Examination of Witnesses (Questions 139
- 159)
WEDNESDAY 16 DECEMBER 2009
MR MIKE
FOSTER MP AND
MR CHRIS
AUSTIN
Q139 Chairman: Good afternoon, Minister
and Chris, welcome. It is nice to see you here again. I hardly
need to ask you to introduce yourselves. I will just say for the
record that we have Michael Foster, the Parliamentary Under Secretary,
and Chris Austin, the Head of DFID in Bangladesh. Thank you both
for coming in. As you know, this is the last evidence session
that we are taking, having visited Bangladesh and taken a number
of evidence sessions and also having had two public meetings in
London and Birmingham to try and connect with some of the Bangladesh
diaspora and get some input from them. Just to start the discussion,
I wonder if you could clarify the scale of DFID's operation and
engagements in Bangladesh; you have changed it, but, just before
we even get to that, can you give us an indication of what the
funding was because we are slightly at odds with our briefing
and other information we have? For example, for the last three
years what was the total DFID funding for Bangladesh? Are you
able to give us that?
Mr Foster:
Thanks, Chairman, and thanks for the opportunity to talk about
our work in Bangladesh. Of course today is a special day in Bangladesh.
It is Victory Day, a day of celebrations for people in Bangladesh.
The country is 38 years old today. I mention that because it does
have some relevance in terms of the nature of the programme that
we run in Bangladesh. In terms of our bilateral spend for 2009,
we have a bilateral spend of £126 million. For 2010-11 that
goes up to £150 million. Our spend through multilaterals
I think is £42.6 million, both this year and last, and that
compares with a programme bilateral spend in 2003-04 of just £55
million, so you will be able to see the ramping up.
Q140 Chairman: What is the figure
for 2008-09?
Mr Austin: The expenditure for
2008-09 was £132 million, and in 2007-08 it was £129
million, but the original allocations for both of those years
were lower. They were £114 million in 2007-08 and £116
million in 2008-09. It may have been that you received figures
that aggregated the aid framework rather than the outturn.
Q141 Chairman: So the actual spend
was £132 million for 2008-09, which is slightly different
from DFID's brief, but that is the reason why?
Mr Foster: Yes.
Q142 Chairman: In 2006 it was only
£75 million. Why was that?
Mr Austin: In 2003-04 it was £55
million, the figure that the Minister referred to.
Q143 Chairman: We are working on
your own brief that tells us that it was £75 million in 2006.
Mr Foster: I must admit I would
have to look back—
Q144 Chairman: It is just for clarification.
There seems to be a slight discrepancy in the funding.
Mr Foster: We will find out what
the final outturn was for that particular year. The figure I gave
for 2003-04 was £55 million bilateral spend.[1]
Q145 Chairman: So what you are basically
saying is that it has increased steadily subject to some slight
aggregation of expenditure?
Mr Foster: Yes, it is fair to
say that. It is whether you define "steadily" as a real
increase from £55 million to getting on for £150 million.
Q146 Chairman: It would be helpful
because, as I say, taking it from your brief, we see a picture
like this and you have described it as more like that.
Mr Foster: Yes.
Mr Austin: I am sorry if there
is an error in the brief we gave you about 2006. The actual outturn
has been between £109 million and £132 million since
about 2005-06.
Q147 Chairman: For the benefit of
the transcript I should say that it looks as if it is up and down
as opposed to a steady increase. Waving my hands about does not
help. Perhaps you would get us clarification on that just so that
we are clear about it. You have reduced the number of projects
and effectively you seem to be doing more with fewer partners.
What are the reasons for that?
Mr Foster: One of the issues we
are trying to address is to look at things like the aid effectiveness
agenda. We have what we think is a relatively balanced portfolio
in Bangladesh given the inherent risks of dealing in a country
that is relatively fragile. There are governance issues there.
We are trying to have a broad balance for our risk but meanwhile
trying to maximise the impact of our programme, so we have reduced
the number of programmes, I think, from 45 separate spending lines
down to about 25 programmes so that we have greater focus on those
programmes, but bearing in mind we are trying to also maintain
some breadth across the range because of the risk of going in
one particular direction or with one particular partner.
Q148 Chairman: So have you discontinued
particular types of projects or just the number of people you
are engaging with?
Mr Austin: If I could add to what
the Minister has said about the number of partners, the country
programme evaluation in 2006 found that we had too many projects
and were spreading ourselves across too many relationships. I
think we had about 80 spending lines at the time, so we have been
implementing the recommendations to reduce direct funding for
individual NGOs, for example, and instead are supporting Challenge
Funds like the Rights and Governance Challenge Fund which supports
over 100 NGOs through a granting arrangement. That gives us breadth
of coverage but is something that is more manageable for us to
administer. In terms of areas where we have stopped funding over
the last two or three years, we no longer provide sector budget
support for the transport area. That was stopped because of corruption
concerns, but we also felt it was not a priority area for UK grant
funding. We have stopped funding individual NGOs working in areas
of land rights for poor people, for example, and instead are supporting
that through a Challenge Fund mechanism. We have recently finished
our technical support for the transport ministry.
Q149 Chairman: Are you satisfied
that you can monitor what you are doing because, as I understand
it, in terms of the structure of the NGOs in Bangladesh it appears
that if you deal with them they then subcontract, and I have to
say that that was something that we picked up even just at a reception
we had at your place when people were saying that people down
the track were or were not getting it or the wrong people were
getting it. People will say these things for their own reasons
but are you satisfied that you are able to monitor effectively
where those project funds are actually going?
Mr Foster: At a broader level
the portfolio score that DFID Bangladesh has had has improved,
so that would imply that the direction of travel that we have
been going along has improved the ability of DFID to deliver on
the ground and that improvement is something that demonstrates
the breadth of approach and the reduction in the number of programmes.
It has not diminished our impact on the ground but improved it.
Q150 Mr Singh: Chris, I may have
misheard you. You said you were changing your approach to NGOs.
You have Challenge funding, and yet from our visit I understand,
and I hope I understand it properly, that you are giving BRAC,
which we will come on to later as I want to go into that particularly,
direct budget support. It is that contradiction that seems to
be there.
Mr Austin: If I may clarify on
your point and on the monitoring of the Challenge Funds, we have
five delivery instruments to spread the financial and implementation
risks in Bangladesh—pooled funds managed by the World Bank
and the Asian Development Bank; support channelled through a UN
agency; thirdly, Challenge Funds managed by another body on our
behalf; fourth, direct contracting, for example the Chars programme
that some of you visited; and fifth is BRAC, which is an entity
in itself. It is unique; it is the largest NGO in the world and
has been around since 1971, so that is in a different category
from the Challenge Fund support and the support through the Chars
programme that works with the local NGOs to deliver services or
provide advice to poor people. On monitoring the Challenge Funds,
for example, the rights and governance one, the Manusher Jonno
Foundation does the due diligence on project proposals and it
monitors them and provides us with a report on implementation
and finance. We review that and we do a sample survey of individual
grantees, and for that particular programme we funded an impact
evaluation independently done about three or four months ago that
confirmed that there were a lot of good results. It also provided
some suggestions about how the operation of the fund could be
improved in terms of selection and monitoring. I am confident
that we have got the best monitoring arrangement we can have,
and it is important, as some of you mentioned in the discussion
during your visit, that where there are concerns about financial
mismanagement or programmes not working as intended we get that
feedback from whatever source and that will help us cross-check
our own policies.
Q151 Mr Singh: That is fine. You
are saying that you are reducing your dependence on NGOs and yet
at the same time—
Mr Austin: BRAC is almost a multilateral
organisation. It operates in several African countries as well
as in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, so it is more like
Oxfam, Save the Children, or Concern, so what we are proposing
is a kind of public partnership arrangement.
Q152 John Battle: May I, through
you, Minister, thank Chris Austin and the DFID team? I have been
on this Committee eight years and I have to say I have felt that
the team, the quality, the expertise and the evident engagement
of DFID staff in Bangladesh was one of the best DFID teams that
I have seen in the world; I think the job they are doing is superb.
There is an expanding programme, and may I also thank you for
the programme you arranged for us as well. It was a very good
visit and it got us into the detail. I did not go to the Chars
Livelihoods Programme but I went to look at BRAC and was impressed
and got to the edges—I will put it that way—of rural
development. I hope you take my question in the right spirit but,
were I to go back, hopefully, I would not leave Dhaka and the
reason is that there is a mega-city which has massive challenges.
Since I have been back meeting Bangladeshi people in my own neighbourhood
they have said to me, "Did you manage to get from the office
to the minister's office?", because of the transport problems
in the middle of Dhaka. In other words, there is a mega-city there
and I just want to put the question to you in these terms. I have
got a hint of the work with Chars Livelihoods, a hint of the work
with BRAC, the rural livelihoods, but what about the urban poverty
reduction, because most of the world's people live in cities now?
People are crowding into Dhaka and I really wondered, looking
out of the hotel window down across on the river at what in Latin
America are called shanty towns, the whole of that kind of area,
is the balance of the programme right? I am not asking for it
all to go into urban but are we taking urban development seriously,
and does DFID have urban expertise on the ground in Dhaka?
Mr Foster: First of all, Mr Battle,
I echo your comments, and it is good that they are on the record,
about the team in Bangladesh. I visited last March and in terms
of the experience that the Committee had I came back with exactly
the same view. Bangladesh is primarily a very rural country and
therefore poverty has to be addressed, yes, in rural and in urban
environments, and so the Chars project is a classic one for rural
Bangladesh. We have an urban partnership for poverty reduction
programme that is implemented by UNDP. It is a 7-year programme,
£60 million, and it is about exactly the points that you
mentioned, dealing with urbanisation, and I know the Committee
did some work and a report on urbanisation relatively recently.
In terms of the target for that particular programme, we are looking
to improve the livelihoods and living conditions of some 3 million
poor people in urban areas including in Dhaka, predominantly women
and children. I went to see, for example, a street children education
programme where the children were living in the main railway station
at Dhaka, again, a really good example of getting in and dealing
with the urban poor in a very hands-on way, so I think we have
got the expertise to do it. I do think though, Mr Battle, I have
to be honest, that the issue of climate change is going to make
the concerns about urbanisation perhaps greater because as sea
levels rise there will be a migration within Bangladesh and I
suspect they will go to urban centres, predominantly Dhaka, so
I do think there is a bigger challenge on the horizon but as a
result of climate change.[2]
Q153 Mr Singh: We as a committee
are dealing with new things at the moment which I am very pleased
with. We are talking to the diaspora community, which is, as I
say, very interesting, but in terms of DFID do you have any relationship
with the diaspora community within the UK (and it is a very important
and large community) and their views on development? Secondly,
when we were in Bangladesh we were told that it is difficult for
DFID staff to talk with communities properly in Bangladesh and
so, resulting from that, is that an issue to do with staffing
constraints, ie, direct contact with communities here? I am not
criticising because we are doing it new and if you have not done
it that is not a problem but I think it is an important issue
that you may need to take on board.
Mr Foster: It is one we take seriously.
If I could just quote the list of the types of engagement activities
that we have had with the Bangladeshi diaspora to begin with in
the UK. The Country Plan that was launched in July this year was
delivered in front of a group of Bangladeshi stakeholders and
the Bangladeshi media here in the UK. There is a wide variety
of diaspora events that take place during the summer. There is
a number of melas that go on. We have worked with street theatre,
the Bricklane Curry Festival, the Eid in the Square event in Trafalgar
Square in September. We have provided editorials for Bangladesh's
Who's Who? and Curry Award events. People like Chris and
our High Commissioner go out and about in the community as well.
Chris can speak for himself but I know he has visited Oldham,
Manchester, Rochdale, Tower Hamlets and Glasgow. That was all
prior to the Country Plan launch, and our High Commission staff
do the same thing. As a team of ministers we take the communication
with the diaspora seriously as well. The Secretary of State, for
instance, spoke at the Bangladesh Caterers Association annual
dinner last week, and I have met with the Caterers Association,
as well as different events that take place in and around London
in particular, and we also produce lots of publications to encourage
communication with the diaspora. We have produced these little
hand-out Z cards which fold explaining what our programme does,
and I will leave those with you.
Mr Singh: Oh, magic!
Q154 John Battle: They are little
pocket cards.
Mr Foster: Little pocket cards.
Q155 Mr Singh: Who do they go to?
Do they go to me?
Mr Foster: This can go to you,
certainly. This also goes through the Bangladeshi diaspora and
through stakeholders.
Q156 Mr Singh: No, not in my constituency.
Mr Foster: I also have produced
this newsletter which went to every single MP. I electronically
sent it to every single MP—
Q157 Mr Singh: Yes, but not to my
constituents.
Mr Foster:— with a request
that said, "If anybody wants these free of charge delivered
to their constituency address to send to their constituents, they
are free to do so and I will get them posted to them".
John Battle: 5,000 for him.
Q158 Mr Singh: Excellent!
Mr Foster: I have to say, Mr Singh,
there were not many MPs—and it was disappointing—who
actually contacted DFID and said, "I would like some more
hard copies of this".
Q159 Mr Singh: Then I apologise.
If you will deliver them free—
Mr Foster: They are delivered
free and that will be clear in the covering letter.
1 Supplementary written evidence submitted by DFID
Ev . Back
2
See also additional information at Ev . Back
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