Tag: Chris Mullin

Below is the text of the speech made by Chris Mullin, the then Foreign Office Minister, in New York, USA, on 4th February 2004.

There are a number of reasons why Africa should matter to us. The first, of course, is moral. The war, famine, disease and unspeakable barbarity that have haunted that tragic Continent for much of the twentieth century are simply unacceptable in a civilised world. Some years ago Prime Minister Blair described the condition of Africa as ‘a scar on the conscience of mankind’. And so it is.

There are also, however, sound practical reasons why we cannot afford to ignore the state of Africa. The most immediate of these is terrorism. It is a little known fact that there have been more Al Qaeda attacks in Africa than anywhere else in the world. The fact that in parts of Africa such as Somalia entire societies have imploded makes them a ready breeding ground for terrorism.

It is also not widely realised that there are more Muslims south of the Sahara than in the Middle East, most of them, fortunately, are moderates. If we want them to stay that way, we cannot neglect Africa.

Africa also has oil and gas resources to rival those of the Middle East. We need to work together with Africa to make sure Africans benefit from this resource. This is an important strand of efforts to bring prosperity to the region.

Then there is HIV/AIDS. Of estimated 42 million people living with AIDS about three-quarters are in Africa and the rate of increase is steeper in Africa than anywhere else. Globalisation and travel means that AIDS is exported ever more easily. The USA and Europe are not immune.

These then are sound practical reasons why we should be interested in Africa, but as I said at the outset the primary reason – for decent people of all political persuasions – is moral.

A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY

The good news is that for a variety of reasons, some man-made, some fortuitous, a window of opportunity now exists that will enable us – if we demonstrate the necessary political will – to make a difference. To coin a phrase, a wind of change is blowing. A series of venal dictatorships is giving way to elected governments; countries like South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Uganda and even Nigeria, now have governments that care about their people. This year we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the end of Apartheid in South Africa. Who, ten years ago, would have dared predict that the transition to majority rule could have been achieved without a bloodbath? What has happened in South Africa is a great achievement and ought to serve as an inspiration for the rest of the Continent.

Elsewhere – in Angola, the Congo, Sudan – civil wars which have wracked those countries for decades and generated slaughter and barbarity on an unimaginable scale – appear to be coming to an end.

There is also a growing recognition among African leaders that they, too, have a part to play in resolving their Continent’s problems. Witness the South African-led peacekeeping forces in the Congo and Burundi. Witness the role Nigeria and Ghana are playing in helping to resolve the West African conflicts. Witness, also, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) in which Africans are taking the lead in spreading sound economic management, democracy and good governance.

So, there is a sound basis for partnership between the G8 and Africa. The United States and Great Britain share common priorities in Africa. Last November in London President Bush and Prime Minister Blair re-affirmed their commitment to Africa. They agreed to strengthen co-operation in a number of key areas and provide support through the G8 Africa Action Plan. Both our countries have key roles to play in our respective G8 Presidencies this year and next to take forward those commitments. Today I want to set our how Britain and the US, together with our other partners, can work together in support of Africa.

THE G8 AND AFRICA

With leadership from President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, the G8 responded to NEPAD over two years ago by agreeing a series of commitments under the G8 Africa Action Plan. These included increasing and improving development assistance, tackling debt, liberalising world trade and helping developing economies and developing a new partnership with Africa.

One of the main objectives of the Plan was also to define a new way of working with Africa as well as addressing the main constraints on Africa’s development. The G8/Africa partnership is based on the principle of mutual accountability – that if Africa is to make progress, both the G8 and African governments must live up to their commitments. This represents a fundamental shift in the development relationship between the international community and Africa. It is not a case of quid pro quo, it is a partnership based on the need for both sides to make progress. In the G8, we must live up to our commitments to increase the volume and effectiveness of aid, and improve the coherence of policies – such as on trade – with international development goals.

The partnership between the G8 and Africa has galvanised efforts on both sides to deliver. It also keeps Africa on the agenda. It provides a regular opportunity for leaders from African and major industrialised countries to sustain political efforts and attention needed for change. The fact that President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and other G8 leaders sat down at last year’s G8 Summit with President Mbeki, President Obasanjo and other African leaders was important in itself.

But the principle value of the G8 lies in its ability to give high level political attention to issues where political weight is essential to progress. It is important that we, in the G8, focus our efforts where they will have most impact. A concerted effort by G8 and African leaders to tackle key issues including conflict, HIV, trade and education is essential if we are to get on track for the Millennium Development Goals. With our support, the G8 engagement with Africa has recently broadened to an extended Africa Partners Forum, which includes 19 African countries. It is important that the Forum maintains the high level political engagement that African Heads of government have emphasised as being key to G8 engagement with Africa. We do not see the Forum as a channel for deciding or bidding on sector projects. The Forum has a strategic role to play, one which should put a political spotlight on issues.

Our objectives for the Forum are for a frank and open dialogue which will maintain high level political commitment; review priorities; promote coordination and policy coherence; and track progress against commitments made on both sides.

THE UK AND AFRICA

Underlying everything we do in Africa is our belief in a relationship with African countries as equal partners. We expect issues affecting Africa to remain on the G8 agenda this year, under the US Presidency. The Prime Minister is committed to making Africa a key part of the UK’s 2005 G8 Presidency. We have made a bilateral commitment to £ 1 billion a year in development assistance to Africa by 2005, an increase of over 50% in the last three years alone. The funds will be used in the countries that need them the most – the poorest. We will focus development assistance on the areas that can best reduce poverty – health, education, and building accountable and effective governments.

AREAS FOR GREATER INTERNATIONAL AND AFRICAN COOPERATION

I would like to highlight next some areas where I think the international community and African partners need to continue to focus their efforts:

CONFLICT

Progress in Africa, and improvement in the lives of its people, has been undermined or destroyed by conflict and insecurity. Scarce resources needed to fight poverty have been wasted. Conflicts in one country have fuelled insecurity and instability in its neighbours. In all, some 200 million people in Sub Saharan Africa have been affected by conflict.

I therefore see peace and security, and tackling the underlying causes of conflict, as top priorities. We must support African efforts to resolve armed conflicts. We need to provide assistance so that African countries and regional and sub-regional organisation are able to engage more effectively to prevent and resolve violent conflicts and to undertake peace support operations.

The new African Union peace and security architecture presents an opportunity for us to engage. The AU is now leading the first African mission in Burundi with Ethiopian, South African and Mozambican troops to which the UK has contributed nearly £4 million. And the AU is developing a plan for an African standby peacekeeping force. We are seeking to support this through the implementation of the joint Africa/G8 plan to enhance African peace and security capabilities in close collaboration particularly with the African Union, ECOWAS, the US, France, Germany and Canada. A peace plan for training and operational support has been developed and agreed between the G8 and African countries.

Our engagement in Sierra Leone is an example of where Britain, working alongside others, can make a difference in Africa. By deploying UK forces, creating a more effective and accountable Sierra Leonean army, and helping to tackle the root causes of the conflict, we have played a part in bringing peace to Sierra Leone. But this would have been nothing without the UN, ECOWAS and Government of Sierra Leone’s commitment to make it work. Much remains to be done, but we have demonstrated that the international community can work together to bring an end to seemingly impossible conflicts.

The support of the international community has been vital in helping to resolve the conflicts in the Great Lakes region – Africa’s equivalent of the first world war in which millions died. We are doing all we can to ensure that peace is established in that region – a region the size of Europe.

In Liberia the partnership between the US and ECOWAS has bought tentative peace to a country ravaged by years of conflict. While the numbers of US troops deployed were small, their effect was great; an example of the importance of international engagement in African conflict resolution. We welcome the leadership role the US has taken in Liberia.

In Southern Sudan, for the first time in more than a generation, there is a prospect of peace. A chance to end Africa’s longest-running civil war in Africa’s largest country. After decades of conflict, the challenges are enormous. Former combatants, amongst them child soldiers, need to be persuaded to give up their weapons and helped to return and re-settle into their communities. The displaced people will want help returning home and rebuilding their lives. Schools and hospitals must be built. And the foundations for democracy have to be laid to give a voice to those who have been marginalised for so long. And of course an international peace-support operation will have to be set up to monitor the peace. The UN is already making plans, but the support of the international community in all these areas will be crucial if peace is to hold.

TACKLING TERRORISM

Terrorism. Africa has a track record of serious terrorism including the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2002 Kenya hotel bombing and attempted shooting down of a holiday jet carrying Israeli passengers. The failed state of Somalia, and undoubtedly other weak states in Africa, present terrorists with space in which to plan and export attacks. These are not anomalous incidents but symptoms of a problem in Africa which poses a serious, direct and continuing security threat to us, and poses a fundamental threat to Africa itself.

We are of course pursuing terrorists in Africa in collaboration with our partners there, and are doing so with great vigour. But that is only part of the solution. Irrespective of operational success, the factors which sustain and feed terrorist networks and activity also need tackling. These factors stem from a complex relationship between geography, institutional weakness, corruption, poor borders, economic and social issues, radicalisation and alienation, and simple opportunity. So to that extent the problems of terrorism are inextricably connected to Africa’s other problems, and the solutions are likewise interconnected. And we cannot wish the problem away: on the contrary the signs are that, if unchecked, the terrorist problem in Africa could grow.

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND TRADE

The current trade system doesn’t work for Africa. Africa’s share of world trade is declining. In 2002 it produced only 2% of global exports compared to 6% in 1980. We need to reverse this trend and facilitate Africa’s integration into the global economy by making our markets more accessible to African exports.

We therefore welcome the moves here to extend the coverage and duration of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act to 2015 which has opened up new markets for African exports in the US. In Lesotho for instance, the Act has attracted significant foreign direct investment and increased garment exports to the US by an average of 24% a year, creating almost 30,000 new jobs.

The UK Government is determined to do all it can, working with the US and other international partners, to get the Doha Development Round back on track and deliver real benefits for African countries and their poorest citizens.

We should pay special attention to critical areas such as agricultural market access and reducing trade distorting subsidies particularly for key commodities for Africa such as cotton.

HIV/AIDS

Supporting African partners to fight HIV/AIDS is a high priority for both the US and the UK. Indeed we are the two largest bilateral donors of HIV/AIDS assistance. Both our countries have substantial bilateral country-based programmes and are major contributors to a number of relevant global initiatives, including the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and malaria.

Last November when they met in London, President Bush and my Prime Minister agreed to enhance our collaboration on the ground in five African countries (Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zambia) in order to better support their national HIV/AIDS plans.

This enhanced collaboration, when harnessed to the efforts of all other contributors, should help improve overall donor harmonization, an aim both our governments are keen to pursue. Better coordinated and better funded support is clearly an important means to reach the key international targets of: three million people – two million in Africa – receiving treatment by the end of 2005; 25% fewer young people infected by 2005; and slowing the progress of HIV/AIDS by 2015.

GOVERNANCE

We must work to strengthen governance in African states. Effective institutions, representative democracy and accountable government are essential conditions for growth, development and poverty reduction. African governments are increasingly taking poverty reduction seriously, improving governance, economic and political performance. We are supporting them through our engagement with and support to NEPAD and country owned poverty reduction strategies.

The African Review Mechanism, developing under NEPAD, is a bold commitment, establishing a process for monitoring good governance. We support it as well as the work currently in progress in the OECD to develop a mutual review of donor performance in Africa.

MORE AND BETTER DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE

There is an urgent need to increase the quality and quantity of development aid. We are taking a lead role in working with our international partners and with international organisations to do this. Improving aid quality means making sure that donors adopt common practices for the disbursement of aid and that country programmes reflect the recipient’s priorities.

We also need to maintain momentum on meeting our commitments for substantial new development assistance. This includes ensuring that 50% of new commitments go to Sub-Saharan Africa, providing predictable levels of resources to those countries who can best use it.

We are exploring with partners how best to do this, for example, through the UK’s proposal for an International Finance Facility (IFF) which aims to double resources for development assistance up to 2015 by leveraging in additional resources from the private sector. The IMF and World Bank are carrying out detailed work ahead of reports to the Spring and Annual Meetings of the Fund and Bank. We welcome the potential of the US Government’s Millennium Challenge Account to make more resources available for development in Africa. It is important that this initiative succeeds, both in terms of the volume of funding delivered through the mechanism, but also as a new approach to deliver aid. We look forward to seeing the Millennium Challenge Account up and running and to working with it in any way we can.

CONCLUSION

Africans are increasingly recognising their responsibility to tackle the problems on their Continent. Our role is to help Africa help itself.

The UK is strongly committed to the G8 Africa Action Plan and the Africa partnership. They offer a new framework for long-term, constructive engagement with African people and their leaders to ensure that a stable, democratic and successful Africa takes it rightful place in the global economy.

We look forward to continuing to work with our American friends to realise that goal.

Below is the text of the speech made by the then Foreign Office Minister, Chris Mullin, in Cape Town, South Africa, on 3rd November 2003.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends,

Last week in London a series of events was held to celebrate the tenth anniversary of your country’s freedom. I myself had the pleasure of hosting a reception to mark the occasion, which was attended by many members of the South African and British governments, including your Foreign Minister, Dr Dlamini Zuma. I will say to you what I said to them. Namely, that for many of us active in British politics, the release of Nelson Mandela and the subsequent peaceful transfer of power from the Apartheid regime to South Africa’s first democratically elected government was one of the seminal events of our political lives. What made a particular impression in the UK, where we sometimes tend to take democracy for granted, was the sight of long lines of impoverished people queuing patiently for hours in order, for the first time in their lives, to cast their vote.

South Africa has come a long way during the last ten years. It has assumed its rightful place as a major player, both of the continent of Africa and in the world as a whole. It plays an important part in the Commonwealth, in the Non-Aligned Movement, in the United Nations and in the African Union. It has contributed peacekeepers to war torn neighbours. It is playing a leading part in NEPAD, the New Partnership for African Development – of which we all have high hopes.

But what has impressed us most in the ten years since you won your freedom is the dignity with which you went about coming to terms with your past. How you did not allow yourselves to become consumed with bitterness or a desire for revenge which might so easily have poisoned the future. How instead you have built a coalition in which there is a place for everyone who wants to play a part in a multi-racial democracy. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission has become a model for other divided societies struggling to overcome their terrible past – only the other day a prominent Iraqi remarked to me that Iraqis could do with something similar in their own country.

THE CHALLENGES AHEAD

Friends, I congratulate you on what has been achieved so far. We are proud to be your partners. But, as I am sure you will be the first to agree, it is not enough to celebrate what has been achieved so far. Other large challenges lie ahead. I want, if I may, to use this opportunity to set out some of those challenges and how we hope, in partnership with our friends in Africa, to tackle them.

First however, I want to assure you that we will not allow events in Iraq to distract us from our commitment to Africa. Prime Minister Tony Blair has long made clear his personal commitment to Africa and he has re-iterated this commitment on several occasions. DFID has reaffirmed 2 commitments; that it’s spending in Africa will continue to rise substantially (set to reach £1billion per year by 2006); and that the proportion of DFID programmes going to low income countries will rise to 90% by the same date. We had already planned to reduce our overall allocation to middle income countries (MICs) in order to increase spending in the poorest countries. In light of the needs in Iraq we will make reallocations within our overall MIC programmes. No decision has yet been taken on changed spending for individual countries. But Hilary Benn has made clear that he intends to maintain a substantial programme in South Africa. It is not my place to preach about Africa’s problems, indeed you are as well aware of them as I am, but the grim facts will not go away unless they are faced. Since 1960 over eight million Africans have died as a result of war and ninety percent of the casualties have been not soldiers, but civilians. Many millions more have become refugees, fleeing war and chaos. It is the responsibility of all of us to tackle poverty in Africa. We are committed to meeting the Millennium Development Goals, which aim to halve the proportion of the world population living in poverty. Africa requires annual growth of 7% to meet this goal.

Second, we should remember that there is much good news in Africa. Democratic governance is taking root. Ghana, Senegal and Kenya, which I have just visited, have all seen peaceful transfers of power in the last four years. Some countries have seen very strong economic performance. Uganda is among the ten fastest growing economies in the world. The recovery of the South African rand is a tribute to the strength and sound management of Africa’s largest economy.

There is also hope of an end to Africa’s most intractable conflicts. Angola is at peace for the first time in thirty years. Sierra Leone is rebuilding itself. The DRC and Burundi are all making fresh starts. The role which President Mbeki played personally in helping to broker agreements including the signing of the Pretoria Protocol yesterday, together with the commitment of South African troops to sustain them, reflect great credit to your country. I am encouraged by the prospect of a peace agreement in Sudan, and the success of ECOWAS in ensuring a peaceful transition in Liberia.

Africa’s leaders are leading this progress. They have made clear that they will not wait for the rest of the world to solve the continent’s problems. NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development demonstrates this approach. It is about Africa taking responsibility for African problems; and development partners accepting their role in supporting it. The G8 has responded by making clear commitments to reinforce the efforts of regional leaders.

Thirdly, good governance is critical to Africa’s development. As President Mbeki has said, democracy, good governance and respect for human rights are not alien conditions imposed by western donors. They are African values rooted in the councils of the chiefs for many generations. The African Peer Review Mechanism is a bold commitment, establishing a process for monitoring good governance that goes further than any other in the world. It will give business, African and foreign, the confidence to invest.

ZIMBABWE

I am sure that you are expecting me to say a little about Zimbabwe in this context. I will disappoint some journalists when I point out that Britain and South Africa agree to a large extent about Zimbabwe. When Foreign Secretary Jack Straw visited South Africa in May, he and Foreign Minister Dlamini-Zuma agreed a communiqué on a range of bilateral issues. Let me quote to you the section on Zimbabwe: ‘both countries agreed on the need to encourage the parties to commit themselves to removing the obstacles to the negotiations. They underlined that the longer the problems in Zimbabwe remain unresolved, the more entrenched poverty will become. They stressed their commitment to an outcome in which the people of Zimbabwe enjoy independence, freedom, peace, stability, democracy and prosperity. The Working Group noted, unequivocally, that no lasting solution to the challenges that face Zimbabwe can be found, unless that solution comes from the people of Zimbabwe themselves’.

We know that President Mbeki and others have been working hard to help the negotiations between ZANU (PF) and the MDC bear fruit. We applaud those efforts, and wish them every success. But for these talks to succeed there has to be a serious commitment to dialogue – in this context the recent closure of the Daily News and the locking up of trade union leaders sends the wrong signal, and these must be reversed.

The British position is often misrepresented. We support the people of Zimbabwe. We support their human rights. We recognise and have said clearly that the colonial inheritance on land was both unjust and unsustainable. We fully support land reform, but only if it is done transparently, sustainably and for the benefit of the poor. And we are helping keep Zimbabweans alive, by helping to finance the international humanitarian relief effort. Last winter the World Food Programme, to which we are major contributors, helped to feed more than five million Zimbabweans. How can it be that this beautiful country that was the bread basket of Southern Africa has been reduced to relying on foreign aid to keep its people alive? I should also make clear that, once there is a democratically accountable government in Zimbabwe, working for the interests of its own people, we are ready to help lead the international community’s efforts to rebuild the country. In the meantime, we will do all in our power to ensure that no Zimbabwean starves, and to help tackle the HIV/AIDS crisis.

BRITAIN’S WIDER ROLE IN AFRICA

But enough on Zimbabwe. Let me say a little about the role that Britain hopes to play more widely in Africa. Our aim is a relationship with African countries as equal partners. We recognise the moral obligation to support African efforts. But we also recognise that there are wider reasons. Terrorism and extremism thrive where there is oppression and poverty.

So what are we doing to help Africa to achieve the recovery is seeks? First, our bilateral commitment. We will commit £1bn a year in development assistance to Africa by 2005. The funds will be used in the countries that need them most – the poorest. We will focus development assistance on the areas that can best reduce poverty – health, education, and building accountable and effective governments.

Secondly, we recognise that trade is much more important than aid. The disappointment of Cancun should not discourage us from pursuing a fairer global trading system. We will build on alliances with developing countries, including South Africa, to get the Doha Development agenda back on track. We will not continue to tolerate a situation in which a cow in Europe is subsidised at $2 a day (twice the amount that half of all Africans live on). With our support the European Union has made substantial reforms to the Common Agricultural Policies Policy which when implemented will cut damaging European subsidies and open European markets. We want to go further.

Thirdly, we will continue to use our influence to ensure the developed world is prepared to give Africa a fairer chance. We are leading the effort to provide debt relief for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries. This is releasing up to $41.2 billion for the twenty countries in Africa that are participating. We have also proposed, with South Africa’s support, an International Financing Facility. Including debt relief this should lead to the release of up to $50 billion of development assistance in a reasonably short time frame, making the Millennium Development Goals more achievable. We will support African national, regional and continental institutions to build the capacity to absorb these levels of funding.

I highlighted Africa’s efforts to end its wars. We will support these. The UK is providing resources and expertise for conflict prevention, peacekeeping and conflict resolution missions as the AU Peace and Security Council establishes itself. We are closely involved in the process of peacebuilding in Sierra Leone, and we supported deployment of South African troops in the DRC. In Burundi, we have provided £3.9m to the cost of peacekeeping efforts led by South Africa, Mozambique and Ethiopia. In this context, I am happy to announce that South Africa and Britain will in the next few days conduct a bilateral command and control exercise in South Africa – Exercise African Shield. British and South African military and civilian personnel will share experience and techniques in regional peacekeeping. We hope this practical co-operation will help the AU and UN to meet the challenges ahead.

Like you, we will give increasing attention to HIV/AIDS. We are already engaged in battling TB and malaria throughout Africa, but tackling this new disease poses unique challenges. So far, Africa has borne the brunt of these, although HIV is now spreading fast in other parts of the world too. The world has had to learn fast, we now know that we need a comprehensive response – preventing the spread of infection; treatment and care of those infected; addressing the wider impact on society. Britain is working with African countries and with international organisations to promote this sort of response. Like many round the world, we welcome South Africa’s recent decision to expand access to anti retroviral treatment as part of a comprehensive approach.

Finally, we will continue to act as champions of NEPAD and the African Union. Tony Blair intends to make Africa a central focus of the UK’s Presidency of the G8 in 2005.

CONCLUSION

Our relationship with South Africa exemplifies this partnership. Tony Blair and President Mbeki have worked closely together on the progressive governance. South Africa and Britain have £6bn worth of two-way bilateral trade every year. We are working together in multilateral fora to combat crime, terrorism and money laundering. We also share goals in the pursuit of free trade, in the Renewable Energy Partnership that followed the Johannesburg summit, and in ethical business practise, in particular the efforts to promote transparency in the Extractives Industry.

Friends we regard South Africa as a role model for the rest of Africa. In 10 short years you have managed a peaceful transition from Apartheid to a modern democracy in which there is freedom of speech, the rule of law, a market economy and a real effort to improve the lives of your poorest people. We recognise that great challenges still lie ahead and we want to help you meet them. Success is important not only for you but for the whole of Africa.