9th Febrauary 2012

Ivan Lewis tonight gave the keynote address to the WWF and RGS “Navigating the perfect storm: the international challenge of food, water and energy security” seminar. A full copy of his speech is below.

CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

I want to start by thanking the WWF and RGS for inviting me here to speak today. Both organisations have a tremendous history of scientific and environmental excellence. I must also thank our Chair for this evening Sir John Beddington who’s Foresight Report on the Future of Food and Farming has been so important in framing many of the arguments I will make.

I’m delighted to be back working on a brief which was one of the most satisfying and thought provoking periods of my nine years in Government.

As I see it my role is three fold:

• To hold the Government to account in a responsible and effective way

• To champion the importance of maintaining public support for UK aid and development in these tough times.

• And finally my key role is to develop over time a credible and inspirational new international development agenda for Labour, not trying to recreate the DfID of 1997 – 2010 but recognising the world has changed and responding to that.

Today I want to take this opportunity to set out what I see as the changing context in which we now operate and why resource security should be one of our top priorities. Whilst reflecting on what this means the Government and for the Labour Party in opposition.

The World has changed dramatically

We meet against a backdrop of momentous international change. The world as we see it today looks considerably different to that of a few years ago.

Three-quarters of world poverty is now concentrated in middle-income countries such as India, Brazil, Ghana and China. A significant proportion of the rest is in fragile, conflict-ridden states. The global financial crisis, the consequences of globalisation, the impact of the Arab spring, food crises, the rise of new economic powers, massive projected population growth and climate change all pose profound challenges but also opportunities.

The reason I am here today is to speak about one of these challenges in particular and that is resource scarcity and security.

With the global population forecast to grow to 9 billion by 2044 the question of how to ensure sustainable access to vital resources, such as food, water and energy is one of the great challenges we face. With Africa planned to double in population, Asia and the Americas to grow by 25% and Europe hardly predicted to grow at all, what will this mean for the global distribution of resources? In a speech to the General Assembly earlier this month Ban Ki-moon identified sustainable development as his top priority stating that “ours is a world of looming challenges and increasingly limited resources,” I couldn’t agree more.

Resource security

There is no doubt that resource scarcity is one of our most significant challenges.

In the face of limited resources the world has to adapt to ensure a fair and equitable distribution of resources at a time of scarcity and massive population growth. The challenge for politicians, as Ed Miliband has consistently said, is how do we achieve fairness in tough times?
Meeting our aspirations for a fairer more equal global society will require recognising and adapting to the limits of global resource. The interlinking strands of food, water, land and energy security sit at the heart of this intensely complex sustainable development agenda. But it is clear that increasing sustainability is crucial to resolving the tragic levels of poverty and insecurity facing the world.

Food Security

Food is a very clear example of this, we cannot have food security without sustainability, we need both.

One of the most devastating manifestations of the challenge we face is seen in the ongoing food crisis in the Horn of Africa and the serious concerns about West Africa. In the 21st Century it cannot be right that the world is plagued by preventable food crises. It is estimated that worldwide 1bn people continue live in absolute poverty; this is equivalent to 15% of the global population. In the Sahel region alone 300,000 children die from malnutrition-related causes every year and that is outside of so called ‘crisis’ years.

As a result, food is now firmly on the political agenda, the G20 held its first agriculture ministers meeting last June and as we move towards the end date for the Millennium Development Goals, 2015, food will remain a central concern.

Building resilience means tackling the structural causes of food crises; addressing the effects of speculation on food prices, agricultural diversification, action to tackle and mitigate the impact of climate change and greater investment in agricultural practices and sustainable livelihoods in the developing world.
The solution to global food shortages is not only producing more food. Nor is it only investing in smallholder farmers or even; increasing food aid or social protection and safety nets. Only an integrated approach targeted to the needs of individual countries will help the international community build the resilience we need to avoid future food crises. We must remember that sustainability isn’t just environmental it is social and economic. This means developing a system of global social justice and ensuring a more equitable distribution of resources. The recent high level panel on Global Sustainability put the challenge succinctly “Sustainable development is not a destination, but a dynamic process of adaptation, learning and action.”

Tanzania

Whilst on a visit to Tanzania with ActionAid only last week I saw how many of these problems manifest themselves on the ground. In want to focus on five in particular:

1.    We now have an increasingly unpredictable climate resulting in drier soil and less frequent rains making it much harder to grow crops.

2.    The impact of biofuels. With the World Bank report last June raising concern biofuels can lead to increased food prices, land grabs and don’t help to reduce carbon emissions. We need to re-examine the targets which have been set until we have more clarity about their impact.

3.    Land insecurity. I saw firsthand the problems of families who do not own their land therefore don’t invest in it and have no security about their future.

4.    Rising food prices. The volatility of global food prices, bad harvests, population growth and the impact of food speculation is being felt around the globe. Higher food prices can be painful in UK, however in the developing world these can be deadly, representing up to 80% of a family’s expenditure.

5.    The need for agricultural innovation, an area Bill Gates’ 2012 Annual Letter had some interesting suggestions on. This innovation as well as investment in small scale farmers is vital, especially given that women make up 70% of the agricultural workforce in Africa.

Need a new global development paradigm

Now all of these mean that business as usual is not sustainable. It and the other global challenges we face will require an ambitious and coordinated International partnership between donors, developing countries, private sector, NGOs, multilateral institutions and Diaspora communities. A new covenant for development, as I describe it, which replaces a paternalistic relationship between developing and developed countries with a tripartite, dynamic network bringing together developed, developing and middle income countries.

Given the backdrop of global change which I have already spoken about it is clear that in the future any development paradigm will need to reflect this change; offering a holistic approach to address these challenges. Whilst the MDGs have been a great tool for rallying support and encouraging a clear focus on issues, it is fair to say their overly siloed nature has at times hindered an inclusive approach. Sustainability for example cannot be a bolt on; it needs to be at the foundation of any development framework otherwise all we achieve is short term hollow progress. We must look at broader issues around sustainability and inequality. Recognising that there is no simple one size fits all solution to poverty eradication and that blanket absolute targets may not be the best solution. However this must be tempered by an appreciation that an overly complex and inflexible system would undoubtedly be doomed to failure.

Any post 2015 framework would have to include a focus on drivers of growth, building governance, trade, climate change, social protection, support for civil society, innovative finance, transparent and fair taxation and the role of global targets. This is a debate which will rage in coming years. For us it is essential any new compact must focus on social justice, inequality and human rights.

So what does this mean for the present Government?

The next three years need to see significant change in the international community’s approach to international development. The complex and interconnected nature of resource scarcity means that political leadership is absolutely vital. Not only to deliver an optimistic vision for the future but to focus and catalyse international action towards solutions.

Not since the creation of the MDGs has the development community been at such an important crossroads. At previous Summits the British Government has led the way bringing international partners to the table to pursue a visionary and progressive vision. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown personally championed debt relief and progress on the MDGs. We do not see that kind of commitment from David Cameron and George Osborne. Whilst we are obviously delighted that Andrew Mitchell is committed to honouring Labour’s commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on international development, I have serious concerns that the current Government lacks a vision for the future beyond aid and view charity and paternalism not social justice and human rights as being the key drivers of their development agenda.

Labour established DfID not simply to provide aid but also to play a key role in shaping global development policy. Today, it is more important than ever that the Government supports DfID to fulfil this leadership role. Making the UK’s voice heard in the multilateral organisations we support, in the UN bodies and specifically in Europe. This last point is especially important, the Government cannot let its sceptical approach to Europe undermine or jeopardise the UK’s role in ECHO.

Moving to the future the upcoming Rio +20 meeting in June offers an opportunity to move the food security argument forward. This is the first step in a process; Rio should focus on key principles and a commitment to build sustainable policies which recognise the long term nature of the interlinked environmental, social and economic challenges and this must be reflected in the final communiqué. This commitment must of course be agreed by donor countries but it must also actively engage low and middle income countries and secure their support for any outcomes.

Conclusion: Labour’s approach

Because we accept that there is a need for a joined up, cross departmental approach we are determined to lead by example. It is for this reason that the Labour party has established the ‘Road to Rio’ joint working group bringing together the relevant shadow ministers from the Climate Change, Environment and International Development teams to develop a coordinated cross-departmental approach which will also involve engagement with our Shadow Treasury and BIS teams, on many of the issues of joint interest. This will be particularly important in order to develop a coherent vision in the run up to June’s Rio +20 meeting on sustainable development.

Labour will be focused on not only supporting ways to make as much progress on the current MDG targets as possible, but on what a post 2015 development framework might look like. Over the coming months I and my team will be working closely with stakeholders across the development landscape to contribute to the creation of a new ambitious, sustainable and coordinated international framework, and I look forward to working with you all as we development this conversation.

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