Commonwealth: Democracy and Development

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Sheikh has done the House a great service by introducing this debate. My theme is poverty and development. In their different ways, all the players in Commonwealth development believe that it is only economic development—the creation of sustainable enterprises with the resources to meet market needs profitably—which will lead to permanently low levels of poverty. This has happened in Malaysia, which is now a middle-income country, but not in Ghana, although at independence their two situations were strictly comparable. Has DfID an analysis of the reasons why Malaysians now have an average income per head which is 10 times that of Ghanaians? How has it come about? DfID lends support in its White Paper to the private sector’s role in achieving middle-income status, but its support is hedged with qualifications. The basic and enabling conditions need to be put in place by poor country Governments, corruption has to be eliminated, and the environment has to be wholly protected before it is possible to expect private sector development progress. This caution leads DfID to fund other bodies whose purpose is to study development but not to do it themselves. It seems that DfID has yet to decide the old-fashioned riddle of which comes first, the chicken or the egg. Is it ideal conditions for the private sector or the nerve to get on with it? Both questions need an answer. However, in development there have been answers. For example, Abraham Darby and his Quaker partners did not wait for government approval at Coalbrookdale; they would not have known that such a precondition could exist. Cecil Rhodes and his free-wheeling contemporaries—who attract the disapproval of today’s development pundits—contributed a great deal to modern South Africa’s economy. This leads me to ask why economic development does not come top of DfID’s priorities. What plans do we have for four sub-Saharan African countries—the Gambia, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Zambia? All are Commonwealth countries, all are near the bottom of development indices and all have around half or more of their people living below the world poverty line. These countries need to achieve more than poverty alleviation. There is, indeed, a vital temporary place for poverty alleviation, but it is only a second best; it is no long-term solution. If we have the ambition to see these countries become middle-income countries, what needs to happen? The first necessary condition for any significant development will be partnership between the country concerned, and the private sector within it, and offshore players. For example, in large-scale sugar production, both Malawi and Zambia produce sugar from cane; Sierra Leone most probably could; the Gambia probably not. The international sugar market is complex. It is full of multi and bilateral agreements; there is competition from beet sugar; some markets are growing, driven by rising populations and incomes, and others are inaccessible. The agronomy is complex—there are many varieties of cane. Is the soil suitable? Is the right amount of land available? Shall we have a large group of outgrowers? Is the cane to be rain-fed or irrigated? An experienced team of professionals is needed to assess the prospects of success. Sugar cane needs immediate processing at harvest time—it goes into a capital-intensive mill, demanding management and maintenance skills—and both the technology and the finance needed are scarce resources. There will be housing, medical and schooling needs, and food supplies will probably need supplementing. I stop there to ask, where in DfID’s plans does hands-on management of major development opportunities feature? If the Gambia is again to become the shipping entrepôt it once was, a similar set of partnership imperatives applies. Ports need modern equipment. Finally, daunting as these ideas may seem, they have been successfully tackled many times in the past. It is just that at some point, perhaps through lack of confidence or mistrust of business, we went off into the safer havens of poverty alleviation, abstract nouns and political correctness. Development solves many of the perceived problems which worry the bureaucracy—witness Malaysia, which was such a worry to the aid pundits as it achieved middle income—and we have to get down to the concrete realities of scientific and global detail to achieve development. As things are, there will be more people below the poverty line next year than there are today. Only private sector partnerships will turn the tide.