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EU Committee: EU and Africa

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, for his introduction of this very important report. Before I go further, I was particularly cheered up today to see the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker of Wallasey, on the Opposition Front Bench. We are old sparring partners from the other place, where we used to be involved in transport matters. Surprisingly, one might say, we were old allies when she was a Minister of State at the Foreign Office in the fight against the South African Government in the apartheid days. I had better stop there in case I damage her prospects for ever. This is a substantial and comprehensive report, and a very detailed investigation into the delivery of aid to Africa and how we might improve it. Africa faces many difficulties, not least instability, failure to provide good governance, corruption and the most ferocious of health problems: AIDS. But there is a tremendous amount of good will towards Africa, which was demonstrated by the Commission for Africa report, published in March 2005. It was universally received as potentially a great way forward. The report recognised that development is a two-way process and that African countries had to be at the forefront of planning. Unless African Governments were involved from the planning stage, most projects would fail in their entirety. That is not a new message; it was expressed about50 years ago by an African agronomist, René Dumont, from southern Africa. He laid out the number of projects which failed in Africa because they were directed from the metropolitan centre of the country without taking into account what local people felt. We are still trying to get to grips with the question of ownership and the practical means of delivery and transparency. We must bear in mind from the beginning the aims of aid. First, it should be delivered quickly; secondly, it should quickly reach its target; and, thirdly, it should be done with the minimum of bureaucracy, consistent with transparency. Those three differing objectives must be held together, even though that is difficult to do. The report recognises that the problems in Africa cause great difficulties, and we have to find a way round that. I must confess that, in going through the report, my mind was reeling in my attempt to understand fully what was happening. We have NePAD, for example—the New Partnership for Africa’s Development—and the African Peer Review mechanism, which is part of NePAD and which we welcome. Perhaps I may say as an aside that I am not entirely happy that NePAD is now to be absorbed into the African Union, but that is the choice of its members. I should prefer to see it as an independent organisation free of the political machinations of the African Union, but we just have to accept that. We also have the regional economic committees, the matrix, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, and a strong call for an EU strategy to promote coherence and avoid the duplication of effort. The strong argument is for coherence. It is suggested that there should be one European Union body to bring the whole thing together but, frankly, I think that that would be a bit of a nightmare. We are in grave danger of having so many reviews and so many committees overseeing this and that and looking at strategy and planning that we will spend all our time on those committees and nothing will ever get done. It is a refrain that one hears from time to time about reviews in this country. We say that the health service should be under review but the bureaucrats say, ““We can’t do anything because we’re too busy filling out forms and answering to the Government””. We do not really want a European strategy where everyone is looking over their shoulder, worrying about reporting to one another, and not keeping their eyes on the fact that we must get aid quickly to those who need it. I welcome the idea that there should be a mechanism for ensuring that each country lives up to its aid pledges. It is no use saying that you will provide the money unless you know that it will be delivered. I believe that in this country we have a mechanism for that. We have the International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Act, which started as a Private Member’s Bill, introduced by Tom Clarke in June 2005. I believe that it has tremendous potential. It places an obligation on the Government to report to Parliament once a year about what is happening. I suspect that, rather than having some grand coalition to see that other countries are delivering, we should get the other countries to put into their legislation the same kind of provision as we have under that transparency Act. We do not need a grand coalition so long as there is a mechanism for transparency. As stated by the noble Lord, Lord Bowness—I am sure that it will be repeated by others—what is happening in Zimbabwe is a real problem. It is suggested that the delay in setting up the second EU/African summit was due largely to the weak response from the African Union over Zimbabwe. The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) has considered the situation in Zimbabwe and has been quite damning in its resolutions on the situation there. The trouble is that, although that has been perfectly clear, the African Union has not faced up to its responsibilities; it has not endorsed the committee’s report. How are we going to proceed with Zimbabwe? It is incredibly important that it is dealt with, irrespective of whether it is tied in with a common strategy. It is true that the quiet diplomacy of President Thabo Mbeki does not appear to bear any fruit. There is a dilemma about how we should respond. I do not think it actually says so in the report. The implication in some parts of the report is that progress on the development of the strategy should in some way be linked to how the African Union behaves over Zimbabwe. To link the two is a very tempting prospect, but it is a real dilemma. Perhaps we underestimate the way in which the Zimbabwean situation and Mr Mugabe’s brutal rhetoric about colonialism will bear fruit. About12 months ago, I was part of a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegation to South Africa. While there, we met the Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, which is more or less equivalent to our Select Committees. We were getting on fine until the issue of Zimbabwe was raised. The chairman responded with such ferocity that I was really set back on my heels. He was absolutely furious. He said quite clearly that we had to learn that colonialism is dead and that we should not interfere in what is happening in Zimbabwe. Admittedly, at the end of the committee session, several members of the committee, whom I have known for many years, said that the chairman did not really represent the opinion of the committee. I asked why they did not say so; the fact is they did not. There is a real lack of enthusiasm in South Africa, which I would not have expected, given its own record and that of the African National Congress. I would have expected the African National Congress and the South African Government to be much more open and fiercer in their stance about what is happening in Zimbabwe. I say with regret that I do not buy the proposition sometimes put forward that Mugabe is the oldest of the African leaders and, therefore, by tradition Africans always bow to the elder of the tribe. That is not good enough. It is not good enough for people to say that it is up to Zimbabwe to solve its own problems. I recognise that in South Africa the problems were solved in the main by the people of the country; they were the ones who made the greatest effort. But that does not mean we should not interfere. Recently, I reminded one of my colleagues that no one in this country said to us, ““You must not interfere in what is happening in South Africa””. They asked us to help; if they had not asked us, we would not have been there. Therein lies the rub. There is no coherent call coming from within Zimbabwe. Earlier this week, I attended a meeting with Archbishop Pius Ncube from Bulawayo. He had a very sad and depressing view. They do not know what to do. There is no coherent leadership there, so it makes life doubly difficult. Lest anyone make any mistake about it, I am not for one moment suggesting that we stop saying that what is happening in Zimbabwe is wrong. I am not saying for a second that we should do other than condemn what is happening and call on the British Government, the South African Government and the rest of the African Union to take action before the situation worsens. What is happening in Darfur, for example, makes what is happening in Zimbabwe seem a bagatelle. That is not true. One cannot measure human rights in that way. Human rights in Zimbabwe are slipping deeper and deeper into the chasm. If Zimbabwe reaches the cataclysmic level of violence that is taking place in Darfur, it will be too late. I beg my friends in the African Union to speak up. The report concludes that a proper EU strategy towards Africa would be of great benefit to the people of Africa. We must remember that that is the objective of the exercise. We must also ensure that aid gets through quickly, is focused and is for the benefit of the people. This report is a major contribution to making that work.