House of Commons - The UK's response to extremism and instability in North and West Africa

The UK's response to extremism and instability in North and West Africa - Foreign Affairs Committee Contents

4 Addressing future challenges

83. New and predominantly joint or multilateral approaches are needed to tackle the drivers of extremism and instability in the Western Sahel-Sahara region set out in chapter 2. In its discussion of future policies, the FCO's written submission to this inquiry tended towards the aspirational rather than the specific, and stated that the UK Government was still in the process of formulating its strategy for North and West Africa.[156] Many of the responses we received in oral evidence from the FCO indicate that this process is still ongoing.[157] It is right that the Government should take time to formulate its policies carefully, although this has meant that at the conclusion of the inquiry, we have been left with no clear sense of how the UK Government proposes to prioritise and organise its future work in relation to vulnerable countries in North and West Africa, nor whom its main partners are likely to be. This chapter sets out some proposals of our own. The starting point is to consider what resources the UK can currently call on in the region.

The UK's diplomatic resources: rhetoric versus reality

84. The Prime Minister appears to have committed the UK to a more ambitious programme of bilateral engagement in North and West Africa, in addition to increased partnership working. In his January 2013 statement to the House,[158] he committed the UK to "work right across the region" to help address "weak political institutions, political instability and a failure to address long-standing political grievances" and pledged that the UK would help put in place "the building blocks of democracy—the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, the rights of minorities, free media and association, and a proper place in society for the army." In its submission to this inquiry, the FCO set out a similar vision, referring to a new approach to North and West Africa, based around three pillars of security, development and politics.[159]

THE UK'S CURRENT DIPLOMATIC FOOTPRINT

85. These ambitions should be set against the UK's diplomatic footprint in the Western Sahel, which is very light. The Africa Minister, Mr Simmonds, told us that the UK has some 1000 staff based in the region relevant to this report.[160] We suggest that this statistic gives a somewhat misleading impression of the depth of the UK's current engagement: in the first place because it includes staff of all UK government departments and agencies and secondly because we understand the reference to include all the countries in West and North Africa, including countries such as Egypt and Ghana, where the UK has relatively large embassies. In relation to the countries of the Western Sahel, we consider it important to spell out just out low our current diplomatic representation is: the UK has one small embassy in Bamako, Mali, employing fewer than five UK-based staff, and no embassies in Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso or Mauritania. As we understand it, the total number of UK-based staff (of any department) currently working in all of these countries is well under ten.[161] We should add that when we visited Bamako in June 2013, we noted that embassy staff were very restricted, for security reasons, in the journeys they could take around the country, and we presume that similar considerations would apply if staff were to seek to travel around other Western Sahel countries.

86. The situation in Nigeria is distinguishable, as is only to be expected of a Commonwealth member state with the world's seventh-largest population. As of 2013, the FCO had 32 UK-based staff in the country, alongside staff of other UK departments.[162] However, set against Nigeria's many social, governance and security problems, and its strong links to the UK (which, we were informed, bring challenges as well as opportunities), this hardly amounts to a massive figure. We were left with the strong impression from our visit that Nigeria is a resource-hungry country for FCO staff, and that working there is sufficiently challenging to leave little additional time for scanning the regional horizon.

87. In the Maghrebi states of Morocco, Algeria and Libya, the UK's diplomatic profile is a little higher than in West Africa, although none of the three embassies is large and all three, we understand, are dwarfed by those of France and the US.[163]

88. There are no Arabic speaker slots[164] for FCO officials for the countries covered by this report, other than in Libya, where there are two. The total number of French speaker slots is in the low teens, almost all of them in Morocco and Algeria. There are no speaker slots for any of the indigenous languages of West Africa, some of which, such as Hausa, are spoken by millions of people across a number of countries.[165]

89. Finally, the UK has no permanent military presence in the region covered by this report, whilst Nigeria is now the only country in the region with which the UK has a bilateral aid relationship.[166]

THE FCO'S ANALYSIS OF RECENT EVENTS

90. The Prime Minister's comments should also be considered in the light of FCO responses to recent events. In its National Security Strategy, published in October 2010, the Government made no express mention of the Sahel as an area of concern. A little more than 18 months later, the Malian government had collapsed and Al Qaeda-aligned terrorists were ruling over an area the size of France. Under the heading "Lessons learned and risks", the FCO's written submission stated that:

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91. We asked the FCO what had gone wrong. The Minister of State, Hugh Robertson MP, remarked on the problem of "trying to get real oversight of exactly what is happening" with what he referred to as "the new breed of terrorism". He also said that it was a difficult challenge to know at which point a known terrorist challenge is about to "become critical".[168] Tim Morris, Head of the Sahel Taskforce, told us that:

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92. We take these comments as an indication that, before January 2013, the events in Mali had been of primarily local rather than international significance. If so, we are surprised by these comments. The installation of a jihadist rump state in around June 2012 was a grave matter, as is reflected in the UN Security Council discussions and votes on the matter later in the year, whilst questions about the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in Mali were being asked in the House within a few weeks of the 2012 coup, and continued through the year.[171]

93. Mr Morris also remarked that it was widely known before the coup that terrorists were implanted in Mali, but that:

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94. It is unarguable that countries far better placed than the UK to read the situation in Mali failed to anticipate Mali's collapse into crisis, although we are perplexed by the statement that the UK was not "there" at the time: the Bamako embassy, which had been closed in 2003, was re-opened in 2010, sometime before the coup occurred.

95. Events in Libya also raise questions as to the strength of the FCO's analysis. We outlined in Chapter 3 the effect that the collapse of the Gaddafi regime has had for regional insecurity. One very senior figure in the Algerian government told us that the fall of the regime had made regional security "fifty times worse" than before. He said that the Algerian government had been no friend of Gaddafi but had warned its Western allies, including the UK, about the likely consequences of his removal. Written evidence from the Alliance for Mali, a coalition of mainly charitable bodies with an interest in the country, stated that the implications of intervention in Libya were "widely known" in Mali and "should not have come as a surprise and should have been addressed by a responsible and coherent UK policy for the region".[173] However, the three main consequences that we listed in chapter 3 did not form a significant part of the public debate around the merits of intervention at the time when a NATO operation in Libya was being considered, and it would appear from evidence gathered during this inquiry that they did not form a significant part of internal governmental discussions either.[174]

96. We acknowledge that regime change, although foreseeable, was not a formal objective of the NATO intervention, of which the UK Government was a leading proponent. The primary purpose of the operation was to protect rebels and civilians in the east of Libya. Mr Robertson told us that whilst there were lessons to be learned from the decision to intervene in Libya, the dangers of intervention had to be considered and balanced against the consequences of non-intervention, including the humanitarian consequences.[175]

UK GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES IN RESPONSE TO RECENT EVENTS

97. From informal discussions with UK Government officials over the course of the inquiry, we sensed a willingness to acknowledge that events in Mali, Libya and Algeria may have exposed something of a blind spot in departmental thinking. Within the FCO there is a department for Africa (in fact sub-Saharan Africa) and another for the Near East and North Africa, including Algeria, Libya and Morocco, with a different Minister answering for each. However the common factor in relation to recent events in Mali, Libya and Algeria is that they involved the convergence of protagonists from across both North and West Africa. It appears that this may have wrong-footed the FCO. We note that the FCO's written evidence acknowledges that it is engaged in efforts to understand the Western Sahel-Sahara region better, referring amongst other things to "largely ignored or forgotten" ancient links between North and West Africa and adding that the FCO's "understanding of the regional dynamics is evolving".[176] We also note the Prime Minister's appointment in September 2012 of a Sahel Special Envoy, the Rt Hon Stephen O'Brien MP, whose main role is described as being to address the current situation in Mali, and the creation within the FCO of a "Sahel Taskforce", headed by a former Ambassador to Morocco and Mauritania. Both are empowered to work across departmental boundaries within the FCO and within Whitehall.

ADDRESSING LONG-STANDING POLITICAL GRIEVANCES

98. The preceding discussion underlines that the Prime Minister's commitment to help address internal or regional political disputes may be particularly challenging within the FCO's current limited resources. The premise—that long-standing grievances fuel anger and can be hijacked by extremists—is not disputed. However, our experience during this inquiry suggests that any such work is likely to be resource intensive. Three such issues that we encountered during this inquiry are the status of the Tuareg minority in northern Mali, the dispute over the Western Sahara, and the cultural and economic divide between northern and southern Nigeria. All three issues are formidably complex, and tend to be debated by reference to disputed interpretations of historic events. Local feelings run high. We would not suggest that the UK should simply avoid any such engagement, but it should only be contemplated if the FCO is satisfied that the human resources and depth of knowledge are there.

99. Recent events underline the difficulty of monitoring events in the Western Sahel-Sahara region, anticipating crises, and responding to them as they unfold, particularly when diplomatic resources are limited. They also underline that, whilst the Sahara may be a departmental barrier within the FCO, it is not one for terrorists. The UK Government should reflect on weaknesses in analysis that the events appear to have exposed, and how these might be rectified at departmental level. This applies particularly in relation to intervention in Libya in 2011: considerable resources were expended ensuring that military goals were successfully achieved (for which the Government deserves credit), but there was a failure to anticipate, and therefore mitigate, the regional fallout from the intervention, which has been enormous and, in some cases, disastrous.

100. Looking to the future, the UK's very limited diplomatic resources in and around the Western Sahel will make it difficult for the Government to achieve its ambitions to be more intensively involved in the region and to help shape events as they unfold. The Government should consider increasing its resources in the region and its reserves of specialist knowledge. If not, it should scale back its ambitions—and its rhetoric.

THE UK'S DIPLOMATIC FOOTPRINT IN FRANCOPHONE COUNTRIES

101. The current UK Government's "network shift" in diplomatic postings has led to the opening of a small embassy in C¼te D'Ivoire, following the re-opening of the Mali embassy in 2010.[177] In his 21 January 2013 statement, the Prime Minister said that he was not opposed to further redeployment in West Africa but that he did not want the UK and France to "double up in the same places".[178] However, over the course of the inquiry, a number of our interlocutors, from parliaments or governments of the North and West African Francophonie, told us that they would welcome a far stronger bilateral relationship with the UK, citing factors such as the UK's Parliamentary tradition, its reputation for military discipline and training, its independent judiciary, and its history of free trade as reasons for closer ties, and stating that former colonial links were no longer a fit basis on which to arrange modern diplomatic networks.

102. Witnesses have mentioned an additional element behind this interest: that the UK is not France.[179] It does not carry the same colonial (and post-colonial) baggage as France and tends not to be perceived as being on one side or another in relation to some regional or internal rivalries or disputes. It has been suggested that this might make it easier for the UK to offer intelligence or security co-operation on terms which are consistent with the UK's values or to speak as a candid friend or mediator (in a formal or informal sense) on sensitive matters—perhaps including the "long-standing political grievances" mentioned by the Prime Minister.[180] We discuss below a possible UK role in relation to Algeria, Morocco and the Western Sahara.

103. We suggest that the UK Government contemplate an enhancement of its diplomatic profile in Francophone parts of the Western Sahel-Sahara region. This would be consistent with the Government's commitment towards greater engagement with the region. It would appear that a raised UK profile in the region would be welcomed and it seems probable that the UK may be able to offer advice and assistance in a way that some other countries could not. Far from raising the risk of the UK and France wastefully "doubling up" diplomatic resources, we suggest that it will increase opportunities for the two countries to work together fruitfully on security, development and political co-operation in the region, as they have been doing in Mali.

Key partnerships for the UK

104. The preceding discussion underlines the importance of the UK seeking to achieve change, as much as possible, through working in partnership. The FCO's written submission indicated that it recognised the need for new forms of partnership working, referring to the department pursuing "a new way of thinking about North and West Africa within the UK Government that adds to and transcends the standard bilateral approach".[181] We sought to ascertain what this meant in practice when we took evidence from the FCO. The FCO's Sahel Coordinator, Tim Morris, told us that it meant that "everything we will be trying to do in this region will be done with partners and it will be done through multilateral organisations." Mr Morris went on to list as likely future partners under this approach the different countries of the region, regional economic communities such as ECOWAS and the Arab Maghreb Union, the UN, the World Bank, France, the US, Canada, and other European countries.[182] We have no quarrel with either the proposal or the list of countries and bodies provided, but we are not clear whether and to what extent this amounts to a new way of working.

THE NEED FOR BETTER CO-ORDINATION ON SECURITY AND DEVELOPMENT

105. The signs are that it will be some time before African nations will be able to deal with and contain major security crises on their own, as discussed further below. This means that Western nations will probably have to remain closely engaged in the security of sub-Saharan Africa for the foreseeable future. It is clear that there is already significant activity going on, most of it, such as military training being provided by the US and UK, of a far lower profile than the interventions in Mali and the Central African Republic, and therefore less well-known. However, at the conclusion of evidence-taking, we are left concerned that activities are not yet being effectively co-ordinated.[183] This was a point made forcefully by US military and intelligence officers on our visit to the US African Military Command in Stuttgart. This concern applies not only to security co-operation, but also to joint work on development projects, as well as to achieving complementarity between development and security projects, which we consider to be of critical importance. The Africa Minister, Mark Simmonds MP, told us that he agreed that there was sometimes a need for greater co-ordination and co-operation but asked us to be mindful that international partners working in sub-Saharan Africa were working in "very complex, multifaceted environments."[184] We fully accept this point and intend no criticism of governments and bodies seeking to provide assistance under difficult circumstances. Part of the problem may be that there is such a proliferation of governments, agencies and NGOs potentially involved as to have made effective co-ordination almost impossible, and to have left no clear sense of which countries or bodies have overall leadership.

A TRIPARTITE LEADERSHIP MODEL

106. Our proposal would be for international agreement on a common security and stability policy for the Western Sahel, as a matter of urgency. We understand that proposals are already being worked on at UN level.[185] Once the policy is agreed, lead responsibility for securing its implementation could rest with a tripartite leadership of France, the UK and the US. We would also envisage a strong supporting role for the European External Action Service, in recognition that demographic and social pressures in parts of North and West Africa are increasingly manifesting themselves in Europe, particularly on its southern doorstep.

FRANCE

107. It is France that has thus far taken the security lead in the region, and it is of course inconceivable that France would not continue to have a key role in Africa, but we have become aware during the inquiry of French concerns that they are becoming increasingly stretched and require more help.[186] For complex historical reasons that were discussed during our inquiry, there are also countries in Africa where significant French involvement or intervention might be domestically problematic, further underlining the benefits of a partnership approach.

THE US

108. UK-French co-operation was the model in the NATO intervention in Libya and also in Mali, albeit with the UK playing a far more limited role. In relation to the Libyan operation, a number of other countries assisted, including the US. It was following the Libyan intervention that the phrase "leading from behind" entered into common currency in foreign policy circles as a shorthand to describe the Obama administration's perceived approach to intervention.[187] The phrase is ambiguous: it could describe a foreign policy approach that is either somewhat disengaged or is engaged but discreet. The Libyan experience itself would indicate that the latter is more accurate, as the US's eventual military contribution to the NATO operation was in fact far from negligible.

109. The Africa Minister, Mark Simmonds MP, told us that the concept of US disengagement from Africa was in fact the reverse of the truth, particularly in the Sahel region,[188] and we found this confirmed on our visit to the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) in Stuttgart. Our visit also confirmed that the US's military, security and intelligence assets in Africa remain enormous and unmatched, and have, if anything, expanded, thanks to advances in remote technology: a new base for unarmed Reaper drones opened in Niger in early 2013, complementing drone bases established in recent years in Ethiopia and Djibouti. The US has also been heavily involved in promoting and co-ordinating counter-terrorism in the region.[189] Accordingly, it is imperative that the US play a leading role in any joint work to address security concerns in and around the Western Sahel. We are mindful of evidence from a witness that the presence and use of US military assets in parts of Africa is potentially a "gift" to al Qaeda propagandists.[190] If there is validity in this observation—and we accept that there may very well be—it could be mitigated through a continuation of the policy of discreet engagement that the US applied in Libya.

110. There is a need for a step-change in the co-ordination of international efforts to combat insecurity, and the drivers of insecurity, in and around the Western Sahel. We propose that the UK Government press its international partners for agreement to a common security and stability policy for the Western Sahel. Lead responsibility for securing implementation of the policy should rest with a tripartite leadership of France, the UK and the US, supported by others, including the European External Action Service.

111. We envisage each member of the tripartite group taking lead responsibility for a particular issue and co-ordinating a programme of action—political, judicial or security—in co-operation with local partners, including the relevant regional economic community, relevant multilateral bodies, and any other states or bodies able to offer help. This should include China. We would urge continuing diplomatic efforts by the UK and others to persuade China that investment to help sub-Saharan Africa become more secure, more stable and more effectively governed is in its long-term economic interests. Ministers told us of encouraging signs that the Chinese Government was coming to recognise its wider responsibilities towards the region.[191]

112. The approach we propose could be taken in relation to many of the issues identified in chapter 2 of this report; issues having a regional impact and which require a cross-cutting, multilateral approach. These could include the monitoring and intercepting of attempted cocaine landings on the West African littoral (with particular attention paid to Guinea-Bissau); schemes to strengthen border controls across North and West Africa and monitor the movements of criminal or terrorist groups across borders;[192] or projects to trace back to their source what one of our witnesses referred to as the "spider's web of terrorist funding networks" emanating from "very wealthy individuals and organisations in the Gulf,"[193] in order to try to cut them off. On some issues, the UN or other bodies have already undertaken valuable analysis;[194] what appears to be needed is a push to implement the recommendations that were made.

THE WEST'S EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS IN THE REGION

113. Earlier, we commented on some apparent shortcomings in the FCO's analysis of recent events in North and West Africa and capacity to anticipate crises, focussing on events in Mali and Libya. It is only fair to add that other countries, including, in some cases, those who ought to have been better placed than the UK to make prescient predictions, appear also to have been caught out. Events in the Central African Republic (CAR) raise further concerns about the early warning systems not only of the UK but of most or all of its international partners in and around the Sahelian region. The violent overthrow of a government in a country such as the CAR cannot be considered a shock, but the events that then unfolded appear, as in Mali, to have taken the international community by surprise. The UK Government (which has no embassy in the CAR) is among countries which appear to have been slow to acknowledge what was already being reported in English-language media as early as August 2013:[195] that the post-coup violence in the CAR had a strong sectarian element, and that a large proportion of the Séléka militias targeting non-Muslims were from outside of the country.[196] It could be argued that had more been known earlier, and a quicker assessment made of events on the ground, action could have been taken earlier to try to prevent the crisis escalating to its present deeply worrying level, with revenge attacks now being carried out against local Muslims and UN officials warning of the crisis spiralling into outright civil war.[197]

114. Given the complexity of the region, there is always the possibility of the unexpected taking the West by surprise, but the degree to which it has been caught out by recent events is worrying. We suggest that it should be the first priority of any common security and stability policy along the lines proposed to audit recent intelligence lapses and work to develop more effective and comprehensive early warning systems.

115. There is an emerging pattern of evidence of the UK and its main partners being unsighted by events in and around the Sahel region. The international community's successive failure, in Mali and in the Central African Republic, to anticipate events and to respond to them speedily as they unfolded, is worrying. We accept that the UK was not the only country to be unsighted by events and acknowledge that its diplomatic resources in both countries are light. We recommend that the UK Government seek to raise at international level the need for more effective early warning systems in and around the Western Sahel region.

SECURITY CO-OPERATION WITH THE AFRICAN UNION

116. Recent events in Mali and the Central African Republic have both exposed weaknesses in Africa's capacity to find a regional solution to security crises.[198] The relevant facts in relation to Mali were recited earlier. In the case of the CAR, a force already in the country at the time of the coup (composed of troops from ECCAS, the regional economic community for Central Africa) appears to have had little mitigating effect as the crisis escalated. Indeed, we note media reports that the presence of troops from Chad, whom many in the CAR do not perceive as a neutral bystander to the current crisis, has at times provoked violence rather than reducing it.[199] In July 2013, the AU agreed to send a force into the country, but it took almost five months to deploy, by which time UN observers were warning of genocide.[200] Having initially stated that it would not deploy troops other than to protect French citizens and the main airport, France has now deployed 2000 troops in the country. In January, the EU Council agreed to deploy a small multinational force[201] in the CAR, and in February formally established the mission but, as we publish this report, no troops have yet been deployed.

117. For several years, the AU has been considering proposals for a standby force for rapid deployment in the event of a crisis, without final agreement being reached. In Algeria, Prime Minister Sellal told us that that there was a renewed political impetus for a standby force, with Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia and Algeria all behind implementation. In Nigeria, we heard from ECOWAS's military command that current proposals are to have the plan enshrined by 2015, although we are mindful that previous proposed deadlines have come and gone.[202] In the meantime, ECOWAS is pursuing an interim arrangement: the creation of a two standing brigades: an eastern brigade, to respond to security crises in the western part of the Community, and a western brigade, to respond to crises in the east.

118. The Minister for Africa, Mr Simmonds told us that he had discussed the proposals for a standby brigade with the AU Commissioners but that they were not yet ready to come to countries such as the UK to talk about how they might help build capacity.[203]

119. Renewed proposals within the African Union for a standby military force are welcome, and we would support the UK and its international partners seeking to assist in building capacity. It is reasonable to assume that it will be some time before there are wholly African solutions to African problems of equivalent scale to those in Mali and the Central African Republic. This places an onus on the UK and its international partners to ensure that contingency plans are in place to deal with future crises.

UK PARTNERSHIPS IN WEST AFRICA

120. We discussed the importance of the bilateral relationship with Nigeria earlier, in the context of assistance to the Nigerian military. The presence of large Nigerian expatriate community in the UK, and of a number of UK passport holders in Nigeria further underlines the importance of the UK and Nigeria maintaining effective relations for counter-terrorism and monitoring purposes. The relationship with ECOWAS—West Africa's regional body for economic and security co-operation—will also continue to be important. Although ECOWAS did not deliver a military solution to the Mali crisis, it was able to negotiate the resignation of the coup leaders, and the appointment of an interim government. Most of our witnesses saw the ECOWAS Secretariat as a reasonably effective organisation struggling with enormous challenges, including the limited resources of most of its member states.[204] ECOWAS remains the best available vehicle for delivering regional co-operation on issues such as border control and tackling organised crime.

ALGERIA AND MOROCCO

121. With their stable forms of government, relative prosperity by comparison to their southern neighbours, and strong internal security and intelligence services, Algeria and Morocco were identified by our witnesses as key partners for the UK and other Western countries in addressing the security challenges of the Western Sahel.[205] Algeria's geographical position gives it additional strategic importance: its vast desert hinterland stretches into the Sahel and borders seven other countries or territories.

122. In both cases, there are challenges to the development of stronger relationships. In the case of Algeria, these include the country's strong and secretive security services, seen by witnesses as operating almost as like a parallel government, and its factional and complex politics, still partly dominated by elderly veterans of the early post-independence period. Algeria's record over human rights is perceived to have improved in recent years,[206] but serious concerns remain over the security services' adherence to international human rights standards,[207] raising questions over the extent to which it is appropriate for the UK and Algeria to share intelligence.[208] Algeria also maintains a policy of strict military non-intervention. Clearly this severely circumscribes its capacities as a regional peacekeeper. We also heard of concerns that, at times, Algeria's dogmatic adherence to the doctrine of non-intervention has led it to dump security problems on its doorstep rather than to try to find more comprehensive solutions in partnership with its neighbours.

123. We take it to be very significant, however, that Algeria did not oppose France's intervention in Mali, as it would almost certainly have done in the past, and we noted other signs of increased openness on our visit to Algiers. We take it as an encouraging sign, for instance, that the Algerian government has allowed the UK Government to run its Arab Partnership Programme[209] in the country, including projects to enhance Algeria's governance and party systems. A more pluralist political culture has been emerging in recent years, along with a younger generation of political leaders[210] (although we do note that, shortly before we published this report, it was announced that the long-serving President, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, would be running for a fourth term in elections in April, despite concerns over his health). We found our government interlocutors in Algiers to be frank and straightforward in their answers to our questions, and pragmatic in their analysis.[211]

124. Morocco presented itself during our inquiry as a country fully aware of the extremist threats in its neighbourhood, and with realistic proposals to address them; better security co-operation, economic intervention to address the drivers of extremism, and openness to dialogue. We note that Morocco has involved itself in efforts to rebuild Mali after the crisis, and has promoted dialogue between the government and Tuareg nationalists. Although we are aware of continuing concerns in relation to human rights violations,[212] Morocco appears to have genuinely embarked on a path towards greater democratic openness, with the agreement of a new constitution in 2011, and significant political reforms to remove some of the power of the monarchy.[213] Relations between the UK and Morocco are warm and mutually respectful. The issue of the Western Sahara has, however, complicated Morocco's relationship with its neighbours and led to its withdrawal from the African Union. Relations between Algeria and Morocco are particularly poor, and this in turn has meant that the Arab Maghreb Union, the body for regional economic and—potentially—security co-operation in north-west Africa, has never functioned effectively.[214] Morocco has sought an alternative outlet for regional co-operation through CEN-SAD,[215] a bloc of nations straddling the Saharan divide, but its effectiveness is, in turn, undermined by Algeria's non-membership of that body.

125. The issue of the Western Sahara itself was seen by some of our witnesses, and some of the people we met on our visits, as increasingly worrying from a security perspective.[216] Concerns were expressed that the vast and bleak security camps where tens of thousands of Saharawi refugees have now been living for decades were at risk of becoming centres of radicalisation, as youths lost hope in the Polisario Front, the official, and non-Islamist, resistance movement. We note that the UN Secretary General gave voice to similar concerns last year.[217]

126. Algeria and Morocco are both key to delivering increased stability in the Western Sahel-Sahara region, and effective bilateral relations with both countries are essential. Partnership with Algeria does present some challenges, particularly in relation to Algeria's security and intelligence services, but we believe that a constructive and effective relationship can be maintained if the UK is realistic in its aims and maintains its red lines on issues of particular importance such as respect for human rights. We note encouraging signs that Algeria is willing to engage with the UK on a more open basis than it perhaps did in the past.

127. Conflict over the Western Sahara issue has had a toxic effect on regional co-operation in North-West Africa, including on security issues. The intensification of the terrorist threat in the region, combined with the gradual generational shift in political leadership, may present an opening for new approaches to resolving the conflict to be tested. We would encourage the UK Government to explore options for helping to bring the different sides together.

Development aid, foreign policy and fragile states

128. The Coalition Government has sought to achieve greater integration between the UK's development policies and its foreign, security and defence policies. The key document is the Government's 2011 strategy, Building Stability Overseas. The paper set out a commitment to increase development spending on fragile and conflict-affected states, which would receive 30% of all UK development assistance. The paper also proposed a refocusing of aid on, amongst other things, "development work which helps to build or re-build critical institutions, support security and justice and generate jobs and public confidence" and on "upstream prevention" of conflict through development work. The strategy states that "work to prevent conflict is more likely to succeed when it marshals diplomatic efforts with development programmes and defence engagement around a shared integrated strategy.[218]

129. We agree with both the aims of the UK Government's Building Stability Overseas strategy to integrate foreign, security and development policies, and the premises that inform it. This inquiry has provided an opportunity to consider how well the approach it sets out is working from a foreign policy perspective, treating countries of the Western Sahel-Sahara region as a case study.

DEVELOPMENT AID AND GOOD GOVERNANCE

130. In chapter 2, we listed some of the challenges present in the Western Sahel-Sahara region that may foster instability. In our closing evidence session, we asked the Minister for Africa, Mark Simmonds MP, which, of all the challenges facing the Western Sahel, he would wish the international community to prioritise, in order to achieve greater security and stability. Mr Simmonds referred to:

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131. Our evidence-gathering has confirmed that this should be a key priority, though it will be an enormously challenging one. In Nigeria, we were struck by the frank way in which so many of our interlocutors, from all walks of life, including politics, talked about how governing elites had, over the years, failed ordinary Nigerians. They talked about how a culture of low expectations and casual corruption had become almost endemic in much of the public sector, inhibiting the development of effective public services, responsive to the needs of ordinary people, and fostering a general sense of disillusionment or cynicism.

132. We met DFID officials and some of their local partners when we visited Nigeria. DFID's development aid budget for Nigeria is currently its fourth largest, at over £200 million in 2012-13 and is set to grow markedly in coming years,[220] with over £860 million committed, as of 2012, to 27 separate projects.[221] It was clear from our discussions that DFID is, as much as possible, seeking to focus its investment on grassroots projects to improve governance and effectiveness in areas such as policing, legislative scrutiny, and public services.[222] We were left with a strong sense that this was not easy work, especially given Nigeria's security challenges (by definition, many of the areas most in need of assistance are not safe to work in) and the problem of public corruption. One of our witnesses confirmed that corruption was a serious problem for the development industry in Nigeria and queried, on the basis of personal experience, whether DFID's scrutiny of spending in the country once it had allocated funds for projects was sufficiently robust.[223] We also sensed in Nigeria a realistic awareness that measurable positive results were only likely to come in the long term. DFID's own public assessment of progress in Nigeria (measured by progress towards the Millennium Development Goals) is downbeat compared to most of the UK's other bilateral partners[224] and we also note written evidence arguing that UK aid provided to the Nigerian public services (specifically training for the Nigerian police) has had little long-term impact in achieving cultural change, largely because insufficient account had been taken of local realities.[225]

133. We invite the Government to comment on whether its bilateral aid programme for Nigeria is making satisfactory progress against goals set out in the Building Security Overseas strategy and, if so, how this progress has been measured. We also suggest that the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, in its work evaluating DFID's approach to anti-corruption, treat DFID's work in Nigeria as a case study. The role of the ICAI, set up in 2011 by the UK Government, is to provide greater independent scrutiny of UK aid spending, thereby maximising its value for money and impact. DFID's approach to anti-corruption is one of several workstreams in the ICAI's current Year 4 Workplan.[226]

134. We draw these remarks to the attention of the International Development Committee.

DEVELOPMENT AID AND SECURITY

135. Development assistance provided by states must meet criteria set by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The central element of the definition is that state funding counts as development assistance if the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries is the main objective. The OECD is currently consulting on revising the definition. We also understand that, within the EU, debate is currently ongoing at Ministerial level on the extent to which monies within the European Development Fund can be used to build security in fragile African states (for instance non-lethal equipment for use by African armies).[227]

136. We note that the International Development Committee has been taking evidence on the opportunity for adjustment of the OECD criteria[228] and recently reported, calling for DFID to engage with the OECD to modernise and clarify the criteria, and for there to be a wider debate about the issue in the UK led by DFID.[229] In this connection, we consider it important to note that the link between development aid and security was raised during our visits in Africa, particularly in the context of border security. Experts from CAERT[230], an Algiers-based advisory body on security and counter-terrorism to the African Union and from the ECOWAS military command in Abuja both identified weak border security as one of West Africa's more potentially solvable security problems, provided some outside help was provided. The experts told us that, in countries such as Mauritania, Mali and Niger, there was a keenness to try to improve border security, but there was a lack of local expertise, and of the up-to-date digital technology that was needed to enable real-time tracking of goods and people. They proposed that the UK and other EU countries consider providing training and non-lethal equipment as part of a European aid package.

137. We put this suggestion to Government witnesses. Lynne Featherstone MP, Minister at DFID, told us that if the training were deemed to be military training this would be "difficult" as the UK is constrained by the OECD's "very rigid rules".[231] Evidence from the FCO indicated that there was room for manoeuvre, as "the OECD criteria are not a barrier to ODA [official development assistance] spend on border management projects."[232]

138. We note that the opportunity is currently open to debate the purpose and definition of overseas development assistance, and that the UK Government will be a contributor. We would invite the UK Government to consider whether the current definition has the effect of restricting or preventing the development of aid programmes based around delivering increased security. We also invite the Government to respond to evidence we received during the inquiry that countries of the Western Sahel would welcome non-military development assistance to help strengthen their borders against terrorism and trans-national organised crime. We draw these views to the attention of the International Development Committee.

TRAINING UP AFRICAN FORCES

139. In an interview with the Times on 4 November 2013, the new Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Nicholas Houghton, indicated that withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 may open up new opportunities for the military to train indigenous forces in vulnerable parts of Africa, following the precedent of current missions in Kenya, Somalia and Mali. Mr Robertson, Minister of State at the FCO, told us that Sir Nicholas was "not flying a kite" and that his comments reflected policy under development at the MoD.[233]

140. Although there is no suggestion of any such training being provided within a development aid package (at least according to current definitions), it is relevant to discuss the issue in this section of the report, as we perceive there to be a natural complementarity between the provision of military assistance and that of development assistance intended to improve governance in other public services. It may be that the UK Government could offer military assistance on condition that it is accompanied by DFID-supported projects to improve or reform particular aspects of public sector governance.

141. We understand that the UK military currently runs, or helps run, training missions with the Malian, Kenyan, Libyan and Afghan armies. Based on the precedent of Mali and Kenya, UK military training missions in Africa may not require a large army complement. The maximum number of UK soldiers in the EU training mission (EUTM) in Mali has been around 40.[234] We note that there are 56 permanent staff engaged in the training mission in Kenya.[235]

142. The EUTM has, since March 2013, been working with the Malian army to improve its effectiveness and resilience, as well as provide a grounding in ethics and human rights. Its mandate lasts for 15 months. The plan is for the Mission to train four battalions of 700 Malian soldiers. The UK has provided the fourth-largest contingent, leading on infantry training. We spoke to trainers when we visited Bamako in June. We received a mainly positive message about the mission's work, but were told of serious doubts as to whether the length of the mandate would be long enough to effect the transformation in standards that the Malian army was considered to need.

143. The FCO told us that the subject of extending the EUTM mandate was still being discussed within Government: there was agreement with the principle that the Malian army would continue to need training after the end of the current mandate, but Ministers were insistent on the need for "an exit strategy".[236] Although no formal announcement has yet been made, we understand that the Council of Ministers is close to agreeing an extension to the EUTM of up to two years.

144. Whilst the EUTM represents a new model of military training, this is not the first time that foreign soldiers have trained the Malian army: France and the US both provided training to selected officers in the years leading up to the 2012 coup. The performance of the Malian army before and during the crisis suggests that this did not have a significant positive effect.[237] One person to receive such training was the junior officer who led the coup (Captain, now General, Amadou Haya Sanogo), who went on to exert a disruptive and unpredictable influence over Malian politics for much of 2012 and 2013.

145. We are supportive of signals from the UK Government that it is considering an extension of its programme of offering military training to vulnerable countries. We see this as a practical way for the UK to help bolster security and stability in fragile states. We also see it as naturally complementary to programmes to develop improved governance delivered through development aid packages. We are mindful that, in undertaking any such work, it is necessary to be realistic, as success in transmitting values and standards is not assured. We would welcome an update on UK Government policy on the future of the EU Training Mission in Mali.

MONITORING OF DEVELOPMENT AID

146. DFID witnesses assured us that the promotion of good governance was a key aim of UK development aid policy and in Nigeria we heard from DFID officials and from local project leaders about how projects are tailored to improve governance and delivery in the public sector and to improve public scrutiny.

147. In Mali, however, something appears to have gone wrong. Mali's domestic tax base is tiny and it has a small export industry.[238] Accordingly, it is to a very large extent reliant on development aid to cover most of its current spending on basic public services and government salaries. When we visited Mali, we were informed that cracks in President Touré's government were already evident some time before the 2012 coup. Whilst Western countries had tended to laud Mali as a beacon of democratic values in West Africa, turnout in elections rarely exceeded 40% and had sunk to just 36% for the 2007 Presidential elections.[239] We were told of an increasingly corrupt political culture in government, and of a mismatch between development income and development spending that had become increasingly overt even to ordinary Malians, particularly in the deprived north. With hindsight, it therefore appears that Mali's pre-coup reputation with foreign aid experts as a "donor darling";a state favoured by donors in part because of its good reputation for absorbing and distributing aid money, was far from well earned, and that there had been monitoring failures.[240]

148. This troubling evidence raises concerns from the perspective of foreign, as well as development, policy, as it indicates that, instead of building resilience, transparency and efficiency in Mali's democratic institutions and public services, Western development programmes may have been inadvertently undermining the achievement of some of these goals.

149. We noted earlier the UK Government's acknowledgement that something had gone wrong in Mali and that wider lessons needed to be drawn. The FCO's submission stated that Mali had "wasted aid money"[241] whilst the Minister for Africa, Mr Simmonds conceded in oral evidence that "a huge amount of development finance has gone in [to Mali] over the last 10 or 15 years with minimal impact."[242]

150. Following Presidential elections in July 2013, and the opening of talks between the Government and Tuareg rebels, major donors have resumed their development aid programmes in Mali. This includes the EU, which has committed €5 billion in aid to Mali and other Western Sahel countries.[243] The UK has committed £110 million over the next three years.[244] Mali is not one of the UK's 28 bilateral aid partners. Accordingly, the UK contribution will be pooled, and DFID will have no direct oversight over its administration. We note that the International Development Committee has raised concerns about the Government's capacity to monitor multilateral organisations in countries where the Government has no bilateral aid programmes of its own.[245] We understand that DFID currently has one member of staff working in the Francophone Sahel area, who has been seconded to the EU delegation in Mali.[246]

151. The crisis in Mali raises questions about the administration of development aid in fragile countries. There is evidence that development aid appears to have become part of the problem rather than part of the solution in Mali, inhibiting the development of responsive and responsible government and entrenching corruption in its political culture, in a manner inconsistent with the Government's Building Stability Overseas Strategy. We are also concerned to ensure that development aid programmes in Mali and elsewhere are better monitored in future. Mali remains a fragile democracy affected by internal political tensions, as well as the threat of terrorism.

152. We consider that the FCO has a role in relation to monitoring these projects alongside DFID, particularly where (as in Mali) DFID does not have a direct bilateral relationship with the country concerned. We also suggest that the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, in its work evaluating DFID's funding of multilateral aid and the scaling up of aid spending, consider treating Mali as a case study. DFID's funding of multilateral aid and the scaling up of the UK's Government's spending on official development assistance are two workstreams in the ICAI's current Year 4 Work Plan.[247]

153. We draw these comments to the attention of the International Development Committee.

FRAGILITY, INSTABILITY AND DEMOGRAPHY

154. As we outlined in chapter 2, the demographic pressures in the Western Sahel are considerable. High fertility levels have a huge impact on a country's economic performance. Apart from a few oil-rich states, no country has got itself out of poverty without first stabilising its population growth.[248] DFID has made extending the availability of family planning in the developing world one of its key policies, committing itself to a target of making contraceptive choice available to 24 million more women and girls in the developing world.[249] DFID also co-hosted the London Summit on Family Planning in 2012, which, the summit organisers claimed, would result in family planning being available to 120 million women and girls in the developing world.[250] DFID presents its family planning policy as a straightforward matter of extending choice to women and girls in the developing world and does not expressly link it to objectives set out in the Building Stability Overseas strategy, discussed above. However, a number of commentators and experts have made an express link between extremism and instability and rapid population growth, stating there is clear evidence of a strong correlation. In 2004, the 9/11 Commission, tasked by the US Government with, amongst other things, determining the drivers behind the 9/11 attacks, commented that:

251

155. Many would argue that little has changed. One of our witnesses, Professor Paul Rogers, attributed much of the recent radicalisation in the Arab World to a "demographic bulge" of over-educated and under-employed young men.[252] It is concerning to note that, whilst this bulge is starting to decrease in size across North Africa, as families grow smaller, there is little sign of any deceleration in the Western Sahel.[253] However, a number of interlocutors on our African visits disputed the premise that current rates of population growth give rise to any significant concerns, in any field. Other witnesses have said that such are the sensitivities around this issue that, if population growth is a problem, then it is primarily for Africans to solve it.[254] In this connection, we note that, in some parts of the Western Sahel, perceived Western "interference" in the health of the female population has cost some people their lives at the hands of Islamist extremists.[255]

156. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at DFID, Lynne Featherstone, told us that she was not aware of evidence of any direct correlation between population growth and instability but commented that "I can see that if you have a lot of people with no food and no education, you are likely to get instability."[256] We asked the FCO whether they were prepared to be more forthright. Tim Morris of the FCO's Sahel Task Force told us that the FCO did not have a programme for dealing with demographic change, but acknowledged that the FCO did recognise it as a concern:

257

157. We agree that population growth is likely to be a source of instability in the Western Sahel. Indeed, we would argue that that point has already been reached. As discussed earlier, evidence-gathering on this inquiry has confirmed to us environmental factors can create the conditions for instability and extremism to thrive, and for elements within societies to become radicalised. It is only common sense to suggest that very high population growth in countries already dealing with poverty, low economic activity, ethnic or religious tensions, and increased pressure on natural resources, is likely to make a bad situation worse.

158. There is clear evidence that high population growth in the developing world is often linked to political instability and to the spread of radical or extremist views. We suggest that recent events in the Western Sahel may provide further evidence of that correlation. While we are concerned that DFID do not acknowledge this link, we commend the UK Government for prioritising increased access to family planning in the developing world and call on it to ensure that the issue remains on the international agenda. We appreciate that future work in this area requires to be handled with sensitivity and with the full co-operation of African partners.

MIGRATION

159. Evidence of increased migration from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe is growing[258] and is seen as directly linked to economic inactivity and poor job prospects, as well as increased awareness of the opportunities available in the developed world.[259] Without major economic reform, population growth, and the accompanying pressure on natural resources, is likely to be a further cause of increasing migration. Some distressing and well-publicised incidents of illegal migration occurred during the course of our inquiry, most notably the death of around 350 African migrants in a shipwreck off the Italian island of Lampedusa. Most of the deceased came from the Horn of Africa, but on our visits during this inquiry we were told of clear and growing evidence of West African illegal immigration into Europe, often at the hands of people traffickers. In October 2013, almost 100 apparently trafficked people, including women and children were found dead in the deserts of northern Niger, most having apparently come from the south of the country,[260] whilst in February 2014, there was an escalation in the number of migrants (mainly from West Africa) seeking to break into Spain's North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Hundreds succeeded but several died in the attempt.[261]

160. We asked FCO witnesses to clarify EU policy on handling migratory pressures from Africa, for instance on whether the policy was to resist migratory pressure or to try to accommodate it. Mr Robertson told us that policy was still being decided and that a summit of the EU's "Mediterranean Task Force" was to take place in December 2013.[262] We have since received from the FCO a communiqué produced by the Task Force following the summit, which the FCO has said it "broadly supports".[263] The main focus of the document appears to be better co-ordination between governments and agencies with an interest, of which there appear to be very many. We do not sense from the document a clear vision of EU policy on handling the growing pressure of migration, other than through improved co-ordination. We understand that much of recent EU policy has focussed on seeking, as much as possible, to "contract out" the protection of its Mediterranean borders to the countries of North Africa, a policy that has become endangered by the instability that has affected that region in the aftermath of the so-called Arab Spring. We are not certain how much the document takes account of those new realities. In particular, we are uncertain how effectively the strategy would work where governments or agencies on the African side lack the capacity or resources to co-operate with their European counterparts.

161. We urge the UK to press for greater clarity from the EU on its policies for handling increased migration to Europe from Sahelian countries, and in particular on whether, when potential immigrants are located on boats in the Mediterranean, they are turned back or ushered to safety.

156 Ev 74 and 76-77 Back

157 Q 204-206 (Rt Hon Hugh Robertson MP); Q 217 (Tim Morris and Rt Hon Hugh Robertson MP); Q 216 (Simon Shercliff); Q 243 (Mark Simmonds MP) Back

158 HC Deb, 21 January 2013, cols 25-27 Back

159 Ev 76 Back

160 Q 244 Back

161 This is based on figures in the FCO Annual Reports and Accounts 2012-13, Annex A, and information supplied over the course of this inquiry. For security reasons, the FCO does not disclose the precise number of UK-based staff in an embassy where they number five or fewer. The FCO told us in its written evidence that, alongside staff of the Mali embassy, there is a UK-based Political Officer in Nouakchott, Mauritania, and a locally-engaged member of staff in Niamey, Niger (Ev 74) Back

162 FCO Annual Reports and Accounts 2012-13, Annex A https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/210136/HC_32_v0_2.pdf Back

163 The FCO's most recent annual report (ibid) shows that there are 11 UK-based staff in Algiers, 11 in Rabat, and 15 in Tripoli. Supplementary evidence from Mark Simmonds MP (Ev 85-86) provided in December 2013 puts the numbers at, respectively, 9, 9 and 14 Back

164 A speaker slot is any diplomatic post in relation to which the ability to communicate effectively in the local language is considered essential. Back

165 Ev 85-66 Back

166 DFID does maintain a bilateral aid relationship with five other countries in the wider vicinity; Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone in West Africa, and Sudan and South Sudan to the east. Back

167 Ev 77 Back