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Democratic Republic of the Congo

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) on securing the debate, and I congratulate her and other hon. Members on their interest in the Congo. I pay tribute to the all-party groups on the great lakes region and genocide prevention and on street children. Fifteen or 20 years ago, the House of Commons probably would not have had a debate on the Congo. Britain certainly did not have a development programme there then. Those changes are testament to the fact that people have begun to understand the scale of the disaster that has affected that country, as well as its need for support and the importance of providing that support. We heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown) and for City of York (Hugh Bayley), and from the Opposition spokespeople, the hon. Members for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) and for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds), that the challenges facing the Democratic Republic of the Congo are enormous—almost beyond belief. The country has been shattered by decades of misrule and two devastating wars, in which 4 million people died. My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley asked for clear reassurance about the degree of our commitment and whether we are there for the long term. I am happy to give that reassurance, and I point to the evidence. The first time I visited the Congo, the Department for International Development had 3 staff. We now have 34, and that number will rise to 35. The development programme budget has also risen from about £3.5 million to £4 million at that time to £67 million this year. It will be £70 million next year, and is one of our largest programmes in Africa. If that is not evidence of commitment, I do not know what is. I agree with all hon. Members who talked about the hunger for peace that the people of the DRC expressed by voting in very large numbers in those two extraordinary election rounds. I pay tribute to hon. Members who went out there on behalf of the international community to help to oversee that process. I am also proud of Britain’s role in that process as the largest funder. The real challenge for President Kabila and Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga is whether they will be able to respond to the incredibly high expectations that the people have after casting their votes in large numbers. The Government have only just come into being because Ministers got to work only last week, following their appointments. The new Government programme that was adopted by the National Assembly on 24 February is a reasonable start and says the right things. It states:"““The fundamental principle for the action of the Government is good governance. This is characterised by participation, transparency, accountability, respect for rights, efficiency and equality””." In the end, they will, like all Governments, be judged on what they do, and not so much on what they say. The really difficult problem is that everything needs to be done there, so the Government face hard choices and need to prioritise, as does DFID. As a significant donor—we are shortly to become the largest bilateral donor—we must work with other partners and bilateral donors, the international community, the World Bank, the United Nations, the European Commission and others to divvy up the contribution that we can make to help the Government meet those priorities. I agree that we need a mechanism to replace CIAT, which has come to an end because there is now a sovereign elected Government. It is important that we find a way to ensure that the conversation with, and support for, the elected Government from the international community and donors continues. I shall respond to the points that have been raised and set out our future thinking. Clearly, a Government’s first priority is to ensure the safety of their people, but, for reasons that we understand, that is not yet the case in the DRC. Its Government have to make army integration happen. We have supported EUSEC in trying to deal with the problem of money going astray to pay ghost soldiers. We have also made funding available to provide some incentive to the military forces to go through the integration process, so that they have shelter, clothing and support when they come out. However, the Government of the DRC need to take the lead. The World Bank is leading the current DDR programme on the donor side, and we are working with UNICEF to treat child soldiers as an urgent and special case to be dealt with through the multi-country DDR programme. We have contributed an additional £5 million to that project. I hope that that answers the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway and the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness. The second priority is to have a police service that provides security, and the third is to have a credible justice system. It is likely that DFID will focus on reforming both of those systems. The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness and others spoke about MONUC. I join them in paying tribute to MONUC and to Bill Swing. As I told him when he came to see me last week, it has done an extraordinary job in very challenging circumstances. I want to make absolutely clear the Government’s position that MONUC should maintain its current troop levels for the time being, because there is a continuing need for it to oversee security. Any draw-down over time should be based on improvements in security. While I am talking about security, I shall briefly address the case of Marie-Thérèse Nlandu. Andy Sparkes has raised that case several times with a number of people in the Government, including, most recently, President Kabila. Another priority is to strengthen accountability, because elections alone do not make a democracy. We want to support the new independent electoral commission, Parliament and the provincial assemblies. I agree with the comments that have been made about the need to reach out to the Opposition in the DRC. DFID’s funding for civil society and non-governmental organisations will go up, not down. It will focus increasingly on working with NGOs to provide services so that people begin to see a democratic dividend. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North about the role of women. As ever, I am happy to meet a delegation if he wants to bring them to see me. What matters now for people in the Congo is that they see some change as a result of the votes that they have cast. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green asked about education. I am happy to write to her with more detail, but we are currently supporting, through the humanitarian pool fund, 50,000 vulnerable children so that they receive education. We are working with Catholic Relief Services on that. We are planning a major programme, with the World Bank, to help to reduce school fees, which she will know are a major obstacle to children going to school. We are also planning a community-driven reconstruction programme to help to rebuild local infrastructure, which will include schools in rural areas. On health care, we will be doing more on water and sanitation. In the past two weeks, one in five children in the Congo will have had diarrhoea because of the lack of clean water. One of the programmes that we will be working on will provide clean water to 500,000 people in Mbuji-Mayi. We are also working with UNICEF to extend access to clean water to a larger number of people across the country. I was asked specifically about education in fragile states. Our spending on that has trebled in the past three years. In the White Paper, we made a commitment to do more in such states, but we need their Governments, including in the DRC, to come up with plans to improve education, so that they can be supported. We are also investing in roads, because they will help with economic development. The DRC is blessed with great natural resources that have been raped and pillaged, and from which the people have not benefited. The hon. Lady, in particular, asked what we are going to do about that. We are going to work with USAID on a programme to encourage better corporate governance in the minerals sector, and we will support the Government of the DRC in implementing the extractive industries transparency initiative. We are also contributing to the multi-donor trust fund on forestry, and we support a continuing moratorium. On sanctions, we have played an important role in sanctioning particular individuals, through the UN Security Council, who have violated the arms embargo. We are pushing to extend the list of those who are subject to sanctions, and the UK national contact point has made statements about three of the companies that were highlighted by the UN panel. We will continue to offer a lot of humanitarian assistance in the Congo. This is the most important opportunity that the country has had for almost half a century to achieve something better. As we heard, it is clear that people have a burning hope for a better future. We must help them to achieve that.