Millennium Development Goals
The final item of business is a members' business debate on motion S2M-972, in the name of Des McNulty, on millennium development goals. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda and continuing poverty in sub-Saharan Africa; recognises the extreme urgency of international efforts in making progress towards achieving the eight millennium development goals by 2015 including the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, achievement of universal primary education, promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women, reduction of child mortality, improvement of maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development; further recognises the role that churches and other civic society organisations in Scotland have played in reminding us of our responsibilities to people in the poorest countries, and looks forward to a timetable being set by Her Majesty's Government for meeting its commitment to increase the UK aid budget to 0.7% of gross national product.
The main purpose of the debate is to promote understanding of two highly significant international issues. The 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda is on 7 April and this debate is an appropriate way to commemorate and reflect on what happened during 100 terrible days in 1994. The second part of my motion refers to the millennium development goals, to which 189 members of the United Nations signed up at the millennium summit in 2000. The two matters are linked, in that achievement of the goals by 2015 is crucial if we are to ensure that the events in Rwanda are never repeated there or elsewhere in the world.
What happened in Rwanda makes chilling reading. The death in a plane crash of the Rwandan President precipitated 100 days of mass murder during which 1 million people, mainly from the Tutsi ethnic group, were slaughtered. Many of them were hacked to death. Two million refugees fled to Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire—which is now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo—and spread violence and destitution in those countries.
Even before the violence, Rwanda was one of the poorest places on earth. In the aftermath of the genocide, 35 per cent of all families are headed by widows and many young people are traumatised. Some are traumatised as victims, some as observers and some—sadly—as active participants in dreadful acts of savagery.
The tragedy could have been averted. The international community could have intervened to reduce or stop the slaughter at any time during those 100 days, but it failed to do so. The view of the United Nations commander in Kigali, Romeo Dallaire, was that the failure to act means that the
"international community has blood on its hands".
Genocide is
"the intentional destruction of a nation or an ethnic group".
It implies the existence of a co-ordinated plan aimed at total extermination, which is put into effect against individuals who are chosen as victims purely, simply and exclusively because they are members of the target group.
In the first five days, the Rwandan army and the militias—mainly the interahamwe, or "those who attack together"—killed 20,000 people. Then, the country's new leaders sent out the message that there was only one enemy—the Tutsi. State-controlled radio broadcasts labelled all Tutsi as inyenzi—cockroaches—which incited the Hutu majority to kill Tutsi to secure supremacy.
On 9 December 1948, the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was approved. It was intended to prevent future holocausts but, 50 years later, a blind eye was turned in respect of Rwanda. Was that because the key players in the international community had few economic or political interests at stake? How else can we explain the very different responses to ethnic cleansing when it took place in Kosovo, on the fringes of Europe?
We cannot pick or choose when responding to human suffering on such a scale. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, has recently spoken about the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. He said:
"When, on 7 April, people around the world commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, that observance should be filled not only with remorse, but with resolve. We must remember the victims—the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children abandoned to systematic slaughter while the world, which had the capacity to save most of them, failed to save more than a handful, forever sullying the collective conscience."
Genocide is a crime so evil that it cannot be tolerated anywhere in the world, but I believe that we have other moral responsibilities—a duty of common humanity to those people throughout sub-Saharan Africa and in other parts of the world who are so poor that their lives are blighted. Since 1990, the proportion of people in sub-Saharan Africa and western Asia who live in extreme poverty has increased while, in Latin America and the Caribbean, it is unchanged. Among the poorer countries of 15 years ago, only those in eastern and south-eastern Asia have succeeded in meeting the target of halving the proportion of people who live on less than $1 a day.
The target of $1 a day is not huge, given what $1 would buy in Scotland; however, in Bangladesh, it could pay for a meal for a family of four. It would provide three meals for a child in Albania or Ethiopia: not high living—a slice of bread, sprinkled with sugar and oil for breakfast; a slice of bread with a small amount of boiled potatoes for lunch; and flour-and-water pancakes for dinner—but enough to live on.
The millennium goals are important because they commit the international community to the vigorous promotion of human development as the key to sustaining social and economic progress in all countries and because they recognise the importance of creating a global partnership for development. The eight goals are set out in the motion. The World Bank estimates that it would cost in the region of $35 billion to $76 billion to achieve the millennium development goals worldwide: roughly $10 billion to $30 billion for education-related goals; $20 billion to $25 billion for health; and $5 billion to $21 billion for the environment. The maximum level of $76 billion to tackle global poverty can be compared with the level of European Community agricultural subsidies, which amount to $327 billion each year, and the $800 billion annually in military expenditure.
In March 2002, heads of Government from developing and high-income countries met in Monterrey, Mexico, and made commitments that would increase official development assistance in real terms by about $16 billion a year by 2006. European Union member states agreed to increase the EU average to 0.4 per cent or more of their gross national product and, in July 2002, the Chancellor of the Exchequer committed the United Kingdom Government to achieving that target by 2006. We are on track to achieve that target, but we must aim higher.
In 2002, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor challenged our Government to set a timetable to achieve 0.7 per cent for overseas aid—the target that was set by the United Nations in 1970. He hoped that
"we can set a target date by which Britain's aid will reach 0.7% … surely within ten years."
I hope that, in the context of the 2004 comprehensive spending review, the UK Government will announce a timetable for reaching the 0.7 per cent target. The events that took place in Rwanda 10 years ago, along with the suffering and misery that we have seen in sub-Saharan Africa, remind us of the urgency and necessity of achieving the cardinal's ambition.
I return to the situation in Rwanda. The UK Government has done a lot in providing assistance for reconstruction in Africa, but we are greatly indebted to churches and other organisations in Scotland and abroad for their stridency on behalf of the people of Rwanda and other poor countries. I pay tribute to Cardinal Keith O'Brien, to the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, and to the hundreds of other people who have worked extremely hard to keep Rwanda at the forefront of our consciousness and our conscience. Rwanda is doing well in recovering from what has happened. It is diversifying its exports and has conducted its first free and democratic elections, achieving the highest proportion of women parliamentarians in the world—a record 49 per cent. The Rwandan ambassador is coming to speak to the Parliament's cross-party international development group on 1 April. I hope that as many people as possible can come along to that.
We cannot afford to stand aside from these issues. I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to raise awareness in the Parliament of their significance. I hope that as many people as possible will do what they can to assist Rwanda. We must remember its lessons and our obligations to the rest of the world.
I apologise for the fact that I will have to leave the chamber right after my speech. I thank Des McNulty for securing the debate. The speech that he just gave was marvellous and well worth listening to.
Des McNulty spoke eloquently about the genocide in Rwanda, which is mentioned in the motion. When I read and signed the motion, I was surprised that the atrocities happened only 10 years ago. It seemed to me that they were a lot further away, although rationally I knew that they were not. I wonder whether that is because we try to bury such horrendous things in the recesses of our minds, as we do not want to acknowledge how recently in our history we allowed something like that to happen. We in the developed countries have a collective responsibility for allowing it to happen. We should take the opportunity to remind ourselves of such things over and over again, so that it is always at the forefront of our minds that we must force those with the power to do so to stop such things before they happen or before they get to the horrendous levels reached in Rwanda and in so many other places over the years.
The second part of Des McNulty's motion is about the millennium development goals. I lodged a fairly similar motion that was given a lot of support. We are all looking the same way; we want to see an end to poverty because we know that it is wrong that most of us live fairly comfortably when there are people living in abject poverty throughout the world. It is not acceptable.
Although my motion welcomed the commitment of Gordon Brown and the UK Government to increase its aid budget to 0.4 per cent of GDP by 2006, it is not enough. The World Bank and the United Nations have already said that the millennium development goals to reduce by 50 per cent the number of people in the world who live in absolute poverty by 2015—would it not be great if we were chasing the goal of 100 per cent?—will not be met without a significant increase in development assistance.
Do Linda Fabiani and her party support the chancellor's proposal for an international financing facility, which is a way of levering in extra money for aid and which could double the amount of aid from $50 billion per year to $100 billion per year overnight? The proposal is remarkably broad and deserves all-party support.
I will speak on a personal level because the detail of the IFF has not yet come to our party and we make policy at our party conferences. I will support anything that alleviates poverty in any way. We in the UK, Europe and the rest of the developed world must acknowledge that so much more can be done. The debate is huge and is not just about millennium development goals; it is about tackling arms sales, for example, and all the different issues that adversely affect the lives of people in parts of the world that are less fortunate than our own.
Other small countries, such as Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have already achieved the UN recommended level of 0.7 per cent of their GDP. Indeed, Denmark and Norway exceed it. There is nothing to stop our country meeting that goal, or exceeding it.
Keith Raffan raised the issue of party policy. My party's policy is that 1 per cent of GDP should go on overseas aid. Ireland, Belgium and France have already set clear timetables for reaching the UN target by 2007, 2010 and 2012 respectively. They are ahead of the UK.
SCIAF recommended that the Parliament should have regular debates about international aid issues and about this issue in particular, in order to track the millennium development goals. If we do that, we might be able to start exerting pressure, instead of putting the horrible things to the backs of our minds and forgetting that they are current.
I congratulate Des McNulty on securing the debate. I know of his great personal commitment to this sphere of work, which is admirable. He has covered the situation in Rwanda, so I will concentrate on the millennium development goals.
We want to develop more intelligent ways of linking aid and fair trade, which are often seen as opposites. If aid was concentrated not on big, grandiose projects but on helping small communities, first to produce water and things that they can live on and then to start growing or manufacturing things that they can sell, that would help them to develop their economies from the bottom up. By creating a train of thought that it is good to buy fair trade coffee and so on—but not chocolate, which makes people fat, although that is another issue—we could link together the ideas of fair trade and aid.
We need to bring to bear pressure on the various Governments throughout the world. If we stopped having these ridiculous and immoral wars, we could generate enough support for everyone in the world to have clean drinking water very quickly indeed.
Debt must also be addressed. Although we should perhaps not simply scrub the debts of countries that continue misgoverning themselves—as some of them have done—we should, without being too neo-colonialist, give countries a certain amount of help to organise their affairs better in return for scrubbing their debts. That would be a great step forward.
We should put pressure on the Government to reach the 0.7 per cent target. The idea that Gordon Brown has promoted, which Keith Raffan mentioned, is very interesting. If we can find better ways of funding such things, that is all to the good.
We need to campaign about the many wrong things that are done by multinationals, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation. Those organisations are not all filled with bad people, and some of the things that they do are good, but they do many bad things that are harmful to the poorest communities. We need a campaign to show that general public opinion in developed countries is very much for change; interest is not limited to a few enthusiasts who break windows and demonstrate forcibly. The great weight of solid public opinion believes that these capitalist organisations must sort themselves out. There can be good capitalism and bad capitalism. At present, we have far too much bad capitalism.
People such as myself who are enthusiasts for the European Union need to examine the EU's protectionism, which has been mentioned. It is difficult to get some of the farmers on the continent to give up their privileges, but we must work hard at that.
The paper from SCIAF suggests that we should work with MPs and development organisations. In my experience, it is difficult for MPs and MSPs of any party to work together consistently towards a particular goal. Perhaps the structure does not help that, but we should certainly try to work together, and in particular we should try to co-operate with the development organisations, of which there are a large number. The Scots like that sort of thing. They like Christian Aid and all the other similar organisations.
In May, people can patronise the biggest book sale in the world at St Andrew's and St George's church in George Street, where they can buy books that will make money for Christian Aid.
I congratulate Des McNulty on securing tonight's debate on this important topic. I also underline the urgency of the international efforts to achieve the eight millennium development goals.
I am loth to introduce a negative note, but I must add some caveats about the millennium development goals. The goals are absolutely commendable, but if we are being realistic, we must take certain steps first. Let me quote Kofi Annan, whose words are reproduced in the annual review of Interact Worldwide, which is the organisation that used to be called Population Concern. He states:
"The Millennium Development Goals, particularly the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, cannot be achieved if questions of population and reproductive health are not squarely addressed. And that means stronger efforts to promote women's rights, and greater investment in education and health, including reproductive health and family planning."
In the Cairo programme of action, it was agreed that meeting people's needs for education and health, including reproductive health, is a prerequisite of sustainable development. The programme was agreed in 1994, when 179 Governments came together to discuss population, development and reproductive health, and recognised that we cannot have one without the others. Although the goals of the Cairo conference are similar to the millennium development goals, the goal of universal access to quality reproductive health services is missing from the MDGs.
In Scotland, with its declining population, we complain about the demographic time bomb and worry about our pension rights. However, worries in the developing world are far more basic. For example, reproductive ill health undermines development by diminishing the quality of poor women's lives, weakening them and, in extreme cases, killing them. That places heavy burdens on families and communities. One woman dies every minute as a result of pregnancy and childbirth problems. However, the fact that a vast majority of those deaths are avoidable represents a widespread and systematic violation of human rights. To contrast the situation in the developing world with our own worries and statistics, I point out that the lifetime risk of maternal death in the UK is 1 in 5,800 while in Ethiopia it is 1 in 14.
Moreover, in the 10 years since the Cairo programme of action was agreed, there has been no reduction in maternal mortality and in the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections and HIV. Those stark statistics cannot be separated from the facts about the unmet need for contraception and the estimated shortfall of 8 billion condoms. We also cannot shy away from the Cairo goal of improving access to safe abortion in countries where the practice is legal. After all, maternal complications from unsafe abortions account for 68,000 maternal deaths a year.
To promote gender equality and empower women, we need to provide them with opportunities in educational, economic and civil life. However, first of all, women must be given the means to make informed choices about their fertility. Although Governments must support their MDG pledges with the finances to achieve them, they must also acknowledge that meeting the fundamental need for sexual and reproductive health will underpin any progress towards achieving those goals.
I thank Des McNulty for securing the debate and for raising Parliament's awareness of the millennium development goals. The goals set out a superb vision of a future in which we eradicate poverty and environmental destruction and spread education, health, access to water and equality around the globe. Those are all basic democratic rights; the key feature of the goals is that they were agreed by 189 countries around the world and signed up to by 147 heads of state. They represent a key vision of future partnership in which the world works together to secure those democratic rights for everyone.
However, the vision that is presented by the millennium development goals stands in stark contrast to another future in which the people are not in charge and in which multinationals under the guise of the World Trade Organisation and through the multilateral agreement on investment and the general agreement on trade in services benefit from the world's resources.
One of the key elements of the millennium development goals is to halve by 2015 the proportion of people who do not have sustainable access to safe drinking water. We should all support that goal because safe drinking water is a fundamental human right. However, under the general agreement on trade in services, water services might be opened up and liberalised, which would be in direct contradiction to the aim that is set out in the millennium development goals. Water should not be moved from state provision to companies that profit from it. Water is increasingly big business; after all, a billion people around the globe do not have access to it. European countries dominate the water market and are demanding access to third-world countries so that they can take over the provision of water for profit, but not for environmental or social benefit.
Does Mr Ballard agree that it is vile and inhumane that capital can travel the globe while people who are fleeing danger and poverty cannot do so?
I very much agree with that sentiment. What Rosie Kane described is a good example of how the rules that are set in the WTO through measures such as GATS go against the interests of people and operate in the interests of profit and capital. We need a fair system of rules and trade, rather than a system that benefits only multinationals.
We must overcome two key debts to achieve the millennium development goals. The first is the financial debt that third-world countries owe the west, to which Donald Gorrie referred. That debt cannot be paid and now comprises largely interest on the original loans. Until we get rid of that debt, we cannot move towards the millennium development goals. I welcome what Gordon Brown has done to move towards writing off some of the debt, but he does not go nearly far enough.
The second key debt is the ecological debt that we owe the third world for exploitation of its resources, which continues. We owe the third world big time and we must start repaying our debt. Unless we do so and agree to the millennium development goals as the WTO's key priority, we will end up with more Rwandas, which none of us wants.
I thank Des McNulty for bringing the issue to the chamber and for sharing and spreading the vision of the millennium development goals.
As I listened to Des McNulty's opening speech, I was reminded of my visit to Rwanda, as a member of the International Development Committee of the House of Commons, not long after the genocide in Rwanda. It was an unforgettable and harrowing experience. We saw with our own eyes the evidence of the genocide: heaps of skulls and other human remains of people who had been savagely butchered. Here we are, 10 years later, and death by genocide may be over, but death by starvation and disease in Rwanda is, sadly, still prevalent. In Rwanda today, life expectancy is only 38 years; back in the 1970s, it was 45 years. Therefore, the situation in Rwanda is in some respects getting worse rather than better.
It is four years since the United Nations set the millennium goals, but much more international effort is required if the goals are to be achieved by the target date of 2015. There has been some progress in some parts of the world, but the situation in sub-Saharan Africa is desperate. At the present rate, it will take until 2129 to achieve universal primary education, it will take until 2147 to halve extreme poverty and it will take until 2165 to reduce under-five mortality by two thirds. If there is to be any chance of reaching the millennium development goals by 2015, international development assistance will have to be doubled.
The motion refers to the 0.7 per cent target that was endorsed by a UN resolution away back in 1970. The nearest that Britain has come to reaching that target was 25 years ago, in 1979, when the figure was 0.51 per cent of Britain's gross national income; the figure is now 0.31 per cent. Again, we seem to be getting worse instead of better.
I agree that nothing will ever be good enough in terms of international development aid and that we have a long way to go. However, it is worth pointing out that, despite the dreadful situation that we are in, when a team of us—four in number—from the Scottish Parliament visited the Pope in 2000, he singled out the United Kingdom and Italy for having done the most in the world in the effort towards wiping out third-world debt.
I am not saying that we are completely lacking in generosity. When it comes to international aid and assistance, we are the fifth largest in terms of the amount given. However, the UN picked the percentage of gross national income as a measure so that, as the GNI grew year by year, there would be a proportionate increase in what countries gave. It is quite clear that our economy has grown a lot since the 1970s, but the amount that we give in international aid has not increased proportionately. I accept that it is difficult to double payments overnight, but surely it would be reasonable and affordable for Britain to set a date of, say, 2010, for delivering an international commitment that was made 40 years previously.
I had intended to say more, but I know that other members want to take part in the debate. However, I would like to finish on this note: although this Parliament does not have direct responsibility for international development, there are things that fall within our remit that are highly relevant, and I would like to make brief mention of the encouragement of development education in our schools, where there is surely a receptive audience. Children and young people are rightly appalled when they hear about the plight of children and young people in developing countries and they rightly demand urgent action to eradicate poverty, hunger and disease. The millennium development goals will help to do that; they will help, in short, to build a better and fairer world.
I commend Des McNulty for his motion and congratulate him on securing the debate. I was attracted to participate in the debate because, like Dennis Canavan, I have visited Rwanda, albeit much more recently than he did. I was there last summer and although the physical evidences of the genocide have now gone, there is clearly still a shadow hanging over the country.
I must say that I found Rwanda to be a scary and depressing place to visit. The people are manifestly poor, few have enough to eat, they are ill clothed, many are without jobs and there is still an overweening military presence on the streets. Indeed, it is hard to imagine the presence of as many AK-47s in one place as there are on the streets in Rwanda. There is a fundamentally gloomy and depressing atmosphere across the country. As I walked down the street, people would not meet my eye, but shuffled on by—there is a general sense of depression.
It was singular to see working at the roadsides doing jobs such as clearing the verges groups of people who were dressed in what appeared to be pink pyjamas. We asked our guide who those people were—most were youngish middle-aged men—and we were told that they were prisoners, some of whom had been convicted but many of whom were still awaiting trial nine and a half years on from the genocide. It seemed to me that they were poorly guarded, with perhaps one or two guards for 30 or 40 men, so we asked our guide why that was. He explained that, if they tried to escape, the chances were that they would be caught and lynched by the mob, such was the strength of feeling nine and a half years after what happened.
It was notable that we had crossed into Rwanda from Uganda, coming overland across the border. The contrast between the two countries was absolutely striking. Uganda has not been without its share of problems over the past 20 years or so, but it has been fortunate in that for the past 10 years it has had stable government and political stability, it has enjoyed the rule of law and—comparatively speaking—it has seen economic growth, which has provided jobs. The people in Uganda were generally well fed, well housed and well clothed and appeared to be happy. When we met them in the street and spoke to them, they would be happy, smiling and self-confident. The contrast between Uganda and Rwanda was most depressing. The countries are similar in geography, but because of the different experiences that they have had and because of different political systems, one is so much better than the other.
We have to address the contradiction between aid policy and trade policy. Everything that we give in foreign aid is taken away by unfair trade. For every dollar that western taxpayers give to poor countries, we take away two dollars through unfair trade practices. The injustice that is being suffered by the third world is not a result of ill fortune, bad weather, defective infrastructure or national disasters. It is not an accident, but a direct result of the deliberate policy of many Governments in the west—a shameless and shameful policy—that directly causes oppression in those countries. It is in our own hands—in our country and in other countries in the west—to address the problem of unfair trade. That is exactly what we should be doing within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
I will address briefly one final point. Des McNulty rightly refers in his motion to the Government. However, let us not forget that we as citizens also have a duty to give personally. It is right to set targets for Government giving, but many voluntary organisations that give aid to the third world welcome donations from private citizens. We should encourage people to fulfil their duty to their fellow citizens by giving generously from our own pockets. Many charities that work well in the third world will benefit from such donations. I hope that, if we can do that, we will see more countries that are like Uganda and fewer that are like Rwanda.
I congratulate Des McNulty on securing the debate. I certainly agree with his opening remarks about Rwanda and about the failure of the international community to stop the genocide, which is something that we must ensure never happens again.
Murdo Fraser is right to point out that over the border in Uganda there is, partially at least, a success story. Extreme poverty in Uganda has been reduced by 20 per cent since 1992—it has come down from 55 per cent of the population—and there has been a doubling of the enrolment of primary school children in three years. That is a lesson in what can be achieved, although in north-east Uganda there is still the horrendous problem of the Lord's Resistance Army and the kidnapping of children.
The stark facts are—and I will give only three of them—that more than 1 billion people in the world currently live on less than $1 a day, 115 million children worldwide do not go to school and 7 million of them die each year from avoidable diseases.
As the chancellor has said, we are already seriously at risk of not fully meeting the millennium development goals by the deadline of 2015. Three years after the goals were set we are not on course to halve extreme poverty by 2015 outside east and south Asia. In sub-Saharan Africa, north Africa, the middle east, the Caribbean, Latin America and, indeed, in the transitional economies of eastern Europe and central Asia, the number of people living on less than $1 a day actually increased by 100 million between 1990 and 1999.
We are not on course to meet the goal of primary education for all either. In total, 100 million children—80 million of them in Africa—will still be denied schooling in 2015. Eighty-one countries will not meet the goal of reducing infant mortality by two thirds and 47 of the 48 sub-Saharan African countries will fail to meet the goal of reducing maternal mortality by three quarters.
All the goals are interrelated. Investing in teacher training will be undermined if we do not effectively tackle HIV/AIDS, which is killing so many teachers, particularly in southern Africa. In Malawi, many class sizes are now reaching 300 because of the deaths of teachers from AIDS. Investing in schooling will be undermined if there is not sufficient investment in providing access to a safe water supply, so that children do not have to take hours off school to collect water for their families. Investing in health clinics will be undermined if there is not sufficient investment in roads that give access to them.
We need something as bold as the 21st century equivalent of the Marshall plan, which led to an unprecedented transfer of 1 per cent of national income from the United States to rebuild Europe after the second world war. I mentioned the chancellor's proposal of an international financing facility, which would do just that. It would lead to a substantial transfer of additional resources from the richest to the poorest—doubling aid annually from $50 billion to $100 billion for a 15-year period.
Leveraging resources for aid—I disagree politically and philosophically with the Greens on this—means that for every $1 of aid, one can leverage $2 from the private sector. Leveraging resources for aid, which is what the international financing facility would do by issuing bonds in the international capital markets, would provide a predictable and stable flow of aid and would enable the 0.7 per cent target to be met sooner.
We must target aid more effectively. That might sound like an obvious thing to say, but in 2000 only 38 per cent of the EU's aid went to what are defined as low-income countries. I support the UK Government's aim to ensure that 90 per cent of aid is spent in low-income countries by 2006. We must give to those who have the greatest need and who can also absorb the aid that we give effectively.
It is important that we move the Doha round forward. We must improve trade regimes so that developing countries can participate on fair terms in the world economy. Full trade liberalisation could lift 300 million people out of poverty by 2015. Trade subsidies in the developed world total $350 billion a year—that sum is seven times greater than the aid that is provided to developing countries.
To meet the millennium goals by the 2015 deadline will require greatly enhanced understanding and co-operation between developed and developing countries. It will mean reviving the commitment, enthusiasm, drive and energy of the Brandt commission and report and realising—not least at Government level—that, in the global village in which we now live, we all have a responsibility, one to another.
I want to pick up a few of the threads in the debate so far. First, I will respond to some of the points that Keith Raffan made.
Where aid was concerned, my experience in Kenya was that an enormous amount of excellent work was done by voluntary organisations. The great thing about our giving support to voluntary organisations on the ground is that it makes certain that the money that is provided goes where it will be used most effectively. That is the most important point to bear in mind in relation to aid and voluntary organisations.
Like other members, Mr Raffan made an observation about finding money for third-world countries. An idea that has been in the back of my mind for many years—it is not just academic—is that one way of helping to support the United Nations and to pay for the damage that we do to our environment by air travel would be to have aviation fuel taxed in every country in the world. That way, every country would pay its fair dues for the damage that air travel does to the environment. Economically, such a tax would bear down hardest on the richest countries and would affect the poorest countries least.
Our leaders are Janus-like in the sense that, in trading and turning to the WTO, they attend talks in places such as Johannesburg and Cancun. I want to give members a picture of something that struck me when I was at the Johannesburg summit a year and a half ago. The Sandton Convention Centre, where everything took place, is in one of the richest enclaves in South Africa, just north of Johannesburg. The people from the small cities and towns all over the world were put in an exhibition centre nearly 20km away; the real people were kept well away from the politicians. There were buses between the two venues, but it took most of a morning to get from one place to the other.
Friends of the Earth wanted to put a lovely set of sculptures that illustrated the poor of the world and the rich of the world in the middle of the Sandton centre. Its request was refused, because—I suppose—a statue referring to poverty would have been too much in the face of the politicians. The assemblage was moved to the outside of the centre and in its place was put an enormous stand for BMW cars, which told us how good they were going to be for the environment. That told me what Johannesburg was about. I realised that things were still not being taken as seriously as they should have been. We must keep up the pressure on politicians and Governments around the world in every way that we can. The streams of identical white Mercedes that brought the politicians into the Sandton centre told their own story.
I want to pick up a point that Marlyn Glen made. While I was in South Africa, I visited Soweto, where I met AIDS campaigners. I found out that 40 per cent of the country's armed forces and 15 per cent of its teachers have AIDS. It is forecast that, by 2020, 50 per cent of the half of the population who are under 15 might have AIDS, either inherited or contracted. Southern Africa certainly needs 8 billion condoms and education, and we can provide such things.
I will finish by suggesting that we remind ourselves that Edinburgh is a fair trade city and that the University of Edinburgh is a fair trade university. To pick up on the points that Mark Ballard made, there are small things that we can do that will become big things if we do enough of them.
Two of my closest friends work for Médecins Sans Frontières. One of them is a nurse who is involved in exactly the kind of programmes that Marlyn Glen talked eloquently about a moment or so ago. My admiration for my two friends knows no bounds. Sometimes we wonder what we do in this place, especially when we think of the friends who show such determination and ability in incredibly difficult circumstances. At the moment, my two friends work in Uganda, which is a country that Murdo Fraser mentioned a moment ago. I can only metaphorically take my hat off to people who have such dedication.
I have thought carefully about the debate and have been highly influenced by it. A number of thoughts come to mind. I assume that I was not the only member who saw on television this morning a little bit of the intensely moving memorial service in Madrid. International events such as that bring home to us the importance of reflecting now and again on what is happening internationally.
On that basis, Des McNulty deserves an immense amount of credit. As Donald Gorrie said, he deserves credit not only for his personal commitment to the issues that we are debating but for giving the other members who have spoken knowledgably this evening the opportunity to debate the issue and, I suspect, give vent to their frustrations.
The person who has influenced me more than any other in this regard is the BBC journalist Fergal Keane. He reported from Rwanda at the time of its immense difficulties and, in January last year, he lectured in Edinburgh on the subject of "Justice, war crimes, genocide and the new world order". His book, "Rwanda, the Sorrow and the Pity", is an intensely powerful account of the genocide. I am sure that many members who are interested in and concerned about the subject have read it. Last night, I read a good review of the book, but I will not go into detail on it other than to say that, if members have not read the book, they should do so. It illustrates the power of an account by someone who observed those happenings closely and gives a perspective on the matters that we are discussing.
As Des McNulty said, the debate is not just about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda but about progress on achieving the eight United Nations millennium development goals. His motion brings those issues to the Parliament's attention. I will deal first with the issues that concern Rwanda. As he said, commemorative events will take place to remember those terrible events. We must not forget what happened in 1994. Indeed, on the basis of this evening's discussions, I suspect that we will not forget them. This will be a time not only for the people of Rwanda to reflect but, as many colleagues have said, for the international community to look at the role that it played in 1994. As colleagues also said, we must ensure that we do not let such events happen again.
As members said, since the events of 1994, the people of Rwanda have made progress. The country is fundamentally at peace, which must be progress in itself. That said, sometimes we talk too glibly about peace. Although the economy is stable and growing and the incidence of poverty is declining, I take the points that Dennis Canavan made in relation to statistics and facts. I also acknowledge Murdo Fraser's important observation about the tone, spirit and colour that are to be found among the people.
However, the genocide has left a legacy that the people of Rwanda have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. The country has been left with very low human capacity resources at all levels throughout the country. Keith Raffan illustrated that that problem exists not only in Rwanda but in other countries. Many professionals and qualified people were killed or fled the country. I understand that there are only 274 qualified doctors in the entire country, which is one doctor for every 14,599 people.
The United Kingdom Government has engaged with Rwanda for the past 10 years and is Rwanda's major bilateral development partner. Its engagement with the Government of Rwanda is based on a memorandum of understanding that was signed in January. The memorandum describes the Government of Rwanda's commitments to its people on poverty reduction, promoting regional stability, creating a democratic and inclusive state, and progressively securing human rights. It also confirms that the UK's engagement depends on political developments.
The Government of Rwanda is also supporting survivors of the genocide through a number of organisations representing the widows and survivors. The Department for International Development's current budget for Rwanda is £37 million, and that will rise to £47 million next year. A new Department for International Development office opened in January, signalling the UK's long-term commitment to Rwanda.
Many members commented on the UN's millennium development goals. They represent a shared global ambition—that is an important feature—to improve the well-being and life chances of the world's poorest citizens. For the first time there is international agreement on the importance of eliminating poverty and a consensus on a key set of goals. Those goals are highly ambitious and the targets that the international community has set itself will take a considerable amount of work and effort to achieve, but surely that is right. The whole international community has a responsibility for meeting those goals, which recognise the need for everyone to take action if poverty is to be reduced. As members have mentioned, 190 developed and developing countries have signed up to those goals and associated targets.
There is no one way to achieve those goals. The international community must work together to produce a fairer global trading system, to take action on HIV/AIDS and to resolve conflict.
Does the minister agree that the news last week from the American Administration, about the action that the so-called AIDS tsar seems to be taking on behalf of the pharmaceutical companies, is not at all hopeful? The companies are going back on their original pledge and in fact want to sell AIDS drugs at a higher price, which will mean that far fewer people and countries in sub-Saharan Africa will be able to afford antiretroviral drugs.
That is an important point, which I am sure is being made—dare I say it—at Westminster, where direct contact can be made. I suspect that in the year of the American presidential election, nothing is fixed without an eye to that election. I imagine that the situation is developing.
I will mention briefly the WTO talks, which Mark Ballard, Murdo Fraser and Keith Raffan talked about, and the importance of reaching an agreement in the Doha round to create a fairer set of rules to govern international trade. That must produce real benefits for developing countries.
Many members mentioned the overall development aid budget. I noticed that the subject was raised today at Prime Minister's question time in the House of Commons by, I think, a Labour member in a question to John Prescott, who was standing in for the Prime Minister. That was the entirely appropriate manner in which to pursue the matter. Clearly, considerable attention is being paid to the issue at this time.
Meeting closed at 18:03.