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Africa: Governance and Law

My Lords, as it is customary to declare an interest, I suppose that I ought to announce that I was conceived in Africa and born in London. That probably gives me a foot in the continent of Africa and a foot in Europe. I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Sandwich on his excellent introduction. I find myself in agreement with almost all the views expressed today on this important subject and, above all, on why good governance and the rule of law are so important. They help to create a stable framework within which a country can grow economically and help to reduce poverty. Without that, Africa cannot make progress. Having said that, I agree with the view that it is essential not to be patronising. We must respect the traditions, history and culture of those countries and not expect to impose our systems on the countries of Africa. If we are going to give assistance, we expect peace and security, about which my noble friend Lord Hannay spoke, proper systems of accountability and transparency, the rule of law, the freedom of the press, effective and impartial public service and many other factors. Some people seem to think that witnessing whether elections have been free and fair is a simple way to judge whether a country has good standards of governance. However, it is a continuous process and one must look for continuing accountability between elections. There has been a lot of discussion about whether there has been progress in Africa. Like the majority of noble Lords, I take the view that there has. We only have to look at the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, drawn up at Harvard University, to see that its analysis shows that in recent years there has been an increase in democracy of some kind or another on the continent, that, interestingly enough, there has been less violence in the past few years and that there has been quite a lot of progress on standards of governance. We should bear in mind that, according to the Financial Times, there have been no fewer than 90 coups in Africa in the past 50 years and 125 failed attempts. However, as many noble Lords have said, we have seen very encouraging progress in Ghana, Senegal, Liberia and Botswana, but, by contrast, we have seen disaster in Somalia, Zimbabwe and the Sudan. I hope that the Minister will feel able to say something about the Sudan. I agree with my noble friend Lord Hannay that we look to the Security Council to take a lead, but that we have to keep our sights above all else on helping the people of the Sudan. It is their future and their lives that are at stake. Already 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur, but, in the south, over a series of civil wars, 2 million people have been killed and 4 million people displaced. Will the Minister say something about how, however modest is the British influence, we can make sure that the comprehensive peace agreement in the south is implemented and that we facilitate, help and encourage that process. However, we have to reconcile our concepts of good governance with the characteristics of many African countries—my noble friend Lord Sandwich referred to what are known as neo-patrimonial rules to politics in those countries. I suppose, to put it in one word, it means cronyism. It is based on tribal strength, which leads in turn to intense corruption—Kenya is a very good example of that. Some way has to be found to balance the traditions in Africa, based on tribal and ethnic groups, with the need for adequate systems of governance. It is essential that both national and international aid donors are robust in ensuring that the money that we give for development—by "development", I do not mean humanitarian aid, which is important on its own, but development of the country—is not used for propping up unaccountable rulers. Here, DfID, I am glad to say, has quadrupled its UK development budget. That is fine if the money goes for proper development. It must therefore be conditional on progress on governance, and it must not make a country so aid-dependent that it removes its own incentive to spark its own development and expansion. We have to be realistic about this. We should at the same time take notice of the views of a growing number of Africans about how aid can be destructive as well as constructive. I agree, too, with the view expressed today, not least by the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, that while we have seen the expansion of DfID, it has been to a large extent at the expense of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It is essential first of all to have a foreign policy framework for the continent of Africa and then to fit the DfID role within it. However, we have seen at the same time, as many other noble Lords have said, a substantial reduction in the role of the Foreign Office. If we do not have information about countries, how can we devise policies about them? We desperately need to restore more strength to the Foreign Office so that we have more knowledge about what is going on in Africa and can do our job more effectively. It is worth noting that, in the past 50 years, $1 trillion of aid has come from the West to the continent of Africa, yet 600 million people there are still trapped in desperate poverty. We have to think about that very carefully. It is essential that the multilateral bodies, too, play a role. I shall touch on one—the Commonwealth. We should remind ourselves that the Harare Declaration in the early 1990s—Harare of all places!—was a commitment by the Commonwealth to good governance, democracy, the rule of law and the freedom of the press. It is up to the Commonwealth to have a continuous dialogue with its African members on standards of governance, because that is the commitment that all members of the Commonwealth make. A lot of work is going on through the Commonwealth Foundation, of which I had the privilege to be chairman in the 1990s, in fostering civic society, which is expanding in Africa. Civic society can play a prominent role in strengthening governance in Africa. The British Government should work very closely with the Commonwealth on that. I end on an issue that I raised a year or so. One the most important ways in which we can facilitate improvement in governance in Africa is to encourage those in the African diaspora who live in Britain, America and Europe. They have lived here and acquired great skills, many of them highly professional, but they would like to contribute to their countries of origin if they had that opportunity. A good test case would be Zimbabwe, because, if in the course of time—not yet—we are ready to give it major reconstruction assistance, we should at the same time help to mobilise those in the Zimbabwe diaspora here, who have all the skills and want to contribute to Zimbabwe. I know that the Minister is sympathetic to that and hope that he can say something about it. An African solution for an African problem is to encourage those in the diaspora to go back to their countries of origin where they can.