Jack McConnell - Making Poverty History
The world seems a different place since the G8 leaders last came to the UK.
Since that summit at Gleneagles in 2005 the picture has been altered by a global financial crisis and the focus has shifted from cancelling third world debt and increasing aid, to rebuilding the economy and reducing unemployment.
Seven years ago, as the musicians and celebrities came together at the Live 8 concerts and the Make Poverty History campaign was at its height, Jack McConnell saw it as his role as then First Minister of Scotland to be “part of the movement” to exert pressure on the G8 and also to demonstrate its commitment on the world stage by setting up the Scotland Malawi Partnership.
Now a member of the House of Lords, McConnell left the Scottish Parliament last year, and is still as determined to see more action on global poverty.
He tells Holyrood: “There’s no doubt that the G8 made a significant difference in writing off debt and then an initial increase in aid - and I am certain that levels of aid, interest, commitment and belief in Africa are higher today than they would have been if that G8 campaign and the event itself hadn’t taken place.
“But where we are today is just simply not good enough - most of the countries have reneged on the firm promises that they made. Britain is one of the few exceptions and the reality today is there are still one billion people living in extreme poverty on less than £1 a day. That, in the second decade of the 21st century, is an absolute disgrace.”
A cooperation agreement was signed between Scotland and Malawi in November 2005 - chosen because of the close ties that have existed between the two countries since David Livingstone’s work there. Since the agreement the level of voluntary effort that has gone into the African nation is estimated at about £30m.
McConnell says: “In Scotland we’re going to celebrate next year the bicentenary of the birth of David Livingstone. He was one of the first scientific explorers, missionaries to go to the heart of Africa and try to build a relationship of equals with Africans. If he was alive today he would be absolutely horrified that we had made such little progress in all of that time.
“I hope that next year’s G8 in London will be a chance to look again at the situation in advance of what will be the new millennium development goals after 2015 and for the richest countries in the world to recommit in a very specific way to close this gap.
“We cannot have a safe, secure and prosperous world with so many people living in poverty.” He acknowledges that the world financial crisis has seen a shift in where global poverty sits on the agenda, but sees the need to tackle it is as urgent as ever.
“I think in our country, as everywhere else in the world, people are finding the current economic position tough and in that situation they are concentrating more on their own family, their own community and what they see as poverty - there is very real poverty, an increase in food banks, for example, in local communities across the UK and elsewhere in the developed world,” he says.He stresses the need for even stronger political leadership on the issue and while he praises former Prime Minister Tony Blair for taking a lead on the world poverty issue at the time, he says that generally, politicians were pushed into it by public pressure. He also says that former Tory leader Michael Howard deserves credit for the change in Conservative Party policy to commit to 0.7 per cent of the UK budget going towards aid.
“Today we’re in a slightly different position,” he says. “Public opinion supports 0.7 per cent, but doesn’t demand it perhaps as much. To me, this is a situation where the politicians need to show leadership.
The global economic crisis is a threat to the developed and the developing world and it’s particularly a threat in the developing world where people who are most vulnerable get hit hardest by these shocks. But it is also an opportunity to build a different kind of relationship to come out at the other end with a stronger world economic system and stronger relationships that increase trade and self-sufficiency, tackle climate change, all these vital issues that make such a big difference to the lives of the poorest people on the planet.”
He adds: “While at home we need to get our books in order and we need growth and need to deal with the immediate impact of an increase in poverty in the most vulnerable communities, we also need to be leading the way internationally and saying that where we are in five years time has to be different from where we were five years ago. For the world economic system to be more sustainable, for there to be more prosperity - not just better shared prosperity - that has to be a greater level of economic growth, less conflict and a better provision of health and education in order to sustain the human capacity for that in the developing world.”
There is often a great focus on Scotland and its place in the world. McConnell says that for a small country, it has had a massive impact on the world for the last 400 years.
“Those of us who come from Scotland, who live in Scotland, who feel Scottish whether we were born there or not, are lucky. Scotland’s impact on the world is truly phenomenal. Perhaps we do have a more international outlook than would be expected of a small country with lots of challenges at home, but we do have it and we should make the most of it. We will only prosper as a country ourselves if we have strong international relationships that we exploit to the full, but at the same time we have a duty and a responsibility to give something back.”
Since the start of the Malawi link up the number of schools with a direct connection to a school in Malawi has risen from less than 10 to more than 400 primary and secondaries. In particular schools such as Holyrood Secondary School in Glasgow has raised about £20- £30,000 a year and sent up to 30 pupils every summer to rebuild classrooms and school buildings in Southern Malawi.
In addition, the Edinburgh-based charity Mums for Malawi is responsible for supporting several maternity clinics and Mary’s Meals, based in Argyll, feeds over 500,000 children a day, 300,000 in Malawi.
These practical schemes are what McConnell is referring to as the “person-to-person” help that typifies Scotland’s support.
“Unless you have seen it or have met the people affected by it, it is really quite hard for most of us who live in the developed world to understand the lives of people who live in a hut held together by mud, with no electricity and where the food is basically the water that you carry on your head by walking several miles a day, and what you can grow or scrape out of the land.
“This is a way of life so far removed from our lives it is hard to comprehend - but one of the great benefits of the Scotland Malawi experience has been to help people understand that experience better.
“One of the most significant things we can give to the next generation is to encourage them to travel, to make contact with people in those worlds and genuinely understand what the rest of the world is like.
“That is an experience that the Scotland Malawi Partnership has given to hundreds of Scottish youngsters and therefore the people they talk to when they come back home. It’s really deeply meaningful and I would like to see the Scotland Malawi experience duplicated elsewhere in the world.” As well as trips out to Malawi and elsewhere, closer to home, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale has put his words into action by taking part in the Global Poverty Project’s Live Below the Line project for the last two years. The challenge is to live on £1 a day for five days.
He admits the challenge was difficult - but one that he knew would only last a short time, unlike those in real poverty. But he said it had led him to make changes to his daily life since.
“I would say that I drink significantly less bottled water now than I did two years ago.
Doing this exercise brought home to me the absolute waste there is in this country. The amount of food we waste in the UK is £10bn - three times the world food programme. It is absolutely staggering.” Looking back to 2005, McConnell says he was criticised for some of the international policies at the time for “dabbling in something we had no right to” because aid budgets are reserved to Westminster.
“There were people who thought we couldn’t make an impact and there were people who thought we shouldn’t.
“I’ve had a lifelong interest in global inequality, not just inequality at home. I was determined during my time as First Minister that we would not ignore this issue.” At the time, just as happens now, the Government was spending money on promoting Scotland worldwide, for tourism and its products. McConnell says: “I was very conscious that we were spending a lot of time and resources around the world promoting Scotland and getting something back and I really genuinely felt that we should give something back too.
“I believed the people of Scotland would respond to that, whatever cynicism there is about politicians generally and whatever opinions people had of the Scottish Parliament back then and government and what we were doing, the reality is that they responded to this call and I am really proud of the people of Scotland because they embraced this. We made our own contribution to this and I hope it will continue for many years to come.” The UK Government’s 0.7 per cent contribution has been challenged, but not changed. As question marks continue to remain over commitments - and aid to other countries has to increasingly be defended - McConnell urged political leaders not to walk away.“If you speak to any true expert on Africa, what they will tell you is that at this moment in time there is an amazing opportunity to build on the successes of recent years and take a real step change towards a more selfsufficient confident continent. Some of the fastest growing economies of the world today are in sub-Saharan Africa.“The aid programmes, particularly vaccination and clean water programmes of the last decade or so have really made a difference in terms of life expectancy and the general health of the population and therefore productivity in an economic sense, and across Africa, although there are a small group of regional conflicts that are complex and very difficult to crack, there are signs of hope.There’s significantly less cross-border conflict than there has been in any other time since colonial days and governance standards and elections are becoming the norm rather than the exception.
“To turn our back on the continent at this time, to withdraw from that investment that has made such a difference, would be an absolute tragedy because we would reap what we sow - there would be an increase in conflict, more poverty, and we would just have to go back in 10 or 20 years time and pick up the pieces.” He adds: “At the moment what we have are more self-confident, more aware, more pluralist, more determined political leadership and populations of Africa that want to build on the success of recent years. Our investment can help make that difference and I think that at this moment there is a need for strong leadership on this.
“A bit of vision and bit of belief and 10 years from now, we’ll look back and think ‘Thank God we did that’.”
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