Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
Lord Malloch-Brown and Mr Marcus Manuel
8 NOVEMBER 2007
Chairman: Minister and Mr Manuel, thank
you very much for coming to meet the Committee today. We have
a number of questions on the EU-Africa Strategy. We have been
looking at the various instruments and we know that the strategy
is going to be considered by the next meeting of the GAERC so
we felt it was important that we would be able to have a meeting
today and hopefully clear the document for scrutiny so that you
would be able to go forward to take it to the GAERC when it meets
next week. I am going to ask Lord Crickhowell to ask the first
question.
Q1 Lord Crickhowell: When we met,
Minister, here in July, I asked Jim Murphy precisely the same
question I am going to ask now: "In what ways will the EU-Africa
Strategy be a step forward in relation to the current EU relations
with Africa?" with the add-on question this time of how will
the UK be represented at the EU-Africa Summit in the absence of
representation at ministerial level?
Lord Malloch-Brown: Look, on the first one,
as you know, some of the same difficulties which have come up
in the context of this summit meant that the last time there was
an effort to hold a summit it did not happen—which means
it is a long time since the EU and Africa have sat down in this
kind of summit formula—and, as African leaders are quick
to point out to me, during that time a lot else has happened.
There have been several top level meetings in China of African
leaders; there has been another Japan-TICAD summit with African
leaders, so, in a sense, we have some catching up to do in terms
of discussing our agenda. The African leaders who still have deep
links and affinities and gratitude to us for the current levels
of ODA, are as keen as we are to see the relationship refreshed
and updated. There are two things to which I would draw your attention.
For the first time, in addition to, if you like, the aggregate
of bilateral and internal to Africa issues such as development
and governance, in the preparations in the meeting last week of
the EU troika with their African counterparts there is a discussion
of common approaches to global problems. I, as an old UN man,
know how important it is to try to have more of a European-African
axis at the UN on issues like human rights, where we should be
on the same side of the argument for the most part. In terms of
the rest of the agenda, we have been working extremely hard, and
the priorities for us and for everybody else going to the summit
on both sides are the development of the MDGs; peace and security,
where there are chronic issues still of both insecurity but also
a lack of capacity on the peacemaking and peacekeeping side adequately
to address the continuing conflicts in Africa; growth, which is
becoming a major new attention point not just for all of us but
for African leaders as well; governance; and climate change. So
I think it is a busy summit with a lot of important issues. In
terms of our own representation, the Prime Minister said there
would be no "senior ministerial attendance", so I think
that rules out Cabinet Ministers from attending but he has not
yet decided what the level of attendance will be or who it will
be.
Q2 Lord Crickhowell: You referred
quite early in your remarks to the British aid contribution. In
the inevitably rather hurried ending of your speech in the House
yesterday, when you were pressed presumably for time, you again
laid emphasis on the British aid contribution. Earlier you had
spoken about our participation in the European partnership adding
muscle, enabling us to put a big enough chip on the table. Could
you elaborate, because you did not have the chance to do that,
in the context of Africa? We have already heard about the difficulties
in representation and clearly there are going to be great difficulties
in dealing with the issues of human rights and governance in that
particular conference. In what way is muscle being added to our
efforts by the European attack, so to speak?
Lord Malloch-Brown: Just for a moment to pursue
a bit further the example I took earlier of human rights: you
have 48 African states and 27 European states in a UN membership
of 192, where an awful lot of things fall your way if you have
a majority—I mean, you have to have a consensus, but the
majority is the first step towards prevailing in an argument.
Where there is a common agenda on which the two groups can for
the most part vote with each other, it will be key. Whereas there
are some very, very difficult and well-known human rights and
governance problems in Africa—most notably Zimbabwe but
not exclusively Zimbabwe—the fact is, more broadly, that
Africa takes a pretty benign and constructive view towards human
rights and governance issues compared to, say, Asia in terms of
its positions internationally -it is worth noting that the top-scoring
member of the new Human Rights Council which achieved the single
biggest tally of votes from across the world was Ghana—so
these are important allies on issues we care about. For Europe,
per se, there are certain things which it would be hard
for the UK to raise itself with Africa as a grouping but which
we can as Europe. The volume of development assistance we are
talking of, despite our leadership role in it, is nevertheless
hugely greater if it is EU assistance rather than just UK assistance,
but on issues such as climate change we obviously speak with an
authority which we could never speak with just bilaterally interacting
with Africa. On future issues such as energy, security and migration,
also, it is much easier to address those issues with Africa as
Europe rather than as the UK. I think the agenda that benefits
from a mutual discussion is quite a strong and important one.
Q3 Lord Crickhowell: Do you think
human rights and governance issues are likely to be effectively
raised in this conference, bearing in mind the difficulty of our
position?
Lord Malloch-Brown: Look, we may not be there
at a government level to raise them, but the new French Government,
led by President Sarkozy, with Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner,
a career-long human rights and humanitarian advocate, as well
as the Dutch, the Scandinavians, the Germans under Chancellor
Merkel, I think there are a lot of people who put almost as much
emphasis as we do on good governance in Africa.
Q4 Lord Lea of Crondall: I suppose
one might say, would you agree, Minister, that the credibility
of the African Union has been a question of two steps forward
and one step back? Zimbabwe does illustrate the dilemma, and,
indeed, does the negative reaction of some African countries to
the Prime Minister's statement of intent not to go to Lisbon.
But could I pick up on your penultimate point that there are many
things where it is much better to do it through the EU than to
do it bilaterally. Even the reputation as ex colonial power, Britain
and France in particular, is it not the case that if you go right
through the race card—you mentioned climate change and I
might mention the Malthusian spectre of the huge growth of population
in Africa—it is very, very difficult to have this sort of
dialogue, but strengthening the credibility of the African Union
to do things is absolutely bedrock in all of this. Would you say
a word about that?
Lord Malloch-Brown: Having been lucky enough
to sit in a large football stadium in South Africa and watch the
birth of the African Union through the Zulu dances and other things
that preceded it, I saw both the opportunity but also the challenge,
because President Mugabe raised the biggest cheer in that stadium
when he arrived as Head of State of Zimbabwe. This anomaly has
been there from the beginning of an African Union which is much
tougher than its predecessor the OAU; much more willing to use
a peer review mechanism to review the governance performance of
its members; much more willing to set out a truly pan-African
institutional machinery to deal with issues such as peace and
security but also certain development and social issues as well;
an African Union which has created even some modest pan-African
institutions like a parliament with, as they are quick to point
out, more women parliamentarians in it than we have in the European
Parliament. There are a lot of positive things on that side of
the score card but they are still grappling with what is an appropriate
level of interference in each other's internal affairs when a
country falls short on governance. While Zimbabwe has, from our
point of view, been the most extreme case of that, frankly there
was a tremendous reticence to interfere in Darfur and even in
Southern Sudan, despite the fact that there was no distracting
white farmer component or anything else to blame it on. This was
straight violence by an Islamic, Arab-dominated government in
Khartoum, against people of African origin in Darfur in the South,
and yet, even there, there has been a reticence about interference
because of a feeling that states are fragile, that, once this
precedent of interference begins goodness knows where it will
stop, the borders of Africa will get redrawn, et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. So they do have a different approach to us, but please
do not confuse that reticence with a lack of concern about human
rights and such like. That consciousness is growing healthily
in Africa.
Q5 Lord Lea of Crondall: Could I
make one very short additional point? You mentioned that it was
not yet clear whether we were going to be represented at junior
ministerial level or civil servant level. Picking up Lord Crickhowell's
point, if there is going to be a political dialogue on these questions
in Lisbon, as I think it is inescapable there will be, I would
have thought, on balance—and I am speaking purely personally—it
would be better that a junior minister is there to have a robust
political statement of support, whatever the EU political statement
is, rather than not to be there, given our hugely important role.
Lord Malloch-Brown: Look, a reaction to that
only to say that I share the view that we need to be properly
represented. There is a fundamental issue that in the summit sessions
heads of government only can speak. Whoever sits in the chair
is not going to be able to speak in the formal summit sessions
but, in terms of an ability to represent our point of view in
the corridors and the working sessions, I think we want to make
sure we send somebody, minister or official, who is respected
by their fellows on both the European and African side.
Q6 Lord Anderson of Swansea: I have
two questions on the human rights dimension. Are you concerned
that none of our European Union partners, whatever their commitment
to human rights, has followed our lead in respect of the stand
on Zimbabwe? Secondly, on China: China recently hosted this mammoth
jamboree in Beijing, attended by all the African leaders, offered
sums without any strings, without interference in internal African
affairs. Are you concerned at all that the Chinese initiative
may, to some extent, have undermined what the European Union is
trying to do?
Lord Malloch-Brown: I will answer the questions
but then ask Marcus to say a little bit about the DFID-China collaboration
on Africa because I think it is an interesting example of the
way these debates are going. First, on the point about whether
or not I am concerned that no European country has at this stage
followed us on this, I think a number of European countries have
expressed strong sympathy with our position but reserved what
action they may or may not take themselves and I think they are
waiting to see how things develop, whether or not Mugabe genuinely
is going to come or whether African leaders may prevail on him
to find a face-saving way of staying home. I think they are keeping
their powder dry in terms of their final decision. But I have
to say that I, anyway, consider us here to be balancing two objectives.
One is that we have made our own point of view clear. We, the
British Government, and we, the British people and Parliament,
all care deeply about what is happening in Zimbabwe and, after
all we have said, we should not sit down in the same room with
him. If others read their own consciences differently or believe
that constructive engagement and confronting him on his human
rights record is a better way of doing it, I think we have to
respect that. There are going to be some other people whose human
rights record is not exactly stellar in that room as well. Some
choose engagement over isolation and I think we have to respect
that, but the key point I come back to is that we would not want
to do anything to jeopardise the summit. We would not want to
shake the table so much and start trying to strong-arm our European
partners into not going in a way which then provokes the Africans
to say, "I'm very sorry, but it's up to us. You invited the
AU and now you're telling us who from the AU can come. We are
not going to come." That was the tit-for-tat process that
destroyed the summit last time. I think we want to avoid that.
We want this summit to happen. On China, I will make an overall
point: I think you have to look at the China engagement in Africa
as a fine teacup which is half-full or half-empty depending on
how you look at it. It is half-full in the sense that this is
vital new sources of investment capital for Africa, going into
exactly the sectors that we were all skirting around, like infrastructure,
but which African leaders have rightly been saying for years is
critical to the development of their markets and to a future growth
strategy.
Q7 Lord Anderson of Swansea: Even
if it builds up vast debts.
Lord Malloch-Brown: That is the issue. That
is where the cup can easily end up half-empty: if debt is unsustainable,
if social and environmental standards are not met, if it does
not create African jobs but just Chinese jobs, et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. There are a whole lot of qualitative issues around
this Chinese investment, which is part loan/part investment. It
is, when you look at it, essentially a recycling of the very vast
financial surpluses that have built up in sovereign fund-like
instruments in China and which for the health of the global economy
we need to see recycled. The issue is: Can we raise the quality
of these loans and investments? I went to China and challenged
them on just that. They produced some very sophisticated people
from the main sovereign fund there, Exim Bank who were all trained
at the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, and they pulled
out charts which I had seen the likes of before to show why the
debt was sustainable and the environment and social links. But
I think we have to call their bluff on this and try to draw them
in to both a partnership on qualitative issues at the country
level and draw them into forums like OECD DAG and the World Bank,
which they are in, obviously, but get them involved in the donor
debates and make them a good donor, rather than a bad donor repeating
the mistakes we made 20 or 30 years ago. Marcus, you may want
to say a little bit about this.
Mr Manuel: Thank you. This is a subject where
the two departments are working incredibly closely together. I
was with my counterpart in Beijing only five months ago talking
about working with the Chinese. Clearly, China is now a major
player in Africa. It is bringing a lot in terms of stimulating
high growth rates and China's own success in reducing poverty
is very clear. They hosted the Africa Development Bank meeting
in Shanghai and it was quite striking for many African finance
ministers coming and seeing the transformation that happened in
China and thinking: "This is what happens if I have very
high growth rates." Those kinds of lesson-learnings are very
important. I think the key issue is about how we can encourage
China to play a responsible global role in Africa. For us, the
key aspect that we are pressing on collectively in government
is on the issue of transparency. This is a plea from many Africans,
we hear. They say, "We don't know what China is doing next
door. We know what it is doing in our country but we do not know
what is happening next door." One of the things we are doing
is funding African universities to research and to monitor and
to track what is happening in Africa, then making that information
available to everyone who wants to know and find out about it.
As you say, debt is one of the issues that needs to be considered
and that is one of the things that is being encouraged to track.
We are also trying to encourage China to join, as Lord Malloch-Brown
mentioned, institutions and ways of approach. For example, the
Infrastructure Consortium for Africa is a way of encouraging them
to join with other partners in thinking about how you provide
infrastructure and therefore the environmental sustainability
issues and all this can come naturally as part of their conversation,
but, also, on transparency, encouraging them to be engaged with
the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, of which you
may be aware, just encouraging people to publish what monies are
flowing and how things are being resourced.
Chairman: Lord Hannay on this point and
then Baroness Symons.
Q8 Lord Hannay of Chiswick: Is there
any evidence in fact that the Chinese in their aid policies are
tolerating bad practices, corruption, human rights abuses by the
companies who benefit from the Chinese aid? Is there any evidence
in fact in the sort of scare stories in the press that the Chinese
are thus undermining all the efforts by the West, the Europeans
and other donors to raise these standards? Is there evidence of
that at all? You mentioned the EITI, which is obviously very important,
but what is the Chinese response? Is PetroChina, with all its
millions or trillions of dollars, going to tell a country in which
it goes to search for oil that it wants that country to apply
EITI? Or are they just going to turn a blind eye?
Lord Malloch-Brown: Let me try to answer and
Marcus can correct me if I get this wrong. I think these are important
points. At the individual project level, the stories that one
hears about Chinese roads falling apart quickly I rather doubt.
I just doubt that. The way the Chinese have built their own infrastructure
in recent years shows they have high quality engineering skills
and I doubt the work is, in that sense, shoddy. There is an issue
about them doing projects which from the development point of
view are of questionable priority: grand buildings, when, frankly,
they could do with a few more primary schools and such like, so
there may be some issues at the margin about development choices.
On EITI, I raised that in China as something we would like to
pursue when the Prime Minister goes to China. We have not been
told no, but nor have we been told yes. They have repeatedly expressed
interest in it but we feel we do not yet have real traction on
drawing them into a point where we would say they are going to
join the EITI. On the broader point, the area where there is a
little concern in some of the countries in which they invest is
that there is nothing wrong with the project, but the availability
of large amounts of capital, if you like, removes the lever for
political reform. There I would say the energy sector in Sudan
and, indeed, earlier, support for Zimbabwe. The support for Zimbabwe
seems to be at a standstill now, other than humanitarian assistance,
and that is something I had raised very strongly with them while
I was there. In the case of Darfur, that economic lever they have
is now of course being used much more constructively to try to
encourage progress on Darfur which perhaps was less the case,
say, a year ago.
Q9 Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: I
would like to touch again on the Zimbabwe point. Your responses
make me wonder what is the real point of having a policy in the
European Union if, when push comes to shove, we are so very delicate
about trying to implement it? Is it not the fact that our European
partners are going to sit down with Mr Mugabe? Does it not reinforce
his point that this is a British post-colonial problem rather
than a human rights problem which is of concern to the whole of
the European Union? It looks like not Zimbabwe being isolated
because of human rights but Britain being isolated on a post-colonial
point. I think that is where we have got ourselves and I would
be interested in your comment. Point two, if I may: in the list
of things you indicated you were going to be talking about, you
talked about a lack of capacity on peace and security and you
talked about growth. One thing the European Union could really
do is something about trade, and we have not mentioned that word
so far. Again, the European Union does pick up its skirts rather
on the trade question and look the other way. It is something
we could do something about bilaterally and it is absolutely something
we could do something about in terms of the WTO. I would be grateful
for your comments on trade.
Lord Malloch-Brown: Let me deal with the first
point and Marcus can come in on trade. To be honest, I think we
have poor choices on Zimbabwe because I think the position of
the Prime Minister is that he and President Mugabe attending the
same summit, being in the same room together, would completely
overshadow the serious business of the summit and would utterly
destroy its usefulness and turn it into a kind of tabloid sport
"Brown versus Mugabe" and these points we are discussing
now would all be lost. The alternative of trying to insist on
one European policy in insisting that the whole of Europe not
go to an event that Mugabe is at similarly has consequences, in
that it again leads to the Africans feeling that Britain is allowing
its colonial past, in their eyes, to hold the whole of Europe's
Africa policy hostage to Britain's Zimbabwe policy. That would
cause huge resentment and difficulty too. Were Europe to act together
and this would become an issue of common foreign policy—and
assuming we can prevail in making that argument—I think
it would have the same effect that you want to avoid: it would
be seen as reinforcing a British colonial grudge. I think we are
trying here to approach this in a balanced way, which I think
is appreciated by moderate African leaders who have no greater
regard for Mugabe than we do, which is that we are trying to free
the future, the fate of the summit, from Mugabe. We are trying
to downplay him as an issue to avoid that kind of UK-Zimbabwean
theatrics dominating the summit and we are allowing Africa and
Europe to get on with their business. It is not a perfect solution
but, of poor choices, it is perhaps the best. On trade I think
it is very good you raise it because, to be honest, there is this
whole movement towards European EPAs with Africa which is on a
terribly tight and urgent deadline now to replace the old agreements
and it might be useful for you to hear where that all stands.
Mr Manuel: Obviously in relation to the summit
itself there is a separate regional and trade integration partnership
as part of the process but that is talking more broadly about
private sector growth, investment climate and a range of other
issues. But the key trade issues at the moment are the Economic
Partnership Agreements and also the Doha round. The summit would
be useful for just highlighting the importance of making progress
because you are going to have politicians having time thinking
about Africa, thinking about how the EU relates to Africa. I think
that hopefully will have a spin-off benefit of re-energising the
need to deliver on the Doha round and also to deliver on the European
Partnership Agreements. As you well know, the deadline for the
European Partnership Agreements is 31 December in order to comply
with the World Trade Organisation rules. We are very concerned
about what happens in those regions which do not meet that deadline.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, the Minister for DfID
and BERR, Gareth Thomas, has recently written to the other EU
trade ministers to press the EC to ensure that, basically, countries
are no worse off after the end of 2007 once the Cotonou Agreement
lapses. I can go into detail if you want me to but that is clearly
a major concern and taking up a lot of energy and discussion about
how to find our way through this deadline process and also making
sure that we get European Partnership Agreements which are good
for development and help countries trade their way out of poverty.
Q10 Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean:
This will be a real focus? I am not really quite clear whether
you are talking about it as a spin-off, and it is fine because
they will all give each other a nudge, or whether it is actually
going to be focused upon.
Mr Manuel: The action plan and strategy itself
talk about a much wider range of issues than just the European
Partnership Agreements. But it would be amazing if, as part of
this process, there were not discussions in the corridors and
outside saying: "Okay, how are we going to manage the European
Partnership Agreements?" I am not sure we have seen the detailed
agenda for the summit itself to know whether that is going to
be part of it, but, in terms of the action plan and the EU-Africa
Strategy which goes much wider than that, this is not a European
Partnership Agreement summit, it is much, much broader than that,
but, as I say, I cannot believe, given the deadline and the importance
of the issue, this will not be coming up.
Lord Malloch-Brown: Just to clarify, obviously
these are sub-regional agreements which need a lot of leg work
and hard work with smaller sub-sets of governments, with European
officials, and therefore the summit can give a push to it at the
political level but there is just an awful lot of work that these
guys have to get done in the coming weeks and that would not fit
neatly into a Head of Governments' summit.
Mr Manuel: As we all know, on trade it is the
detail that matters and the detail is precisely what people are
now arguing about, which is why I think it is the political impetus
that will matter. But, as you say, it is not actually AU, it is
the Regional Economic Communities that are involved on the other
side.
Q11 Lord Hannay of Chiswick: The
deadline of the end of the year results from the WTO having found
that our existing Cotonou arrangements are not in full conformity
with WTO rules. Is that correct? If that is the case, do we see
this deadline as of benefit to us and the Africans? Or is it going
to be so tight as to drive us over the cliff together? If that
is the case, is there no way in which there could be a standstill
in the present arrangements for a further period before time was
needed?
Mr Manuel: No, I do not think it is going to
drive us over the cliff, in that sense. You are right, the WTO
deadline is driving this process. One of the options on the table
is to explore whether we can get at least a "goods only"
agreement sorted out and in place by the end of this year and
allow the other issues, the Singapore issues, the investment issues,
to be dealt with later. The UK has always made it very clear,
at any rate, that it is very much for African countries to decide
whether or not they want to include Singapore issues in these
conversations or not. In that sense, that is consistent with the
line the UK Government has been taking as trying to find a way
through on this process. The difficulty is that once you go past
the deadline you are then into a legal uncertainty. At that point
you start having challenges and it then becomes unclear. That
is why we are trying to stay very closely in touch with the African
negotiations, saying what is going to work from your viewpoint
and what are you trying to push for here and why "goods only"
might be one of the ways through. But we certainly do not want
to, and we are pushing very hard to make sure we do not, as you
say "go over the cliff" and end up with a situation
where suddenly countries are in a worse off situation than they
were. The potential gains from the Economic Partnership Agreements
are enormous and one of the real problems of the Everything But
Arms initiative is that it does not tackle the issues of laws
of origin and particularly only works for the least developed
countries. If you are a Tanzanian fish producing company, you
cannot take your tins from Kenya and use them for export because
they come from Kenya which is not an LDC. Sorting out these rules
of origin, bringing in other African countries who often are key
partners with those poorer African countries is really important.
That is why getting this deal to work is so important.
Q12 Lord Lea of Crondall: Turning
to the next question that I seem to have notice of, which is to
do with the negotiations leading up to the Summit Declaration,
could you characterise the negotiations more generally? In our
report, the heart of the report in many respects is that there
is no point in the EU having a so-called African Strategy and
expect the African Union to say we will transfer the ownership
of the EU Strategy and it will be an Africa Strategy. Clearly
there has to be equal inputs from both sides. The matrix, however
unimpressive as a process possibly, was inevitably based on that.
Would you, Minister, or your colleague perhaps say what the thinking
is about the experience of this process? Are we getting some African
ownership, whereby there is commitment by African countries through
the African Union to do some of the things that they are now signing
up to with African ownership, in a way that they would not have
been committed to doing if it had simply been an EU Strategy and
saying, "Africa, please get some ownership of this EU Strategy?"
Lord Malloch-Brown: We have reached the point
in the relationship where, were we to try that latter approach,
it is not that there would not be any ownership but it would just
be rejected or it would be forgotten the moment the summit was
over. Africa is achieving a level of self-awareness about its
problems and how to address them. That means it has pretty strong
views on this. On their side of the table, the Ghanaians have
been very prominent under Kufuor, who have given a lot of thought
to development, growth, democracy issues, who have had a traditional
interest in peacekeeping and conflict resolution. They have been
one of the smaller but nevertheless significant troop contributors
to peacekeeping operations, AU and UN. We have had a very educated
counterpart on this agenda and, from our point of view, luckily
one with a very strong British view on these things. He was here
last week visiting the Inns of Court from which he had graduated
and the university from which he had graduated, so he has a sense
of many of these issues which I think we would all recognise.
I think this has been a healthy process. Again, Marcus, would
you like to add to that? You have been closer to the working of
it than me.
Mr Manuel: I think one of the things that is
striking in the action plan is that it does say: "These are
the actions we are both going to do together; these are the actions
the EU is going to do together and these are the actions the AU
are going to do together". I think that is quite helpful
and very much reflects what you are saying as demonstrating that
kind of process. The other really good example that is referred
to on the governance side is the Africa Peer Review Mechanism,
which is very much an African-owned and African-run process that
really is stimulating some remarkable debate across Africa. I
think Graca Machel going into Kenya and having a conversation
with the Kenyans about corruption was quite a difficult and quite
an interesting conversation. Ghana put itself up and some things
came out. I think the Ghanians were slightly surprised but then
said, "Okay, you've raised these concerns and we are going
to respond" and as a result have made some changes to ministerial
codes and other things. It was a very interesting process and
that is part of the partnership.
Q13 Lord Lea of Crondall: Have there
been key things that really we have wanted to press and they have
just said no? Can you lift the veil to that extent?
Lord Malloch-Brown: I think this governance
is an example where we have a more intrusive vision of us setting
standards with them of governance and they rather pushed back
and said, "We have the peer review mechanism and we are a
little tired of Europeans setting standards of good governance
for us. We get a lot further when you guys step back a bit and
allow us to kind of peer review each other." You can debate
whether that is right or not and you can certainly be a little
frustrated that the peer review mechanism has not claimed more
scalps in terms of bad governance but, from their point of view,
I think it is a defensible position that they want to do this
themselves and then are happy to discuss the results with us but
do not want us as intimately involved in their own governance
issues as we initially wanted to be. Is that fair?
Mr Manuel: Yes.
Q14 Lord Hannay of Chiswick: Could
you update us a bit on how the Africans are getting on with their
peer review mechanism. When we did our report last year there
was a fairly small number of African countries who had bought
into the peer review mechanism and were subjecting to it, and,
surprise, surprise, none of them of course were the people who
were most likely to be criticised by such a mechanism. Is there
progress being made? Are there more African countries signing
up to the peer review mechanism? Is it therefore, as it were,
developing momentum or is it simply stuck with the people who
are in it being, on the whole, very clean and the people who are
not in it being less clean but not subject to it?
Lord Anderson of Swansea: And not volunteering.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick: And not volunteering,
of course.
Mr Manuel: Five countries have now completed
the review and 27 have signed up to it. So that is where we are.
Q15 Lord Hannay of Chiswick: Is that
32 in all or 27 in all?
Mr Manuel: No, 27 in all.
Q16 Lord Hannay of Chiswick: It is
just under half.
Mr Manuel: Exactly, under half. I was meeting
with the Africa Peer Review secretariat two months ago and they
characterised it as having done the first wave—so the Ghanas,
the Kenyas, the South Africas and the Rwandas have gone through.
The real challenge has been lifting the next lot to get going
on the process. Various countries have signed up but did not seem
to be taking the steps to do that. Mozambique is now engaging
and is now getting it to work and they have consultation processes
going and working up. Uganda were waiting for the green light
to take the next stage forward. That is going to be the next step,
whether we get on to the second phase of countries. But you are
right: the challenge is going to be expanding the list from 27
to all of Africa. We will continue to push for that and continue
to argue for that, but I think what comes out of the five that
have already gone through, and now the other ones that are starting
to go through, is going to be critical.
Q17 Lord Anderson of Swansea: Minister,
the Commission has proposed an EU-Africa partnership on democratic
governance and indeed a Governance Forum which, at first sight,
seems to link well with a number of DFID initiatives, including
that excellent report prepared for DFID by the ODI experts which
did focus much on parliamentary government, and also the other
DFID papers on the subject. What has been the preliminary response
by the Africans to this initiative? Who is included? What form
will this forum take?
Lord Malloch-Brown: It has evolved quite a lot
since the original Commission recommendation, which had some other
things, including something a bit more intrusive on the internal
side. It was also more about joint positions on some external
issues, which, as I said at the beginning of this session, interests
me a lot. But it has changed as the Africans have engaged. You
perhaps might want to describe how it now is, Marcus.
Mr Manuel: The action plan at the moment has
three areas of cooperation envisaged. There is a publicly available
document.
Q18 Chairman: We have had the letter
from Mr Thomas[1]
but the attachments which were the information publicly available
from the Portuguese Presidency, which includes highlights from
both documents, does not seem to have arrived.
Mr Manuel: Electronic transmission at rapid
speed often falls down. We are sorry about that. We will certainly
let you have it.[2]
It is just a few pages which sets it out in a bit more detail.
On the Government side there are three things really: one is to
enhance the dialogue at the global level and in international
fora—and this is very much what Lord Malloch-Brown was talking
about in terms of the UN and other processes. The second is to
promote the Africa Peer Review Mechanism, which we have already
discussed, and also to support the African Charter on Democracy,
Elections and Governance. The third is strengthening cooperation
in the area of cultural goods. Then there is an action plan that
unpicks each of those particular aspects and goes into more detail
on that.
Q19Lord Anderson of Swansea: One clear follow-up
is that there are many other groups working in that same field.
Obviously the Commonwealth has similar parameters, similar moves.
To what extent is it suggested that there be full cooperation
with the Commonwealth initiatives in this field? Not only the
Commonwealth, there are a number of non governmental organisations
working with the same sort of remit. I, for example, was very
involved as senior vice-president with a body called AWEPA, which,
with funds in part from the EU but also from other sources, seems
to build up good governance. Is it proposed that there will be
the fullest cooperation with not just the governments but with
Commonwealth initiatives and also with relevant non-governmental
organisations?
Mr Manuel: One of the advantages of the partnerships
that are coming out of this is that they do specifically allow
for a much wider range of actors than are just going to be at
the AU Summit. There is a very wide range list. I am not aware
of the detail of that but certainly in principle it would allow
all sorts of non-state actors to be involved, including research
institutes and other processes as well. But, yes, the point about
joining up where we can with the Commonwealth is very well taken.
1 Letter from Mr Thomas MP to Lord Grenfell dated
6 November 2007 is available at: http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_
committees/lords_s_comm_c/cwm_c.cfm Back
2
"The Portuguese Presidency Paper" Brief is available
at: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/EUAfricaStrategicBrief.pdf Back
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