House of Commons International Development Committee Department for International Development Annual Report 2007 First Report of Session 2007–08 Volume II Oral and written evidence Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 13 November 2007 HC 64-II [Incorporating HC 936-i, Session 2006-07] Published on 15 November 2007 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £0.00 International Development Committee The International Development Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Department for International Development and its associated public bodies. Current membership Malcolm Bruce MP (Liberal Democrat, Gordon) (Chairman) John Battle MP (Labour, Leeds West) Hugh Bayley MP (Labour, City of York) John Bercow MP (Conservative, Buckingham) Richard Burden MP (Labour, Birmingham Northfield) Mr Stephen Crabb MP (Conservative, Preseli Pembrokeshire) Mr Quentin Davies MP (Labour, Grantham and Stamford) James Duddridge MP (Conservative, Rochford and Southend East) Ann McKechin MP (Labour, Glasgow North) Mr Marsha Singh MP (Labour, Bradford West) Sir Robert Smith MP (Liberal Democrat, Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine) Joan Ruddock MP (Labour, Lewisham Deptford) was also a member of the Committee during the inquiry. Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/indcom Committee staff The staff of the Committee are Carol Oxborough (Clerk), Matthew Hedges (Second Clerk), Anna Dickson (Committee Specialist), Chlöe Challender (Committee Specialist), Alex Paterson (Media Officer), Ian Hook (Committee Assistant), Jennifer Steele (Secretary) and James Bowman (Senior Office Clerk). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the International Development Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 1223; the Committee’s email address is [email protected] Witnesses Tuesday 17 July 2007 (HC 936-i, Session 2006-07) Page Sir Suma Chakrabarti, Permanent Secretary, Mr Mark Lowcock, Director General, Policy and International, Ms Nemat (Minouche) Shafik, Director General, Country Programmes, and Ms Sue Owen, Director General, Corporate Performance, Department for International Development Ev 1 List of written evidence Department for International Development (DFID) Ev 19; Ev 29; Ev 33; Ev 57; Ev 62; Ev 65; Ev 68 ActionAid Ev 69 Harvesthelp, Farm Africa and Send a Cow Ev 71 HealthProm Ev 82 Dr Alan Hudson Ev 82 International Rescue Committee Ev 84 LAMB Health Care Foundation Ev 88 Leonard Cheshire International Ev 89 Oxfam GB Ev 90 Plan UK Ev 93 Sightsavers International Ev 94 Tearfund Ev 94 UK Aid Network Ev 97 UK Forum on Agricultural Research and Development (UKFARD) Ev 103 UK Gender & Development Network (GADN) Ev 109 Hans Peter Ulrich, Civio Public Policy Consulting Ev 112 WWF-UK Ev 115 Voice of Dalit International (VODI) Ev 124 Welcome Trust Ev 126 UK Consortium on AIDS and International Development Working Group on Orphans and Vulnerable Children Ev 127 3750222001 Page Type [SO] 12-11-07 22:40:58 Pag Table: COENEW PPSysB Unit: PAG2 International Development Committee: Evidence Ev 1 Oral evidence Taken before the International Development Committee on Tuesday 17 July 2007 Members present: Rt Hon Malcolm Bruce, in the Chair John Battle Ann McKechin Hugh Bayley Mr Marsha Singh Richard Burden Sir Robert Smith Witnesses: Sir Suma Chakrabarti, Permanent Secretary, Mr Mark Lowcock, Director General, Policy and International, Ms Nemat (Minouche) Shafik, Director General, Country Programmes, and Ms Sue Owen, Director General, Corporate Performance, Department for International Development, gave evidence. Q1 Chairman: Sir Suma, once again we welcome you Sir Suma Chakrabarti: There are no silver bullets in to the Committee for its annual exchange based on development but gender is a crucial issue and we your departmental report. For the record, perhaps recognise that in the recent publication of our you would first introduce your team. Action Plan. I will come to the politics of it because Sir Suma Chakrabarti: Thank you, Chairman. On that is at the heart of it. I shall ask my colleagues to my right is Nemat (Minouche) Shafik, Director give some examples of what we are doing. The first General for Country Programmes; on my far left is thing we have to do as an organisation is to up our Sue Owen, Director General for Corporate game on gender compared with what we have been Performance; and on my immediate left is Mark doing in the past few years. How we take forward the Lowcock, Director General for Policy and Action Plan internally and in our work with other International. countries is quite crucial. It may help the Committee to know that under our Action Plan we have set up a group of champions at quite senior levels within the Q2 Chairman: Obviously, we want to cover a various divisions of the organisation. They are led by number of issues, not all of which may flow neatly, Mark Lowcock who is chairman of the board for but we will deal with them by topic. In the two years that purpose. Each of the regions of the country that I have been doing this particular job, from the programmes also has an action plan. That takes number of inquiries and visits we have made, it has forward the overall Action Plan but in much greater become more and more apparent in the context of detail. All of our Country Assistance Plans—in the development how crucial are gender issues. In many recent past they were weaker on gender analysis than cases we find that the role of women is under-played, we would have liked—will include much greater under-valued and under-consulted and their analysis of issues to do with women and children, potential to contribute to development is, therefore, particularly girls, than has been the case. Therefore, under-realised and everybody loses. There are all the evidence base will be better for what we want to kinds of issues, cultural and otherwise. Within your do; and we need to share good practice between department there is an acknowledgement of the regions. We shall be leading the way on that between importance of gender issues. When we raised it with the regional divisions. Beyond that, there are a Gareth Thomas on 4 July he told us that a couple of points worth making. One is that the “revolution in attitudes” was necessary if progress evidence base on how gender impacts on was to be made. Your Gender Action Plan says that development needs to be improved. That is not just a political response, not a technical one, is needed. DFID’s evidence base; it is the position globally. We Can you give us an indication of what that means? are now doing quite a bit of work with the World Probably the worst example we came across was in Bank and the IFC1 on some of these issues. We are Ethiopia where we were taken by oYcials from particularly interested in the link between gender DFID to a project which was supposedly being issues and growth. Quite a lot is posited around that. managed by a body called the Women and We would like to investigate it more and build up a Children’s Development Organisation. The entire stronger evidence base and see where we can go with presentation was given by men. We were served tea it in our programming. The other point is to do with and coVee by a lady who turned out to have a PhD multilateral influencing. Again, this is a collective in economics and was the finance director. That was eVort which we have talked about before. Frankly, perhaps the worst example, but there have been DFID upping its game alone will not have much of many others. For example, in northern Vietnam an impact unless it can get the World Bank, women were kept in a back room and not allowed to European Commission and crucially the UN take part in the proceedings. This is a really serious involved. One is aware of the Panel on System-Wide issue and I would be interested to hear how you believe you can deal with it. 1 International Finance Corporation 3750222001 Page Type [E] 12-11-07 22:40:58 Pag Table: COENEW PPSysB Unit: PAG2 Ev 2 International Development Committee: Evidence 17 July 2007 Sir Suma Chakrabarti, Mr Mark Lowcock, Ms Nemat (Minouche) Shafik and Ms Sue Owen Coherence which also talks about sorting out the In a moment I shall ask Ann McKechin to come in. UN structures on gender. We are also trying to If one looks at those examples, it is fine to say there is improve how multilaterals address this issue. To an action plan but is the department able to provide return to the heart of your question, the treatment, incentives to bring gender much more centrally into profile and status of women is fundamentally a the country programmes? Can you give any political issue and in many countries it is a political examples of where you have managed to achieve a economy issue. Therefore, we cannot expect results degree of change? very fast, but at the same time we need to work with Mr Lowcock: We hope that the main incentive is the civil society organisations and others in those leadership provided by managers and ministers.