6 Other areas of activity
Major appointments
38. We have not had the occasion to interview
any new appointees to major posts in the last year. As DFID has
a very small number of associated bodies, the Secretary of State
makes very few major appointments.
Associated public bodies
39. DFID has one associated Non-Departmental
Public Body: the Advisory Commonwealth Scholarship Commission
in the UK. CDC Group plc is a UK government-owned body which acts
as DFID's main instrument for risk finance investment in developing
countries. We have not undertaken inquiries into these bodies
during the period covered by this Report.
Examination of draft legislation
40. The Department has not produced draft legislation
during this Session (although the publication of a draft Bill
on International Development Spending was announced in the Queen's
Speech in November 2009 and we would expect to be involved in
its scrutiny).
Committees on Arms Export Controls
41. We continued our contribution to the Committees
on Arms Export Controls, together with members of the Business,
Innovation and Skills, Defence and Foreign Affairs Committees.
Together we carry out detailed scrutiny of the Government's controls
on exports of equipment and technology with a military application.
42. Our joint Report was published in August.[23]
We called for closer scrutiny of UK arms exports, following confirmation
by the UK Government that Israeli weapons systems used in the
Gaza conflict almost certainly contained British-built components.
We were also concerned that UK military equipment and weapons
exported to Sri Lanka during the ceasefire between the Sri Lanka
government and the LTTE,[24]
may have been used against the civilian population when hostilities
escalated in 2006. We agreed that applications for licences for
exports to Israel and Sri Lanka should continue to be assessed
on a case-by-case basis, but recommended a review of all existing
licences relating to Sri Lanka and that the Government assess
what weapons used by the Sri Lanka armed forces against the LTTE
were supplied by the UK.
43. We repeated our strong recommendations from
last year's report that the Government establish a register of
UK arms brokers and that the UK extend certain trade controls
on activities by UK persons anywhere in the world. We called for
all residents in the UK and British citizens overseas to obtain
trade control licences, or be covered by a general licence, before
engaging in any trade in the goods featured on what is called
"the Military List" of weapons and materiel classifications.
Conferences
44. Our Chairman attended conferences of chairmen
of foreign affairs, development and co-operation committees of
EU countries in Prague and Visby in 2009 organised by the Czech
and Swedish EU presidencies. These conferences offer a valuable
opportunity to discuss our work with our European counterparts.
The Chairman also attended the first High-level Symposium to prepare
for the ECOSOC 2010 Development Cooperation Forum (DCF), which
was held in Vienna in November 2009. Another of our Members, Rt
Hon John Battle, participated in the OECD/EU High Level Parliamentary
Conference on Policy Coherence for Development and Migration,
which was held in Brussels in February 2009.
Informal meetings
45. In March, we met Robert Zoellick, President
of the World Bank with whom we discussed the impact of the economic
downturn and the prospects for the G20 Summit meeting as part
of our inquiry into Aid Under Pressure. In July we met
Rt Hon Baroness Ashton, the then European Commissioner for Trade
with whom we discussed the WTO Doha Round, the EU's Economic Partnership
Agreements (EPAs) and other trade matters which impinge on development.
46. We followed up our 2008 Report on Aid
Effectiveness in a briefing from the Overseas Development
Institute, looking at an aspect which that inquiry did not cover:
the impact of "untying aid" on development effectiveness.[25]
47. We continued to maintain a watching brief
on events in Afghanistan. Several of our Members have taken part
in a regular series of Government briefings and round-table discussions
where representatives of the FCO, MoD and DFID provide updates
on the different aspects of the UK's strategy in Afghanistan.
48. We held several meetings with representatives
of international organisations, including: Helen Clark, Administrator
of the UN Development Programme (and former Prime Minister of
New Zealand); the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO);
USAID; the US Institute for Peace; and the International Medical
Corps.
49. We continued our practice of supplementing
our formal evidence from DFID Ministers with informal meetings.
In July we met the Secretary of State and his two ministerial
colleagues to discuss publication of the new White Paper and to
follow up on some issues from recent reports. We also met the
Chair and members of the Independent Advisory Committee on Development
Impact (IACDI) to discuss progress with their work on strengthening
DFID's evaluation procedures.
50. The Development Assistance Committee (DAC)
of the OECD carries out peer reviews of donor countries every
4-5 years, and 2010 will be the turn of the UK. Two other donor
countries carry out the review: the examiners of the UK will be
Spain and Sweden. We met DAC representatives in November 2009
to share with them our views on DFID's strengths and weaknesses.
23 First Joint Report of Session 2008-09, Scrutiny
of Arms Export Controls (2009): UK Strategic Export Controls Annual
Report 2007, Quarterly Reports for 2008, licensing policy and
review of export control legislation, HC 178 Back
24
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Back
25
Ninth Report of Session 2007-08, Working Together to Make Aid
More Effective, HC 520-I. When donors give tied aid, they
insist that aid funds are used to purchase goods and services
from suppliers based in the donor country or a limited group of
countries. DFID fully "untied" its aid in 2001. Untying
aid encourages procurement of goods and services within developing
countries. Back
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