Rt Hon Peter Lilley MP answers the questions that you posed here.
Screenburn: What special responsibility does the UK have to its former colonies?
Since one of the main problems in aid is everyone trying to doing everything everywhere, we recommend greater specialisation by donors – each giving their aid budget to fewer countries. For the UK that would naturally mean focussing on countries with which we had links notably former colonies – as we already do to a significant extent.
KT Eden: How can we encourage individuals to give more to projects in developing countries?
We recommend more widespread linkages between local communities in the UK and their counterparts in developing countries – see page 121 “Building Local Links”. This would go beyond the sort of twinning arrangements that currently exist within Europe and involve more comprehensive links between schools, hospitals, churches, business groups etc. We believe this would lead to a significant increase in both the quantity and effectiveness of voluntary giving.
Stephen Parry: Your report rightly highlights the huge number work permits given to teaching and medical professionals from developing countries where they are in demand. How do we, as Conservatives, reverse this trend and avoid allegations of racism?
It is hard to see how refraining from asset stripping poor countries’ health services could be described as ‘racist’. This government has an explicit policy, which it describes as “uniquely ethical” of the NHS “not recruiting nurses and doctors from Africa”. Yet they have undermined that policy by issuing over 60,000 work permits to nurses and doctors from Africa since 2000.
It would be easy to stop denuding Africa of vitally needed health staff by simply not issuing work permits to agencies who recruit them.
Peter Kingsman: Peter, at the moment British farmers have to produce food meeting health, hygiene and animal welfare standards that imported, cheaper, food does not. Should we require all imported food (and its ingredients) to meet the standards required of domestically produced food or should we lower the standards for domestically produced food?
Firstly, all food products and imports are subject to the general food safety and hygiene requirements of the Food Safety Act 1990. In general, these are that food must not be rendered injurious to health, unfit for human consumption, or so contaminated that it is not reasonable to expect it to be used for human consumption in that state .
There are additional regulations that we create for our domestic industries – and if we had to choose between increasing import regulation and reducing domestic regulation, the later would generally be preferable.
Constance Harper: One of the biggest problems facing Africa is the lack of transport infrastructure. Given the corruption that is endemic in many African countries how could we support major infrastructure projects that are and are seen to be for the benefit of Africa and not the west?
A specific recommendation, to avoid some of the infrastructure failures of the past is that “Build/Operate/Maintain contracts should be used to incentivise good design and maintenance.”
In general (page 85) “we strongly believe that corruption must not be used as an excuse for giving up on aid. But we are equally strongly convinced that it is an issue that must be tackled robustly and openly. ‘Sunlight is the best disinfectant’ and the most effective steps to curb, prevent and ultimately eradicate this scourge involve introducing greater transparency and openness.
Donors should publish details of aid allocations; recipients should be required where possible to publish funds allocated to individual schools, clinics and so on; reliable, timely and independent auditing of programmes involving aid should be required and Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys used with the results publicised. Information is the best way to empower local people, parliaments, civil society and media (strengthened by other measures that we propose) to hold governments to account.
British officials, diplomats and ministers should not be reticent in highlighting evidence of corruption.”
We also discuss the use of “integrity pacts” for use in large procurement contracts (page 393).
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