Oral evidence: Sustainable Development Goals, HC 337Tuesday 1 December 2015

Oral evidence, 1 December 2015.

Witnesses

Dr Andrew Norton, Director, International Institute for Environment and Development, Jessica Woodroffe, Director, Gender and Development Network, and Thomas Wheeler, Conflict and Security Advisor, Saferworld, gave evidence.

Chair

Good morning and welcome to our three witnesses. This is the second panel of witnesses this morning. We have just 45 minutes and we have eight questions, if that can be borne in mind as both questions are asked and answered. Whilst sometimes it may be appropriate for all three witnesses to answer a question, sometimes it may only be necessary for one or two to answer.

Fabian Hamilton

My first question is a rather wide‑ranging one, so please decide whether you all want to answer or only one or two. The SDG agenda, as you will be well aware, is absolutely vast. I wondered how you think that DFID can best focus its resources to achieve progress on the goals and ensure that no one is left behind.

Chair

Let us try a minute each on that.

Thomas Wheeler

I can go ahead with that. One of the issues that has been prioritised as one of five priorities in the SDGs, and one of four in the new aid strategy, is peace. It is important that we think about peace in a positive way, not just as the absence of violence but as a developmental approach to conflict prevention, so dealing with some of the root drivers of conflict. A lot of that exists in Goal 16, for example corruption and governance issues, but we really need to think across the framework. It is thinking, for example, how gender equality links up to peaceful societies. How does dealing with climate change build up resilience from conflict? The focus is on leaving no one behind. That focus on peace, resilience and conflict, particularly in fragile states, is going to be key. We know at the moment that about 43% of people living in extreme poverty in the world are in fragile states. That is estimated to go up to about 62% by 2030. Other estimates are higher. We also know on the MDGs that the countries that fell furthest behind were those fragile and conflict‑affected states, and we are also seeing countries that are making good development progress being completely knocked off by conflict, so Syria for example. If we want to focus on sustainable development, if we want to look at conflict prevention, we are going to have to engage in fragile states. That does not mean reinventing the wheel. Twenty-one out of 28 of the countries that DFID currently works in are fragile states. As the ICAI report mentioned, there are lessons to be learned and there is a lot to be built on. I am happy to go into more detail on that.

Jessica Woodroffe

In general, we are looking for an approach that addresses the underlying causes, which looks at inequality, which takes an integrated approach, but also can specialise. That is one of the things that I have seen coming up in previous hearings: that there is a difference between the two. It is perfectly possible for DFID to take an integrated approach while also specialising for example in cross-cutting issues. To come on to my area—not to say that DFID should only work on gender equality—there is a very strong argument for DFID to focus on gender equality, partly because it is clearly a cross‑cutting issue. In every single one of the goals, we could see how promoting gender equality would not only ensure that women and girls benefited under that goal but could be a driver of achieving that goal for everybody. The next thing is needs. Obviously over half the population are women. Women’s rights have been recognised under the SDGs as crucial to development. Also, two-thirds of the people living in extreme poverty are women. If we are looking at the “leave no one behind” agenda, we need to look at women and girls. Quite a lot of the keys that will unlock progress in other areas are related to reducing gender inequality. The third area is solutions. There are solutions to a lot of the problems around gender equality, and that should be a criterion as to what DFID should look for. I would suggest that there are a number of relatively cheap things that could be done in relation to gender inequality, which would have a transformative impact. That should be one of the criteria across the board. The fourth one is comparative advantage. I know other people have mentioned this, but DFID clearly does have a comparative advantage in relation to work on women and girls, and gender equality.

Dr Norton

I agree with what the other panellists have said. One thing I would like to say is, with the new aid strategy’s focus on fragile countries and regions, it is important not to lose track of the focus on the least developed countries in that. DFID has a very good record, better than the average, of directing aid, particularly climate finance, towards the least developed countries. We would hope to see that continue. Obviously in the area I am speaking about, it is vital that DFID has the capacity to look at how climate change impacts across the full range of SDGs. This involves looking at climate risk and how that impacts on a wide range of programmes. We expect climate change to have dramatic impacts over time, across the full range of attainment—virtually every SDG. Finally, it is important, in looking at resources, to keep an eye on DFID’s own capacity to deliver too, particularly in terms of the country teams, which have been one of the really strong aspects of DFID down the years. As well as what is spent on operations, it is also important to look at the resources to tackle these particularly important and complex issues, like fragility, gender and climate.

Wendy Morton

Just to go back very quickly on what you were saying, Jessica, about women and inequality, you indicated that there are simple cheap things that could be done that would make a big difference. Could you share those with us?

Jessica Woodroffe

I could share lots of them in writing, but I will just give you a couple. Having heard the previous session, it is really interesting that one of the key things that I think would make a difference is to have a fund specifically for women’s organisations. Women’s organisations are some of the most transformative and cheapest ways of reaching the most marginalised people, both through service delivery and looking at the underlying causes, but also bringing women together so that, when we create the political spaces for civil society to have a voice, you then have groups of women who can take that up. What Ben was saying about re‑granting is crucial in relation to a women’s fund. DFID could set up a women’s fund, perhaps similar to the one that the Dutch have, called the FLOW fund, where they re‑grant to women’s funds. There is a fantastically named women’s fund called Mama Cash, for example. They have really flexible reporting requirements. For example, a grantee can just phone up and report over the phone. They do not even have to write a long proposal. They have long‑term funding and they have flexible core funding, so really quite small amounts of money could make quite a big difference. Another thing is similarly around resources. I know that asking for lots more money is not going to work, so what we are looking at is trying to improve the quality of resources. Gender‑responsive budgeting is another suggestion—this is being done in Nepal at the moment and is working really well and I believe it is just starting to happen in Uganda, with support from DFID, I think—where you look at budget allocation and revenue allocation, and look at the differential impact on men and women, and its impact on gender equality. That does not require any more funds. It is just making sure that those funds that are being spent are worth more. I could go on, but I will not.

Albert Owen

UNDP’s evidence to this inquiry suggests tackling route bottlenecks to accelerate progress across the goals, while Christian Aid, on the other hand, suggests tackling cross‑cutting themes. Is this useful advice for DFID and, if so, which should they prioritise?

Dr Norton

In terms of route bottlenecks, we need to look much more closely over coming years at the impacts of climate change on the risks that poor people face in various environments. We are already seeing evidence of people having to move. In Bangladesh in particular that is already showing up in the administrative data. It makes sense to have a cross‑cutting analysis, at the country level, in the countries in which DFID operates, of the specific impacts of climate change across the full range of SDGs. That would be effective, particularly looking at things like climate risk in relation to social transfers and social protection. That is one example of an area where you need to build in an understanding of the ways in which poor people’s livelihoods are being impacted, even now, and will be impacted much more strongly in the future.

Thomas Wheeler

Adding something similar to that, again if we want to focus on leaving no one behind and really getting to the most extreme poor, engaging on peace building, conflict prevention and fragility will be really key. That will be a cross‑cutting issue. It cuts across all of the goals. It does not necessarily mean just focusing on Goal 16, for example. More importantly than that, the key issues that DFID might programme within a country may be very different in country A from country B, because the drivers of conflict may be very different. It is really important, even if we do have a strong focus on peace and building resilience, that we also make sure that we are responding to local needs, doing our conflict analysis, being conflict sensitive and consulting locally. That is what is creating the programme.

Jessica Woodroffe

The Committee has got it right in terms of the three issues that you have picked as the cross‑cutting issues, if I may say so. It is the three I would have picked, because we each represent a bottleneck. The bottleneck and the cross‑cutting go together. What you will find in all of our areas is that, whatever topic you are looking at, there will be something that can unlock progress. Certainly in relation to gender equality, as I said, whether you are looking at employment and occupational segregation or whether you are looking at land use and the rights of women farmers—whatever area you are looking at—if you can tap into gender inequality and reduce gender inequality, you can unlock progress.

Albert Owen

Dr Norton, you mentioned climate change and there has been some concern by many NGOs and others about slow progress. Obviously we have the Paris conference coming up. What more can DFID do to be vocal in this and to really start setting the agenda? Do you think it is working enough with DECC and other departments in UK Government?

Dr Norton

I think that DFID is doing a lot of good and innovative work. The BRACED programme on building resilience in poor countries is a good example of innovative work that DFID is carrying out. In terms of areas to focus on in future, it makes sense to have strong capacity for policy advice in key areas. Just to pick out three, I have already mentioned social protection, but also how are countries going to build urban and transport infrastructure that is both climate‑resilient but also helps to reduce emissions over the long run? Finally, most countries now, as part of the Paris process, are developing their own climate action plans. That will also start to feed back into discussions around growth, so that is important. We also welcome that DFID has joined the new announcement to put $248 million into the least developed countries fund. We think that prioritising the least developed countries in terms of public funding for climate risk in particular makes sense, so we were pleased to see that announcement and would like to see that trend continue.

Albert Owen

Can I push you on something about working across departments? We hear announcements from each individual department, DECC for instance and also Transport. This tends to be, “This is our job and we are doing it okay. It is a matter for others.” With the Paris conference coming up now, as we speak, do you think there is more that DFID can do? This is my question to you. Is there more that they can do to highlight these issues? We know the great intentions it has and the good work it has done thus far, but how can it really focus the UK, so that we can be a main player in the world?

Dr Norton

The policy coherence issues are also important in terms of domestic policy. The universality theme of the SDGs implies that you need to be a leader in your domestic space, as well as in the overseas space. There are a number of ways in which that could be done, such as investment in research and development on clean technology. Again, the UK has made an announcement on that lately, but it is also important that we continue to support innovation in the UK’s own domestic sphere, in terms of renewable energy. There is also the fossil fuel subsidies agenda, which is massive. Those are still way too high. There are many other areas. Let us be clear: global progress towards emissions needs to be transformed. Success at Paris will not imply that we are there, in terms of the national plans not adding up to what we need. They will add up to maybe a quarter of what we need, in terms of a plausible pathway to 2°. We need to go beyond that and we need to see five‑year mechanisms to improve the ambition around that, and DFID, along with the rest of the UK Government, has a major role to play in that and also in the voice in Europe.

Albert Owen

Are you optimistic that we will get small progress rather than false dawns?

Dr Norton

You have to be optimistic, but there are two sides to that. One is that what is on the table is not enough, in terms of the national plans that are the basis for Paris, but there are ways of ensuring that we can continually increase our ambition. The least developed countries are asking for 1.5°. That will be their ask, and that is because some of them are not confident, particularly the small island states, that they would survive 2°. We know that even 2° displaces millions of people and, without drastic action, we will be looking at 3° or 4°. The World Bank’s Turn Down the Heat study suggests that 4° displaces 20 million people in Bangladesh alone, so it is incredibly important that we do get on a path. The UK Government has a role to play across the board. DFID is really important and definitely a leader in some fields, but it is very important that there is coherence.

Albert Owen

I have just one final point. We were told by the Ministers that they are going to be present in Paris but, more than that, they have projects like Energy Africa, for instance. Do you think that will go up the agenda? Do you think Britain is confident enough that it has enough partners to push that up the agenda, so that the African continent, for instance, can be seen as a focus of this to happen?

Dr Norton

That is an important programme. Energy access is important, but it is also vital that you are not investing in that and disinvesting in health systems, because some of the biggest impacts will be in health. This is just one example. We need to make sure that the investments are across the board in all the SDGs. This is the big challenge. This is why everyone says climate finance ideally should be new and additional. That is a tough ask of the UK, because its record on development finance is best in the G8. It has done very well on that, but we are not as yet in a place where we are seeing enough climate finance and we are not seeing it well enough directed. Also, there is still an agenda for the least‑developed countries, notwithstanding the welcome announcement about the LDCF.

Pauline Latham

It has been suggested that, in implementing the SDGs, DFID should concentrate where it has a comparative advantage or proven track record. Can you tell me what your opinion is of that?

Thomas Wheeler

Starting with issues related to conflict and working in fragile states, as I mentioned, DFID already works in 21 fragile states out of the full 28 that it works in. Even though there was an ICAI review of DFID’s engagement in fragile states that was critical, it also clearly stated that these are very challenging environments and that DFID was learning. Beyond that, DFID is quite respected for its work in fragile states, although there is a lot to be learned. Also, an ICAI report was quite critical of its work on security and justice, but that does not mean that we back away from these issues. In fact, we need to engage on them because they are so crucially important. They are complex and we do need to learn about them. We should continue to engage on them. Finally, the “leave no one behind” agenda is perhaps more linked to the SDGs, but thinking about inclusivity is really quite essential. From a peace-building and conflict-prevention perspective, there is really strong evidence that, when social groups or identity groups are excluded economically, politically or socially, that is a driver of conflict. Thinking about how we can harness development programmes, how we can harness trying to reach the poor and how we can use that for peace-building should be a big objective. That is one of the things that the ICAI report said DFID needs to learn more on.

Jessica Woodroffe

As I mentioned, DFID has a very strong record on what they would call “women and girls”. I would probably say “gender equality”. What is important in terms of the comparative advantage is that DFID does not necessarily have to work on every aspect of an issue. Where DFID is particularly placed around gender inequality is challenging taboos and showing leadership on difficult issues. We saw that around FGM, but DFID now needs to be looking to the next issues and addressing both the difficult issues and the issues that make a structural change, addressing the underlying causes. I think that across the board, but specifically on gender equality. I would suggest that, for example, they could do more work on unpaid care. DFID’s role in getting a target on unpaid care within the SDGs was important, I believe. Personally, I think that target 5.4 on unpaid care is one of the most transformative targets in the entire document, because unpaid care affects every aspect of women’s lives. It also affects the lives of the people who are being cared for. If you can recognise, reduce and redistribute women’s disproportionate burden of unpaid care that could make a profound difference. Yet, unpaid care is the only target in the SDGs that has “nationally appropriate” besides it, so some governments might decide not to pursue it. It therefore needs that international leadership to demonstrate that unpaid care is something that should be on the table for everyone and should be talked about. There is a very specific role for DFID and for the Secretary of State within this to break down the taboo of addressing unpaid care and particularly the social norms associated with it.

Dr Norton

Just to reiterate, one of the things that DFID is known for is very high quality engagement in partner countries, being there with high-quality staff over a long period. There have been two consecutive years of reductions in administrative costs. There is a concern about whether you have the spending in that area necessary to maintain the kinds of engagements you need, particularly on these complex issues. In fragile states and on gender, it is often more about the quality of the thinking and policy engagement than it is necessarily about the volume of money delivered. That is also an important factor across all three.

Chair

The next couple of questions flesh out some of the answers that we have just had.

Jeremy Lefroy

Continuing with fragile and conflict‑affected states, the Prime Minister announced that 50% of ODA spending, as opposed to 30%, would be going towards these states. Is there a conflict, or at least a difficulty, in having a results‑oriented agenda with one where you are putting more and more into fragile and conflict‑affected states?

Thomas Wheeler

It is a really important question. I would welcome an increased focus on conflict‑affected and fragile states. We still need to hear those contexts. It refers to regions as well, so how those are defined, where that spend would go and what it would be between them. There are some really practical operational considerations at the forefront of DFID’s mind. This touches a little bit on the last panel. The first is around incentives. Is there a risk that you are incentivising in‑country DFID staff to see success as spending more and getting the money out of the door? Secondly, is it dictating what kinds of partners DFID can work with? For example, can it work with a small organisation that cannot handle £3 million? Thirdly and linked to that, does it start dictating what kinds of projects DFID runs? Do we end up with fewer larger projects in fragile states, rather than many smaller ones? There are ways around this. For example in Myanmar, they have set up a fund that allows small, bespoke, very targeted projects. That is something that needs to be supported, because we still have a huge amount to learn. Thinking about results, the end result should be poverty reduction, in these contexts, and it should be creating a peaceful environment to allow that. Again touching a little bit on what was mentioned, it is a very obvious point, but more aid does not necessarily mean more peace. For starters, sometimes the drivers of conflict and fragility are not necessarily issues to do with outside money, for example very entrenched extractive political systems or deep divisions at social level. In fact, we have seen cases where more aid can end up fuelling conflict, entrenching those very political systems, for example through enabling regimes or fuelling local‑level conflicts between communities. We need some humility over how we use this money, and long‑term horizons and patience by DFID might be more of an asset than money and scale.

Jeremy Lefroy

I think Andrew was referring to this in the last answer. Would you also see the importance of relationships and experience of staff in a country? I think particularly in the last Parliament of the case of Burundi, where we pulled out in 2011, as far as DFID was concerned. We now see Burundi in a very difficult position, and one wonders whether, if DFID had been able to exercise some influence through a longer term relationship there, which they were building, perhaps something might have been a little different. It is clearly very difficult to answer that one, but the point I come to is that often it is the relationship that DFID has with a government or with a country that is more important than the quantity of money that is spent.

Thomas Wheeler

Those relationships are very crucial, and they come down sometimes to the individuals who are in a country and the expertise built up around that. In thinking about relationships, perhaps we need to move a little beyond a very state‑centric vision of stability. For example, DFID’s definition of fragility is about state weakness, and we need to be thinking much more about society. That is where the SDGs are quite helpful, with this language of peaceful, just and inclusive societies. There is a huge amount we can be doing outside of the state. For example in South Sudan, projects around reconciliation between different ethnic groups would have been a useful thing, where we saw that there are quite deep‑seated social divisions as well. There are risks about taking an overly state‑centric view and building up relationships with regimes that do not always have the interests of their people at heart.

Jeremy Lefroy

Could I just ask, given that clearly going into fragile and conflict‑affected states carries more risks with it, how they could be mitigated?

Thomas Wheeler

It is the definition of risk. For example in Somalia, as I understand it, DFID has done quite well managing risks related to corruption. It sets up processes. The risk that we are most concerned about is the risk of driving conflict. That is where conflict sensitivity and those approaches really need to be integrated into programming. It is thinking about the whole full wave of programmes that DFID is running in fragile states, thinking through if they are addressing the root drivers of conflict and if there is a risk they could be making things worse and fuelling things. What kinds of actions can we take? Basically that comes down to having very good conflict analysis and building programming around that. That is something that came out in the ICAI report. In some cases, DFID is still programming around conflict, working around conflict and doing development projects that are not dealing with root causes.

Dr Cameron

This is a question specifically for Jessica. DFID has repeatedly asserted and emphasised their commitment to women and girls. What do you feel we could be doing better in terms of achieving gender equality? You mentioned unpaid care. Are there any other underlying levers that you think are crucial?

Jessica Woodroffe

As I said, unpaid care is probably one of the most important ones. Another one is addressing social norms—the attitudes, beliefs and informal legal structures that reinforce assumptions, for example of men as breadwinners and women as carers. In every aspect across the goals, you will often find that it is those discriminatory social norms that are preventing progress. For example, it could be occupational segregation preventing women from getting more employment under Goal 8. It comes back to this issue about looking at the underlying causes. DFID is starting to do that, but there is a lot more that they could do. Social norms is one. Unpaid care is one. Another one is looking more broadly at women’s economic empowerment or women’s economic justice. We have seen quite a lot of emphasis within DFID on violence against women and girls—FGM and early forced marriage specifically. A great deal of good work has been done, but it is often not getting to the fundamental causes of why women are not able to control their lives. Looking at women’s access to economic resources and their access to decent work would probably have a more profound effect, so again there is an opportunity for showing leadership. Women’s economic empowerment is one of the four pillars in the strategic vision, but it has had less focus up until now. It is probably fair to say, not just for DFID but for most donors and, to be honest, most NGOs, they have a fairly siloed approach to gender and economics. There is not a great deal of synthesis between the two. If we could get some of the social development advisers and someone who specialised in gender working more with some of the economists, you could start making a breakthrough there.

Dr Cameron

Is access to education, such as secondary education, one of those levers too?

Jessica Woodroffe

Within every area there is something they could do. I did not mention education, just because, on the whole, more attention has been given to education than it has to economic empowerment. Certainly within education, once you look at further education, tertiary education is where it really drops off. Primary education is roughly similar. Secondary education is getting towards being similar. Tertiary education is where it really drops off. Also within education, and this is starting to happen, recognise the particular barriers that girls face in education. Under the MDGs, you had enrolment as a target. It has now been recognised that you should look at completion rather than enrolment, because girls enrol, but then they drop out of school, for all the reasons that we know. It is finding those underlying causes, where the barriers for boys or girls, men and women, are different that is important.

Dr Cameron

You mentioned mobilisation of women’s groups. Did you feel that the Girl Summit that was held helped mobilisation?

Jessica Woodroffe

The Girl Summit was useful in getting some issues on the agenda, particularly around FGM. Those big showcase pieces are very useful for breaking down some taboos. In terms of mobilisation on the ground, as I was talking about, a women’s fund is probably more useful. I cannot stress enough how important it is to get these small amounts of funding to these really good women’s organisations that could really make the difference. Some kind of women’s fund, with the re‑granting that Ben was talking about, is what would make the difference.

Fiona Bruce

I am interested to explore the tension that exists between mainstreaming certain areas, like climate change and sustainability, and women and girls, and ensuring that they remain priorities, in terms of the SDGs. I have to say, as a caveat, I do think our Secretary of State is unlikely to let women and girls be anything less than a priority. Can I have your comments, please?

Jessica Woodroffe

For those of us working in gender, that whole mainstreaming in combination with standalone projects is the big issue/solution. In fact, even within the SDGs, one of the things that we were arguing for very strongly was the importance of having both a standalone goal and gender being mainstreamed throughout the goals. That is the approach that we take all the time. If you do not have some of those standalone projects exactly as you say, mainstreaming can make things invisible. The other thing is how to do mainstreaming well. There, we found there are three key things. The first is high‑level political leadership—and, as you say, we have that at the moment—and secondly, technical resources. One of the things that you can have is the political pressure to mainstream gender, but people are somehow expected to know how to do that. It is a technical issue. Quite often, the youngest woman in the room is made the gender champion and they are supposed to know how to do this. It is a technical body of expertise that requires the resources. It is that combination of political leadership, resources and thirdly analysis. Particularly if we are looking at policy coherence across Whitehall, that analysis is important. It is moving from talking about women and girls as a vulnerable group, which is the old‑style analysis, to understanding that it is about the unequal power relationships between men and women. That is not the same as women as a vulnerable group.

Dr Norton

It is interesting; the issues are similar in some ways, but different in some. In the last Parliament, we had the International Climate Fund, which was a cross‑Whitehall instrument for DECC, DEFRA and DFID. DFID staff in particular found that they had to jump through hoops in order to say they were doing climate. They had to go through a set of procedures. That is not the best way to mainstream across the board. We hope that whatever replaces it, which is not clear at the moment, is more streamlined and user‑friendly for mainstreaming. In terms of the climate area, there are similarities to what Thomas was saying about fragility. The key thing is to have a country‑level analysis of the ways in which climate change impacts on the full range of SDGs, but also the ways in which climate action can have co‑benefits with other things as well. For example, low‑carbon cities will tend to be healthier cities. A country‑level analysis in the countries where DFID is working, the focus partner countries, would be a good place to start in order to capture the full range of actions where climate change is relevant and should be taken into account.

Thomas Wheeler

Just adding to that, perhaps this is a little naïve, but I hope—and do not think it is a challenge—to prioritise both having a cross‑cutting focus, for example on conflict through making sure a programme is conflict‑sensitive, while at the same time having very specific programmes that are engaging on that specific issue. I hope that we can have both. It is also quite interesting simply to think about the linkages between these three different issues here. There are linkages. How is DFID unpacking those? For example, how is it unpacking how resilience to climate change issues will be the same as resilience to conflict? How are issues related to gender inequality related to other drivers of conflict? Something we have found really fascinating working on Goal 16 is bringing together governance people, people working on justice and people working on conflict. There is a whole bunch of different issues in that goal, but there are a lot of synergies between them that could be unpacked a little bit more, really breaking down barriers.

Chair

Finally, we saw the Secretary of State yesterday and we were talking to her about Ebola. During the context of that discussion, we also talked about her role as the lead minister on the Sustainable Development Goals for the British Government, but also the role that the Cabinet Office is playing. Can I ask each of you to comment on two issues, policy coherence on the Global Goals but also the universal aspect, i.e. how we best implement the Global Goals domestically? Who would like to kick off with that one?

Thomas Wheeler

I can kick off. When we are thinking about conflict issues and fragility, policy coherence is probably more important for the UK than how much it is spending on fragile states. That is the top issue. It is absolutely key. We know that commercial investments, banking regulations, national security policy and arms export controls issues can have a huge bearing on fragility overseas. Although we have started to see this addressed in the SDSR and in 2011 we had the Building Stability Overseas Strategy, when it comes down to implementation, we have been lacking. There have been some incoherence’s. Some of my colleagues, for example, would stress that the UK is spending £75 million providing humanitarian aid to people in Yemen while, at the same time, the UK still continues to authorise arms exports to Saudi Arabia, which is a conflict actor there. How are those two things coherent? We need to unpack those a lot more. DFID needs to lead on Goal 16. DFID needs to lead on the peace agenda. It needs to play its mandated role, which is to deal with conflict drivers and deal with upstream conflict prevention, dealing with the root causes of conflict, but to make this work it needs to be independent enough, it needs to have long‑term time horizons and it needs to be able to focus on people’s security. The mandate focused on poverty reduction and extreme poverty is the right way to allow and enable it to play that role. DFID’s experience in programmes on the ground should be coming back to London and informing policymaking in London, not vice versa, where Whitehall is dictating how DFID engages in fragile states on the ground. Finally, it is really crucial that DFID has influence within Whitehall and that it is able to really challenge our short‑term policies, whether that is to do with a certain commercial aspect or to do with national security issues, and is able to stay, “Stop; you are potentially undermining years and years of work of upstream conflict prevention.” Allowing it to have that voice, especially in the National Security Council, would be really important. The UK should be investing in upstream long‑term conflict prevention, because otherwise we are going to be going from crisis to crisis to crisis.

Dr Norton

I touched on this earlier but, under the sustainable development paradigm and the shift towards universality and sustainability as the key things, arguably the most important thing that richer countries can do is reduce their own overconsumption and reduce their own contributions to unsustainable models for economic growth. Policy coherence is absolutely fundamental in the climate space.

Jessica Woodroffe

On gender equality, in some ways it is easier because so many of the issues are the same but, in terms of policy coherence, one thing I did want to say is that, as more and more ODA is going through non‑DFID departments, there are a number of things in place that scrutinise DFID’s assistance in relation to gender equality, for example, the Gender Act and the OECD gender equality marker, which DFID applies but FCO does not, and also all the analysis that DFID has done. It is extremely important for this Committee to scrutinise whether the same levels of standards and scrutiny being put on ODA that goes through DFID are being applied to ODA that is going through other departments. In terms of domestic implementation, I was saying before that DFID can and does play an extremely important leadership role in terms of gender equality, but it will only go on being able to do that if it is actively being seen to implement SDG 5 in the UK as well. That comparative advantage that DFID has will start being undermined if HMG is not very serious about SDG 5 within the UK.

Jeremy Lefroy

Given that the United Nations, for all the problems it faces, is absolutely key to many of these issues, whether it is in stability, peacekeeping, peace enforcing or indeed in development, do you think the review places enough emphasis on the role of the United Nations in these various areas? Perhaps, Thomas, you can comment on that.

Thomas Wheeler

Especially when it comes to issues of conflict and fragility, the UN plays a key role. We welcome that DFID and the Secretary of State chaired a discussion with the UN Security Council looking at how its work relates to dealing with the root drivers of conflict. At the same time, it is important that we are using the SDGs to focus on the root drivers of conflict from a developmental approach, rather than from a securitised approach. This sits across different bits of the UN and all of those bits of the UN need to be engaged on how they are taking forward the SDGs, but looking especially at the developmental parts will be quite important. I do agree overall that a strong focus on the UN’s role in these issues would be quite useful. How the UN is going to carry this forward is going to be extremely important as well.

Dr Norton

Obviously the UN is central, and SDG 13 is the only one that specifies a UN process, the UNFCCC, so it is obviously central in the climate space.

Jessica Woodroffe

In my area around gender equality, UN Women needs to play a greater role than it has so far, because there is a danger that the northern donors are written off as a northern approach to gender equality that is inappropriate to the south. I do not agree with that, but that risk is there. Supporting UN Women to take that more internationalised approach is really important. Within the Multilateral Aid Review, I should say that DFID did very well in looking at gender equality criteria. I know that is not quite an answer to your question, but it is important that the Multilateral Aid Review needs to be looking at the extent to which UN agencies are delivering the SDGs. In relation to gender, it was doing that, but I am not sure about other areas.

Jeremy Lefroy

While I welcome those comments, it seems to me that, in the United Nations, we have a body that has huge potential but is not fulfilling that potential in so many areas. We have talked about this in the context of CSOs earlier, but the contributions to core funding are simply not there. We have heard about the WHO and lack of core funding there. If you talk to our former colleague Stephen O’Brien, who is now head of UN OCHA, again he talks about his budget only being about 40% funded. Do you think that the UK, perhaps surprisingly given that we have not put as much behind the UN over the past 20 or 30 years as we might have done, could be a real advocate for the importance of working together within the UN? Obviously we are thinking particularly of Syria at the moment, but it is much wider.

Jessica Woodroffe

That links back to one of the points that Ben was making in the previous session around how you define value for money as well. As we have become narrower and narrower in the definition of value for money, that long‑term and behind‑the‑scenes pulling together and building of political will for long‑term change is not quantifiable in terms of most of the value for money agenda. Those two things really go together, both for funding for CSOs and funding for multilaterals, particularly the UN body. We do need to redefine what we mean by value for money.

Chair

Do you want to add anything? There is no obligation.

Dr Norton

Are these closing remarks?

Chair

This is the end of the session, yes. There are no closing remarks. We do not want to overrun.

Dr Norton

I wanted to come back to the issue that Thomas and Jessica both alluded to of the interconnections between the three areas. Climate change will have a major impact on gender equality. There is lots of evidence around that and there are various transmission channels for it. There is obviously a very contested relationship in terms of climate stress and conflict. My own view is that climate is best seen as something that contributes indirectly towards climate threats. The threat multiplier language is used. There is always some other failure in human arrangements when you get violent conflict in response to an environmental stressor, but that does not mean it is insignificant. The interconnections between the three areas here are what I would like to finish on.

Chair

That is an excellent note on which to end the evidence session. Can I say a massive thank you to the three of you? In the space of just under 45 minutes, we have covered a great deal of ground and your evidence, all three of you, has been extremely helpful for our inquiry, so thank you very much. Oral evidence: Sustainable Development Goals, HC 337 1