Sustainable Development Goals — House of Commons, 2019-06-11
Topic: International Affairs
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I absolutely agree. There was a lot of talk about what lessons we could learn from the millennium development goals framework. First, it had to be a continuous, ongoing learning iterative process. It cannot just be about trying to reinvent the wheel every single time. We probably have the most thoughtful ministerial team in DFID since I have been here, but I am just not convinced how long they will last and whether they will have the opportunity to drive the process forward. I will perhaps say a bit more about that before the end. At the time the sustainable development goals were being developed, we repeatedly made the point that, unlike the MDGs, they would be truly global. We had to have a truly global system for how to tackle the challenges affecting every country in the world, including our own. Not everything in our garden is rosy, as every single speaker, including the Minister, has said. That is the importance of the framework: to hold us to account. We report so we can show where progress is being made and where the gaps still lie. Poverty is unacceptable wherever it is found and we all have to be held to account. If we are genuine about trying to show leadership in this part of the world, it is not just about helping other countries to meet those goals but ensuring we are making every effort to meet them all ourselves and, in terms of accountability, being willing and able to report on them On the Scottish Government, Nicola Sturgeon was one of the first Government leaders anywhere in the world to say that her Government would commit fully to the SDGs and play their part in implementing them both at home and abroad. Since the SNP became the Scottish Government in 2007, all their work has been measured against a national performance framework. Since the SDGs have come into force, that framework has been revised so that it is aligned with all the different aspects of the sustainable development goals and that they are reflected in the indicators and the outcomes of that framework. The Scottish Government are showing leadership, and I encourage UK Ministers to look at the framework and the difference it might make across the whole of Government policy As other Members have said, the biggest challenge at home and abroad to meeting the sustainable development goals is climate change. Indeed, the changing climate threatens to reverse the progress that has been made over the period of the millennium development goals. I welcome the focus that the new Secretary of State is bringing to the importance of climate change, but tackling climate change and achieving climate justice needs to go beyond, and be additional to, the work that is being done. It is not simply about repurposing some of DFID’s funds and priorities to tackle climate change instead of other things. It has to be both/and; otherwise, we will not make the progress that we need That is why I give the example, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), of the Scottish Government’s climate justice fund, which is additional to the Scottish Government’s international development fund and is deliberately not handled by the International Development Minister, or at least that was the case when it was set up. It was looked at from a holistic perspective to help people in developing countries to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change, because, as others have said, the concept of climate justice recognises that those who are worst affected are often those who are being hit first and hardest but who have done the least to cause the changing climate that we are all experiencing The other aspect that is very important is tackling governance and making sure that civil society and national Government frameworks are as strong as they can be. In saying this, I declare a couple of interests: I am the SNP Member on the board of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and I am chair of the all-party group on Malawi. Malawi has just gone through pretty successful, very peaceful elections, but they have demonstrated some of the challenges that come with governance in developing democracies. More women have now been elected to the Malawian Parliament, which is fantastic, but as I said to the Secretary of State in DFID questions last week, some of the very capable incumbents found themselves losing their seats. That is democracy—we all put ourselves forward in elections and we have to go into them with open eyes and expect that we may not be re-elected—but there is a tendency throughout developing democracies for one-term elections. People seem to find that once they have been elected, they have real difficulty getting re-elected. We perhaps have to look at some of the structures and causes behind the scenes, when individual candidates seem to get targeted because they are not pliable or are not signing up with the overall majority. The civil society links that help to strengthen that are hugely important as well, so I pay tribute, as the Secretary of State has done, to the work of the Scotland Malawi Partnership The civil society grassroots links in Scotland are hugely important. Many of the projects there that have partner and twin organisations in Malawi are just as dedicated to tackling poverty at home in Scotland. Many are church or faith-based groups and they work with poor people in their communities, as well as trying to support people living in poverty in Malawi. When DFID is looking at its options, I hope that it can find different ways to support networks such as the Scotland Malawi Partnership Finally, underpinning all that is the 0.7% target, which was calculated at a time when if all the developed countries reached that target, there would be enough money to reach the goals. I do not know when anyone last tried to do that kind of calculation to figure out whether that is still the case, but if everybody did meet the 0.7%, that would leverage far more resources than are currently available for development. It is hugely commendable that there is a cross-party, cross-society consensus in support of that target.