The FPC hosted a programme of five fringe events at the 2008 Conservative Party Conference, which took place from 28 Sept-1 Oct in Birmingham. Summaries of a selection of our events follow below. This information was provided by DeHavilland Public Affairs Monitoring Service. For more information about DeHavilland services please visit www.dehavilland.co.uk or email info@dehavilland.co.uk.
A Foreign Policy Centre, World Vision and BBC World Service Trust event
Conservative Fringe - 'A Bridge Too Far? Do we need to reclaim humanitarianism?'
Sun, 28 September 08 | DeHavilland Report - Event
Summary
More effective auditing of international development aid was needed Shadow International Trade and Development Minister, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown told a Conservative Conference meeting today.
On the panel of the Conservative conference fringe event: "A Bridge Too Far? Do we need to reclaim humanitarianism?" were John Githongo, Vice President of Advocacy, World Vision, James Deane, Head of Policy, BBC World Trust and Michela Wrong, New Statesmen. The meeting was chaired by Josephine Osikena, Foreign Policy Centre.
Mr Clifton-Brown emphasised the importance of international law. Giving the example of the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia he said that Georgia had been able to file a compliant which had led to debate in the Security Council. In the past this would never have happened, he asserted.
Detailing Conservative policy on international development, he said that were maintaining the 0.7 per cent of GDP target, but told the meeting that auditing procedures would be put in place to ensure that money was properly spent.
Addressing the issue of natural disasters, Mr Clifton-Brown stressed the importance of the media providing information and suggested that a good job was being done.
He said, however, that in situations where there was a civil war that action was currently ineffective.
Where there was a mixture of natural disaster and man made disaster he asserted that better diplomacy could prevent situations getting worse.
Mr Clifton-Brown bemoaned the lack of coordination between international partners in places like Afghanistan.
On the future, Mr Clifton-Brown said that aid needed to be delivered but effectively followed up.
Addressing the meeting, John Githongo described a global situation for humanitarianism which had changed dramatically over the last ten years.
The previous "firewalls" between international NGOs and the military, police and other actors had gone, he asserted.
He suggested that the military and police were increasingly performing humanitarian relief in different situations.
Mr Githongo called for an infrastructure to allow NGOs to engage with these actors without interfering with the Red Cross principles that determined their action in conflicts and without losing their impartiality.
World Vision was seeking to encourage staff to assess the situation based on four principles, he said. First was the humanitarian imperative, second was their impartiality, third the security situation and finally the sustainability.
Speaking next, Michela Wrong said that she felt that the reality on the ground in Africa bore no relation to the image of Africa propounded at the Gleneagles summit.
The war on terror had reshaped the relationship with Africa, she asserted. The result of this was to lead to a new generation of "dinosaur" leaders who did not intend to stand down, Ms Wrong contended.
She criticised the focus on elections. Giving the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an example she argued that the disarming of the army would have been a better move than pressing for elections.
Addressing the US relationship with Africa, she expressed concerns about the US AFRICOM programme. Ms Wrong worried that it was unclear what this programme was going to be doing.
She said that Ethiopia had invaded Somalia with the help of the American's causing a major refugee crisis.
On conflicts in Africa, she suggested that they were often complex internal conflicts and suggested that this raised concern about choosing which side to support in a given conflict.
Concluding, Ms Wrong said that conflicts were simply not being reported on by the media in Africa and the relationships between the UK and countries involved in these conflicts was not being made clear.
James Deane began by agreeing with Michela Wrong about problems with media reporting and a lack of understanding about Africa and the fact that coverage was often shaped by the development agencies.
Moving on he said that there had an unprecedented consensus about British commitment to international development. Mr Deane questioned, however, whether this would continue in difficult economic times.
He described criticism that the focus on development aid could increase dependency and corruption. Mr Deane argued, however, for a renewed commitment to the aid agenda.
There was an urgent moral case and our own self interest was bound up in investing in stable countries, he argued.
Second, Mr Deane said that growth would not bring the MDG goals. Third, real steps were being made to make aid more effective, he contended.
Mr Deane warned that allowing aid priorities to be shaped by developed countries did not work. He particularly worried about the use of aid by China to benefit its own development and the proposal for "Smart Power" by the US.
Continuing to make the argument for aid, Mr Deane said that aid needed to be clearer and transparent on spending and overall policy.
He also described the importance of the media in helping provide this transparency. For economic growth to occur an environment of checks and balances was needed of which the media was a key part, he argued.
Mr Deane said that modern humanitarian responses were becoming more efficient. In addition, it was important to provide information to people affected by disasters and this was one of the things the BBC World Service Trust did in places like Burma.
Members of the audience were invited to make contributions.
Making a comment, Baroness Rawlings worried about the DFID office in Georgia being closed.
Tony Baldry MP remarked that humanitarian intervention had to be based on international law with a functioning UN and Security Council. He worried that members of the Security Council, including the US, UK, Russia and China were no longer supporting international law.
He also worried about the lack of a "lift capacity, giving the example of Darfur. He questioned where the Secretary General of the UN would get troops for an intervention from.
A representative from the POLIS think tank asked the panel members if there was a particular policy area that needed to be addressed.
Other audience members wondered about the lack of coordination between aid and development agencies in Afghanistan and the effectiveness of intervention.
Responding first, Mr Githongo argued that a redefinition of the meaning of "success" was needed. Some of the measures had become redundant he stated.
For example, measuring growth alone was problematic, given that in some situations growth could be destabilising particularly where it came from a single commodity, he told the meeting.
Michela Wrong said that the focus on elections was wrong because they were meaningless in some countries. She suggested that in places like DRC the security forces needed to be dealt with.
The UN needed a stronger mandate to deal with these kinds of situation, she asserted.
In addition, she said that it was important to be wary of caring for the poor more than the governments themselves did.
James Deane said aid had to rest on a sophisticated and detailed understanding of the political and social situation in an individual country.
He suggested that Make Poverty History and the MDGs did not support this focus because they gave the idea that it was just about money and would be easy.
It would be difficult to maintain the public level of commitment in an economic downturn, he told the meeting.
Finally, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown remarked that in spite of large amounts of aid to sub-Saharan Africa over 20 years the average person was still worse off.
He emphasised the importance of good governance and said that it was important for the International Criminal Court to make sure that the "real tyrants of the world" were held to account.
Moreover, every single situation was different and needed an individual focus with proper international coordination, he asserted.
Further audience contributions included a question from a member of the international rescue committee who warned that the blurring of political and humanitarian goals in Afghanistan was making it difficult for humanitarian aid to be delivered.
Another audience member asked about the work of transparency international and a further audience member asked about political and public support for unilateral military intervention like the UK took in Sierra Leone.
Michela Wrong said that unilateral intervention was effective and fast, but lacked legitimacy.
Responding next, James Deane said that the conversation with the UK public needed to use a less simple narrative than the past.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said that the ICC had been effective and could be a deterrent. He also suggested that the public would be more wary of intervention in the light of Iraq and Afghanistan and argued that early intervention was what needed to be focussed on.
He said that the UN could be effective as it had been in Haiti.
Finally, Mr Githongo said that a framework for engagement between different actors in a humanitarian situation was needed.
On transparency international, he said that good governance was at the heart of aid.
© DeHavilland Information Services
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A Foreign Policy Centre and Coca-Cola Great Britain event
Labour Fringe - 'Wealth creation: paving a way out of poverty?'
Tue, 23 September 08 | DeHavilland Report - Event
Summary
Removing trade barriers was the best way to address poverty in the developing world International Development Minister Gillian Merron said today.
Also speaking at the Labour Conference fringe event "Wealth creation: paving a way out of poverty" were William Asiko, Coca Cola Africa, H.E. Mwaniadi Sinare Maajar, High Commissioner of Tanzania and Claire Melamed, Policy Coordinator, Action Aid. The meeting was chaired by Stephen Twigg of the Foreign Policy Centre.
Opening the discussion, Gillian Merron said that DFID had one mission. This was the alleviation of world poverty, she told the meeting.
By 2012 the budget would have been trebled, she asserted.
Ms Merron stressed that economic growth was the most powerful tool to alleviating poverty world wide. She called for the opening of trade barriers that prevented growth.
Detailing the importance of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), she said that they were the closest the world came to having a joint statement on development and they had captured the imagination of people all around the world.
She argued that the MDGs provided the framework that would make it possible to "turn the corner" on extreme poverty.
What people in the third world really wanted was jobs, healthcare and education and the way for this to happen was trade, she said.
Eliminating world trade barriers would lift between 3-500 million people out of poverty and the Government was increasing money for aid for trade by 50 per cent, Ms Merron told the meeting.
In addition, economic partnership agreements (EPAs) could provide greater markets much more easily, she stated.
It was important to build new markets, she said, stating that EBay would be developing a market for the sale of goods from the developing world to the west.
She also detailed concerns about corruption and said that there had been progress in achieving transparency in areas including pharmaceuticals and construction.
Concluding, Gillian Merron said that the Government had lifted 3 million people out of poverty every year. In Tanzania free health care was being provided for 5 million people in rural areas.
In the long term it was about giving the poorest the means to bring themselves out of poverty and this could be best done through trade, she declared.
Addressing the meeting next, William Asiko said that Africa was a long way from achieving the MDGs by 2015.
Government could not address the problems alone, he asserted.
Mr Asiko said that the private sector could be an engine for growth. Corporations needed to balance making profit while helping to alleviate poverty, he told the meeting.
He stressed that the relationship between the prosperity of a community and the prosperity of a business within that community was symbiotic. But he emphasised that it was important not to focus just on philanthropy.
Coca Cola had identified a business model called the manual distribution centre model as a way of helping alleviate poverty. This method of distributing goods helped to create entrepreneurs and gave people jobs, he argued.
2000 of these centres had been developed in East Africa and had contributed some £650 million to the economies and created 8000 jobs while still making profits for Coca Cola, he said.
These centres were being expanded and they expected the number of jobs to double, he added.
Speaking next Her Excellency Mrs Maajar began by saying that Africa was the only region in the world that was getting poorer.
She emphasised the low life expectancy and deaths caused by curable diseases.
This kind of life created a vicious cycle of bad health, unemployment and poor education, she said.
The High Commissioner contended, however, that Africa was changing. There were fewer conflicts and many countries were now stable democracies, she added.
Detailing the potential of Africa's natural resources, she said that China and India were now looking towards Africa for natural resources.
On what needed to be done, Mrs Maajar called for transparent and accountable institutions to be created in Africa.
It was also important for African Governments to take an interest in African natural resources because they could provide the funding needed for Africa to develop.
Mrs Maajar hoped for cooperation between African countries that would prevent them from driving down prices through competition.
A common code of conduct would guide the way multinationals did business in Africa and would prevent African countries from having to sell cheap to encourage investment, she asserted.
Concluding, Mrs Maajar highlighted that Africa could not get out of poverty alone.
Speaking last, Claire Melamed of Action Aid agreed with the other panellists on the importance of economic growth in tackling poverty.
She asserted, however, that it was important not to adopt a "growth triumphalism". It was important to recognise that not all kinds of growth were equally valuable, she argued.
Thus it was essential to pay attention to how growth was happening, she said.
Ms Melamed said that the growth of telecommunications in Africa had been dramatic and had transformed peoples lives in a positive way.
Growth that made a difference tended to have a committed private sector that was backed up by a government that was committed to doing the right thing, she asserted.
Moving on to "wealth creation" she contended that it was important to create wealth that delivered for poor people.
The meeting was then opened up to contributions from the audience.
Audience members asked about the impact of agriculture on wealth creation, educating African leaders and fair and equal trade.
In addition, a representative Equality and Human Rights Commission Representative asked about migration and whether the UK relied on workers from less developed countries to run key services.
Responding first, Mrs Maajar said that in 1985 Tanzania moved towards a free market economy and had achieved substantial economic growth.
On fair trade, she said that Africa had been hurt by slavery, colonialism and had suffered from having its natural resources taken. Today, Tanzania was offering tax holidays and tax benefits to attract multinationals in order to compete, so were still not getting a fair deal, she worried.
The Doha round had collapsed because the developed world could not accommodate the needs of the developing world, she added.
Moving on to trade and aid, Mrs Maajar said that without trade countries would collapse. But aid was also crucial in helping them get to the point where they could attract investment.
On agriculture she said that there were a lot of opportunities. She said that in Tanzania they were seeking to accommodate biofuels to take advantage of the possibility of alternative energy.
Finally, addressing the other questions she worried about the "brain drain" to other countries and said that there was a new crop of leaders who were committed to better governance.
Addressing the issue of governance, Ms Merron stressed the need to build civil society in Africa to give a voice to people.
Moving on to migration, Ms Merron highlighted the challenges of cross border migration. She also described some economic migrants who sought to return to their own countries and stressed that the UK did not actively recruit skilled people from the developed world.
Tackling the questions next, Claire Melamed examined the issue of agriculture. She said that the poorest people in the world were farmers in remote areas of the world.
On corruption, Ms Melamed said that it was important that Governments were accountable to people in the countries. While on fair trade she said that in spite of commodity prices going up all of the higher profits went to the companies outside of the countries where the natural resources extracted.
Speaking last, William Asiko said that Coca Cola had a considerable buying power which enabled it, working with the Bill Gates Foundation, to help the poorest farmers.
They were working on a pilot in Uganda to help farmers process and store products, he said.
Shifting to leadership, Ms Asiko said that there had been a renaissance of leadership in Africa. These changes had happened where foreign countries had publicly criticised African leaders who were not accountable, he said, calling for this to continue.
Secondly, Africans themselves were standing up and resisting poor and unaccountable leaders, he contended.
© DeHavilland Information Services
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A Foreign Policy Centre and KPMG event
Conservative Fringe - 'The credit crunch: Can Europe make a difference?'
Mon, 29 September 08 | DeHavilland Report - Event
Summary
The Government had no choice but to nationalise failed banks, a senior Conservative MEP conceded today.
John Purvis MEP, Vice Chair of the EU Committee on economic and monetary affairs was speaking at a Conservative Party Fringe entitled 'The credit crunch: Can Europe make a difference?' held by the Foreign Policy Centre and KPMG. Joining him on the panel was Peter Oborne, Political columnist for the Daily Mail, Hugo Robinson Research Director at Open Europe and John Griffith-Jones, Global CEO of KPMG who chaired the event.
Opening the fringe, Mr Purvis stated that George Osborne had conveyed the gravitas and seriousness needed for the debate in a speech given to the conference earlier in the day.
The MEP stated that financial services had been left out of the creation of the single market, adding that a single market, through the financial services action plan, was currently under consideration.
Although this action plan was criticised, Mr Purvis stated that most people in the City were supportive of such a move.
The capital requirements directive would set rules for the capital rate of banks, he maintained. Deposit guarantee schemes were under question because of disparities across Europe, he detailed.
Moreover, the questions of private equity and hedge funds had been tackled as a plan for over regulation was tackled by the MEP, the fringe was told.
On credit rating agencies, Mr Purvis stated that they had been charged with a conflict of interest because they assessed ratings but also offered services.
The European Central Bank could be given credit for being the first organisation to feed liquidity into the market. A liquidity crisis would move to a solvency crisis, he maintained.
Nationalisation of banks in trouble was the only option, Mr Purvis argued, stressing that global solidarity was needed to tackle the issue.
Mr Oborne stated that the failures of regulation had to be determined, adding that people were not yet certain of where the failures were to be found.
Regulation had failed, he went on to state, adding that a system that worked needed to be found. He stated that he needed to be convinced that the EU could make a convincing solution, particularly in light of Britain not being part of the euro zone.
The EU could be a 'tremendous complication', Mr Oborne stated, adding that the Government had the power to nationalise but it would be hard for the union to ask for funds to help save banks in other countries.
Britain did have a system that people understood, even if the financial services authority (FSA) had been stripped away from the Bank of England, people could understand its role and that of the Bank of England. At a European level, legislative incompetence and a lack of political legitimacy would not be able to respond in any profound way to the current economic crisis, Mr Oborne stated.
Any international regulation would have to involve the main financial centres of New York, Hong Kong and Geneva, which were outside the EU structure, he maintained.
Mr Robinson stated that the level of EU intervention gave people like Nicholas Sarkozy the ability to act, including in proposing pay caps for bankers. Moreover, Germany wanted twenty per cent of credit risk to be retained by banks, something that the EU believed should be set at ten per cent, he detailed.
He conceded that he was sceptical of the proposal coming out of the European Commission. The German Banking Association warned against regulation being implemented too swiftly, avoiding the thorough debates and deliberations needed, Mr Robinson stated.
Calls for more centralisation had added to debates for a pan European regulator, something the representative spoke against because of the multitude of systems which would need to be assessed. Indeed, the FSA had difficulties in assessing the multitudes of the system, something which would be increased significantly under a super regulator.
The power of regulators would always be limited, Mr Robinson asserted, adding that it was not clear that regulators knew what was going on in the market even now. He argued against rushing through regulations, adding that this could make matters worse.
Moreover, investment was ten per cent down which would lead to a further credit crunch, perhaps including mobile phone and credit card charges.
Bankers were not the only sector at fault, he asserted, adding that monetary policy and interest rate policy were also to blame. Monetary policy makers needed to pay more attention to asset price inflation, Mr Robinson insisted.
More restrictions on lending during downturns could be one option open to policy makers when creating a regulatory response to the credit crisis, he added.
During the question and answer session, Jonathan Evans MEP asserted that the financial crisis was caused primarily through the mortgage market. Plans for an EU regulator had been defeated by a ratio of four to one in the European Parliament, he maintained.
An explosion of debt led to the credit crisis and not just the mortgage system, Mr Oborne contended. He stated that he doubted if the euro could survive the crisis.
On hedge fund regulations pushing markets into Dubai and elsewhere, Mr Purvis stated that the funds were based in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere and were merely managed from London.
The European Central Bank (ECB's) monetary policy over the last eight years had led to housing bubbles in places like Spain and Ireland, Mr Robinson maintained. The future of the euro would be put under severe stress through the financial crisis, he added.
Pressed on whether the Government should adopt a scheme whereby it took over individual debts rather than take over whole institutions, Mr Purvis stated that this was an issue at present, something which the euro zone countries would have to come together to assess.
On the dismissal by the US senate of the recovery plans, Mr Oborne stated that this would have to be solved in the next few days to avert disaster. Indeed, all UK banks could swiftly become nationalised if a recovery plan in the United States was not approved.
Mr Purvis stated that too much regulation had led to the crisis as people tried to circumvent it, leading to risky strategies being adopted. Transparency, light regulation and due diligence by banks was needed, he maintained, adding that faith in regulation was part of the problem.
The Chair added that regulation was never the only answer. Greed had been in charge for some time but this was being replaced by fear, he maintained.
Mr Purvis stated that a Chinese Prime Minister had called for a global arrangement, something that he agreed with. Mr Robinson echoed his support for this proposal.
© DeHavilland Information Services
This information was provided by DeHavilland Public Affairs Monitoring Service. For more information about DeHavilland services please visit www.dehavilland.co.uk or email info@dehavilland.co.uk.
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