The development white paper : second report report, together with the proceedings of the Committee, minutes of evidence and appendices / International Development Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. International Development Committee
Date:
[1997]
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Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: The development white paper : second report report, together with the proceedings of the Committee, minutes of evidence and appendices / International Development Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    11 November 1997] [Continued [Ann Clwyd Cont] club. Now that means of course that people in those countries will have less spent on health, education, social services and all those things that we are also saying the country should spend their available budgets on. Do you not find that a particular irony that we say that to third world countries and yet we are actually encouraging the countries in transition to do the opposite? (Rt Hon Clare Short) As you know, my Department is not responsible for the expansion of NATO and you know that and I know that. I am not aware—and I would be very disturbed if that were true—that joining NATO involved an increase in defence spending and that certainly countries in the former Soviet Bloc tended to have high defence spends. I have no expertise whatsoever in this question, but I would be surprised and disappointed if joining NATO led to necessarily an increase in defence spend. I think it is not properly a question for us, Chair, though it is a question that interests me. I can say that I have had some discussions with the Chief of Staff in Britain because certainly it is a question across the world that of course you get political instability and the likelihood of war in some of the poorest countries and then the danger of big arms spending that then just repeats the cycle of poverty and he has expressed an interest in working with us to help advise countries that have a very high defence spending that a reduction would be possible and IJ thought if we sent military officers rather than officials of my Department it might be more persuasive advice in the possibility of reducing defence spending. So that is an issue to which we attend, it is an issue in development on which the OECD is taking, I think very beneficially, more and more interest. On the NATO question I have to say I have neither any responsibility or any expertise. Chairman: Thank you, Secretary of State. May I bring to my colleagues’ attention that we have 25 key points that we want to bring to the Secretary of State tonight and I have no doubt her Private Secretary has a heavy programme for her this evening. So somehow we have to try and speed up if you will. May I ask Ms Follett if she will continue the question on multilateral and bilateral aid? Ms Follett 33. Secretary of State, I would like to turn to the balance between multilateral and bilateral aid in the United Kingdom’s development programme. Some 30 percent of international development assistance is provided multilaterally, but in the United Kingdom that figure is somewhere around 50 percent. Are you happy with the balance between bilateral and multilateral aid in the United Kingdom’s development programme and have you any plans to change this balance? If you do and bilateral aid is increased have you any idea in which countries you might spend that bilateral aid? (Rt Hon Clare Short) 1 do not have a view particularly of what the right balance is. I suppose the prejudice almost with which most of us approach this question is to believe that bilateral spending is better, partly because our own programmes have a very good reputation. In the course of the preparation of the White Paper I did address that question more thoroughly and of course we cannot, as a country, work everywhere. We need a bilateral programme both to face up to our historical responsibilities and to work in the places where we can make a good contribution and to learn lessons that we can take into the multilateral system, but we must also put energy into improving the quality of the multilateral system and ensuring then that you get the reach that is contributing to people all over the world. It is just simply impossible to work bilaterally everywhere, so I think we need to give more value and more effort to improving the quality of our multilateral efforts and not just think the right way forward is to spend as much bilaterally as we can and we say that in the White Paper. On the present balance I think 90 odd percent—is it 93 or 97 percent?—of our multilateral spend we have no discretion about. A big chunk of it goes through the EU as you know in an agreement reached by the former government and is committed and some of that is not of as good a quality I think as we would like, so we need to put a considerable effort into improving the quality of EU spend and that will be one of the priorities of our Presidency in the development field. Over time, as we get an increase in the budget I think this is going to be a very important question, where we can most beneficially put more of our spending and I do not have a view at this moment. I think we have to look at where our maximum effectiveness can be. We are trying to work in all the UN agencies, very strongly backing the Secretary General’s reform programme, but not allying with those who have a kind of anti-UN attitude and were looking for savings, but allying with those who want a more effective and powerful UN so backing the commitment that any savings will go back into the UN system to promote development. There are parts of the system that are not efficient and could be more efficient and I think the Secretary General’s programme is a very great opportunity to increase effectiveness. Of course a lot of the UN agencies are key to development and getting their co-ordination improved gets more potential effectiveness on the ground. So that is the answer; the balance is as it is and we have no choice because of our multilateral commitments, but it is a question that we are going to have to take a view on. I think we must treasure both efforts and we must get better at trying to use our influence in the multilateral system and to get improvements of quality. I think we should keep the question under review as we get a bigger budget as to what the proper balance is when we have some discretion in how to spend it. 34. With the bilateral aid, will DFID set targets for outcomes of its bilateral aid to particular countries and how does this intent involve the people of these countries as well as governments, and I would like to add here a plea for involving women because the best way to help people and to help women is to help them to help themselves and the best way for them to help themselves is to get them into government. All too often in developing countries the representation is even worse than it is in this country?
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