective co-operation at tackling corruption
up until a couple of years ago, when of course there was a change
of administration, that has somewhat diminished. If you look at
the evidence you might find it helpful.
Mr Thomas: Thank you, I appreciate
the tip.
Q214 Andrew Stunell:
If I could just turn to the climate change issue, in your own
submission to us you said that it looked as though donors in countries
now were putting climate change as a higher priority than urban
poverty and have changed their focus accordingly. As climate change
has come up DFID's agenda—quite rightly so—urbanisation
seems to have gone down, as you will probably have picked up from
our questioning—that is the message we are getting. Does
that actually reflect a deliberate change in focus for DFID or
are we just completely misreading the situation?
Mr Thomas: With respect I think
you are misreading the situation about urbanisation because we
are doing a lot on urban challenges as I have discussed. On climate
change certainly we are definitely seeking to scale up the work
we do on climate change, both at a policy level in London and
also what we are asking of our country offices. In a sense, therefore,
to bring the two issues together we are currently considering
supporting in India what is a city-focused, sustainable habitat,
part of their national action plan on climate change, and we are
beginning to look at how we can climate test our programmes in
India and indeed in other countries. Again, to give another example,
Mr Stunell, some of our work in Bangladesh will include work on
waste and hygiene issues and that work considers the impact of
extreme weather events caused by climate change and what that
would do for problems around waste and hygiene—so the issues
around blocked drains, flooding, the vulnerability of people in
low-lying areas et cetera and some of the challenges that climate
change would bring in that context. I hope that gives you a flavour
of how, in a sense, the climate agenda and the urban agendas are
beginning to come together, but the White Paper I hope will give
the Committee further confidence of our progress in terms of climate
change.
Q215 Andrew Stunell:
There are two aspects to climate change really, are there not,
there is if you like proofing the city against extreme events
but there is also the impact of changing climate on particularly
the urban poor, and it is important to make sure that the urban
poor do not lose out as a result of a shrinkage of help for them
in favour of specific climate change projects. Could you say something
about how DFID is approaching that potential competition in policy
areas and resources in terms of urban policy overseas?
Mr Thomas: You are right to say
that as part of what we do on climate change we have got to make
sure that that work helps the urban poor going forward. I gave
you the example of what we are doing in Bangladesh—many
of the poorest people in Bangladesh live in very low-lying areas
which are urban areas, and if there are extreme weather events—if
we use the example of flooding—that can cause considerable
problems in terms of drainage and sanitation. Part of our response
therefore to climate change as well as part of our response to
urbanisation has got to be to bring those two agendas together,
to think through how you better mange or how you get better training
systems and better flood alleviation systems in place, better
disaster management programmes in place. Those challenges have
become more urgent for the urban poor because of climate change
but they are nevertheless still a challenge for the urban poor
just as they are a challenge that we need to address in terms
of responding to climate change. I do not think it is necessarily
an either/or scenario, I think it just sharpens the focus that
you have to have on some of the existing challenges we have got.
Q216 John Battle:
Just a final question and it comes back to my first question in
a way. Encouragingly the urban challenges and the climate change
agenda are coming together and converging and I am still convinced
that the North-South agenda is converging; it is just a small
question really about working on the climate change issues with
the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Are there good links
there, do you work together and do they talk to you about the
work and knowledge and experience your staff are picking up, and
do they feed that through?
Mr Thomas: The straight answer
is, yes, there are very close links between our climate change
team and the climate change teams in DECC, and there are regular
discussions at Secretary of State level as well as we start to
prepare our position, for example, in the run-up to Copenhagen.
Q217 Chairman:
Mr Thomas, just to draw it together, when we started this inquiry
we were aware of the fact and it was picked up last year that
the world had become predominantly urban. That was part of the
focus and Mr Battle certainly encouraged us to look at the impact
of urban poverty and the specific needs of the urban poor. You
then look at MDG 7 which says "We want to achieve significant
improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers
by 2020." That is wonderful but there are likely to be 1,000
million more slum dwellers by 2020 so it is a pretty inadequate
Millennium Development Goal in the sense that it is running away
from us much faster than we are pursuing it. I do not know necessarily
whether this is a question you could or should answer but I am
just asking if you accept that the Committee has embarked on this
inquiry and become very, very conscious of the fact that urbanisation
is a challenge that has escalated very rapidly in recent years.
We are not convinced, if I put it this way, that any of the international
and national aid agencies are really apprised of the severity
of that challenge, and what we are saying to DFID is we really
would ask you to think very, very hard as to whether DFID is or
is not up for it, both in terms of its own strategy and policies
and also its role which we very much appreciate as a leading development
ministry and policy leader in the world. I do not think the Committee
is going to be coming along and saying "We have the answer
to this" and there are some pretty tough questions out there.
Clearly people who are engaged in these issues feel at the very
least that it is difficult to know and understand what DFID and
indeed the other agencies are doing to address this problem—and
I do not for a minute suggest that you are not doing anything,
you have given fair answers to suggest that you are, but what
is not clear I suppose is the point, is exactly how that is going
to be addressed. If you put it in these terms, if the forecast
for 2020 and the number of people living in urban poverty and
urban slums as projected is a correct forecast, what on earth
should we all be doing to try and head those figures off and actually
deal with them?
Mr Thomas: There are a number
of responses I would give. I cannot dispute that donors need to
do more to respond to urbanisation, both immediately and certainly
in the run-up to 2020, and that is one reason why I welcome the
fact that the major multilaterals—the World Bank, the Asian
Development Bank, the African Development Bank—are in various
stages of stepping up their work on the challenges that there
are. As I said in answer to your opening question, I accept that
we need to do some more thinking about some aspects of the urbanisation
challenge, not least on infrastructure, where we have work underway,
and one of the specific areas we can usefully focus on is around
cities' governance, given that we have a strong track record of
governance in general terms. I have no doubt that the pace of
urbanisation will also bring into sharper relief questions around
education, around health, around economic growth, around climate
change, around fragile state environments as well, all of which
to some extent will be addressed in the White Paper that the Committee
will see. Your basic point, do we need to do more as a donor community
internationally, I accept that we do. We can make a contribution
to that, we cannot have all the answers ourselves. We can do more
advocacy work with those major multilaterals and we will do that,
but in a sense we need the international community to focus on
this issue and the review summit next year of the Millennium Development
Goals will give an opportunity to provide some of that additional
focus. This is an issue that the international community, frankly,
is going to have to focus on way beyond 2010.
Q218 Chairman:
Thank you for that. Can I wish you bon voyage when you go to Nigeria
and I trust you will find it as interesting as the Committee did,
if not as challenging as well. With all the references to Lagos
it is a brilliant city in terms of its location, its challenges,
what is happening there and its dynamic contribution to Nigeria.
It has huge challenges and huge problems, but it has also a fantastic
amount of vibrancy about it as well. It is potentially a great
city, if it does not hit a disaster before it becomes a great
city, and I guess that is its particular challenge. I trust you
will have an interesting visit and we will hear from you again
when you return.
Mr Thomas: Thanks very much for
that and, perhaps offline, I can have a word with you about your
visit separately.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
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