Global Malnutrition: FCDO Role

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I want to begin as others have done by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) and the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) for bringing forward this important debate. Like others, I want to recognise that, despite the strong feelings on the issue, no one wants to diminish in any way, or not give recognition to, the work that the UK Government have done on tackling global malnutrition up to this point. It is because of the commitment that the UK Government have shown that there is now such profound concern about the threats during the current crisis to the good record that has been set.

There are growing concerns about the Government’s commitment to the overseas aid budget and the fight against world hunger. Many of us voiced concerns about a diminution of that commitment when the Department for International Development was merged with the Foreign Office. The Minister will recall the concerns expressed then. We were concerned that there would be a reduced focus on international development priorities. We feared that diminution, and indeed many even speculated at that time about whether the 0.7% of national income invested in aid was itself in danger. We were told that was nonsense. Indeed, the Foreign Secretary reaffirmed the UK Government’s 0.7% aid budget commitment as recently as July. Yet it has been abandoned. The former Prime Minister, David Cameron, condemned it as

“breaking a promise to the poorest people and the poorest countries in the world”,

and said it was a promise

“that didn’t have to be broken.”

We were told that there was to be no loss of focus and that the UK Government’s commitment to the poorest in the world was not in question, and that it was scaremongering and misleading to suggest otherwise. But now we fear that there will be a wavering of the commitment. We face a cliff edge on funding commitments, including the commitment to tackling malnutrition, at the very time when covid-19 has exacerbated an already desperate situation. We know that combating covid-19 has been costly to the UK. It has been costly to our health and the economy. As attention is focused on controlling the virus, there is a danger that the gains made globally

“in reducing hunger and malnutrition will be lost.”

Those are not my words, but those of Dr David Nabarro, the World Health Organisation’s special envoy on covid-19, in the context of the 2020 Global Nutrition Report.

One in nine people in the world are hungry—or 820 million people worldwide. That reveals the scale of the challenge if those of us in richer countries really want to ensure that the world is fed. Save the Children tells us that a quarter of children in the world today suffer permanent damage to their bodies and minds because they do not get the nutrition they need. Some 45% of child deaths in the world are linked to malnutrition. By 2030, 129 million children will suffer stunting as a result of hunger, and in the face of that there are concerns about reduced programmes to feed the hungry. As we speak there is a food crisis in southern Africa following the worst drought in 35 years, and the number of people at risk of food shortage is expected to rise to 45 million in the coming months. In the face of that, there are also concerns about reducing programmes to feed the hungry.

That means that international co-operation—all richer countries doing their bit, stepping up to the plate and recognising their role in the global village—becomes ever more pressing. We in richer countries have a moral duty—I do not think this is controversial—to come together and do all we can to invest in nutrition, which is vital for the development of a strong immune system and the prevention of protracted health crises.

In that context, the 0.7% commitment could not be more important. Due to the unprecedented economic emergency, we were told that the 0.7% commitment had to be temporarily suspended, but this economic emergency that we face is alongside the hunger emergency in developing countries, where millions face starvation.

What we need are: forecasts for the total drop in aid spending for nutrition from the start of 2021; an impact assessment on the effect that this decision will have on nutrition programs; a plan to mitigate the effects on the world’s malnourished; and an assurance, provided to the developing world and to concerned people in this House and across the UK, that this drop in financing will not be extended. It is alarming, quite frankly, that aid spending is being reallocated away from poverty-alleviation towards projects that cannot be considered aid projects, such as diplomacy and building yachts. I think most people in the UK would agree that these priorities need to be reassessed.

Malnutrition is a violent and corrosive social injustice that is morally inexcusable and politically and economically unsustainable. As human beings, we cannot ignore, or indeed seek to downgrade, the starvation and malnutrition of other people when we are able to help. We cannot turn our backs or reduce our focus simply because these people live far away. In the longer term, we need integrated, international guidelines on the human right to healthy, nutritious diets, and sustainable food systems, as a critical way forward.

Those of us who are lucky enough—and it is luck—to live in a richer country were filled with hope and optimism with the news of a vaccine, which has started to be rolled out this very day. However, vaccines are harder to deliver, and less likely to be effective, for malnourished people. In the developing world, diseases resulting from a lack of calcium, such as rickets, can have lasting harm, especially for children, whose bodies are still developing. The effects are far reaching, as those children are more likely to grow up with their intellectual and economic potential being limited.

Women and girls are most affected by famine, as their traditional roles in developing countries make it so. It is harder for them to survive because they have to care for their families and have to evade sexual violence, if they can, in areas of armed conflict. In some cultures, women eat last and least, and are subject to domestic violence as family access to food comes under greater strain.

The World Bank estimates that malnutrition costs some countries in Africa and Asia up to 11% of GDP each year; that shows us the limiting and damaging effects of malnutrition in economic terms, as well as in human terms.

The truth is that the UK Government’s aid budget has been cut by £6.9 billion this year alone. All of the good work that we have talked about—and were happy to talk about—done by the UK in poorer countries sadly sits under the shadow of that £6.9 billion cut, at a time when covid-19 rips through developing countries that are simply not equipped to deal with the consequences of that health threat.

We need the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to use every diplomatic and financial tool in its armoury to ensure that the postponed Nutrition for Growth summit, in Japan in 2021, is successful and attracts support for financial and policy commitments to end malnutrition. We do not need the international community to give us warm words; we need the UK on the global stage, leading the effort on the front foot.

The health pandemic must not and cannot be used as a reason for cutting back international aid. In fact, the consequence of the pandemic is that in developing countries an additional 433 children are expected to die every single day, according to The Lancet. It is a cruel irony to argue that the pandemic means that the UK must abandon its millennium development goals commitments.

Malnutrition is a threat multiplier in developing countries, since those who are malnourished are likely to have lower immune systems, and, with a global health pandemic, the significance of a virus that preys on compromised immune systems could not be more profound. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. I hope to see her embracing the need for the UK Government to do their bit on the international stage, tackling global malnutrition and leading the effort. It is the right thing to do.