The Welsh Assembly Government Wales for Africa Programme

Speech delivered 10th March 2009

Thank you for calling me to speak in this most significant of debates Presiding Officer. With billions of people around the world living in poverty, we have an urgent moral and practical imperative to make the results of our international development policy more effective, lasting and mutually beneficial. Each of the Members present in this Assembly will know of Charities and Groups working within their constituencies, perhaps based in schools or churches, businesses or mosques, working selflessly to raise money for good causes fighting disease, suffering, starvation and injustice in developing nations. I’m sure some Members will be particularly involved in fundraising this week as the BBC’s Comic Relief campaign reaches its climax on Friday evening. It therefore seems only right that this Assembly Government continues to plays its part within its statutory powers as the global community seeks to meet the international targets on poverty agreed in the Millennium Development Goals.

While one accepts that the financial amount the Assembly Government is able to set aside for Wales for Africa is relatively small, the mutual benefits that the project brings to people in Wales and the African continent are increasingly palpable and it is extremely pleasing for me and my constituents that communities and charities within South Wales East are at the forefront of the country’s contribution to international development.

The Southern Ethiopia Gwent Health Link (formerly the Dilla- Abergavenny link) has been in existence for over 10 years, focussing upon the training of front-line health professionals like health officers, nurses and midwives who work in rural Ethiopia with extremely limited facilities. The work of the organisation is inspiring and it remains the best example of what a well run and supported link between hospitals in Africa and Wales, or anywhere else in Western World, can achieve. In under a fortnight project volunteers will travel to Southern Ethiopia to donate a motorbike ambulance, to provide training and donate equipment at the three exemplar health centres that the organisation supports and to set up a microbiology service. Through the donation of medical equipment and sharing the scientific knowledge and experience of individuals such as Dr. Ghosh the Link is creating a legacy of improved health especially in reducing the number of women who die giving birth and one of trained local professionals.

The project organisers however are realistic and have highlighted the need for further links with developed countries to improve education, sanitation and trade. The strengths of the Gold Star Communities Project are evident in a number of the partnerships created between communities in Africa and South Wales East. The link between Bryn y Cwm near Abergavenny and the village of Yirga Cheffe in Southern Ethiopia is on a smaller scale than that of the Southern Ethiopia Gwent Health Link but no less inspirational and worthwhile. In keeping with the Government and wider Assembly’s commitment to Fair Trade goods and Sustainable Development the people of Bryn y Cwm have pledged to help the local coffee farmers get a fair return for their produce. In addition the organisers of the link have targeted improving the supply of clean water to the village and linked 3 schools there with 3 schools here – King Henry VIII Comprehensive School, Cantref Primary school and Llantilio Pertholey School. The mutual educational benefits of the links are clear - pupils have communicated and exchanged letters, drawings and photographs, and through this exchange of information it has become clear that the Ethiopian schoolchildren do not have a sufficient number of desks and chairs in their classrooms. More help is required underlining the continued need for International Aid programmes and charity

 In the areas the group from Bryn Y Cwm are helping the Abiot Fire in Southern Ethiopia primary school have 2699 students with five students sharing one desk. The school has a library but no resources. The High School has over 3,700 students with more than 100 students in a class. Dilbitigl primary school has approximately 3,000 pupils with an acute shortage of desks and chairs and backboards.

Gestures such as funding the purchase of desks and classroom equipment may seem piecemeal given the scale of poverty and deprivation in some parts of Africa but they do offer hope for people living in sometimes desperate conditions. We are helping people to help themselves. No project underlines this better than the work of the Monmouth-based charity Bees for Development. Aiming to alleviate poverty by means of beekeeping, and supporting awareness of Fair Trade and the consequences of buying African honey, the organisation will soon have a dedicated beekeeping information portal on their website offering information and advice for beekeeper in Africa. This is important work as African bees exist in most cases in wild colonies and have not been bred and managed by people for hundreds of years as in Europe and more latterly the Americas. Their honey will provide a new source of income for African communities; their value in pollinating crops is inestimable and since they show greater genetic resistance to disease than their European and American ancestors will prove important in trying to reverse the alarming decline in bee population in each of those continents.

The Wales for Africa framework is a welcome indicator of Wales and the Wider United Kingdom’s commitment to internationalism and the continued peaceful exchange of ideas across countries, cultures and generations for mutual benefit shows the human face of globalization.

- Shortly, Rhys Collier, aged 22, from Griffithstown will travel to Zambia along with 11 other young members of St. John Cymru-Wales where they will impart lifesaving first aid training skills to their peers. The trip being made possible by the ‘Wales for Africa’ initiative and the Russell Commission.

- Grassroots Cymru have also been very active in South Wales East. TheTheatre for Development Company has come over from Bulawayo in Zimbabwe especially to run training programmes for youngsters in North Abergavenny, North Torfaen and Ringland, Newport.  And while some members of Grassroots were building relationships in Wales, others were engaged in health and education development activities in Zimbabwe.

-         As other speakers have indicated, one imagines that visit of King Letsie of Lesotho to primary schools across Wales such as St.Cenydd in Caerphilly as part of the Dolen Cymru project will live long in the memory of the schoolchildren who met him.

-         If I could mention briefly Somaliland where once again health issues are vitally important and ask whether Wales could help to contribute to the growth of democracy in Somaliland by contributing to official observer groups in the Presidential election in which voters will be using biometric identity cards?

It is important to acknowledge also, the work done by those many Groups in Wales who receive no Government support for their efforts in developing countries. Groups such as Cariad Kenya based in Rogerstone, that help in giving welfare, education and justice for neglected children and supports a home for neglected children in Kenya. Groups such as Just One Child that have raised thousands of pounds in Newport to help abandoned children in Southern African Countries. Or groups such as Health Help International, based at Stow Park Church in Newport, which provides money for hospital and clinic infrastructures in Zambia and India by supplying medical equipment and funding medical aid to those unable to afford hospitalisation or treatment. Such charities have quickly entered the fabric of the towns and associations, with established associations such as Caerleon Rotary Club raising money for water purifying and pumping equipment which has meant that children in a village in Zambia no longer have to trek 2 kilometres each day to a river to get about 140 litres of water for drinking, cooking, washing and feeding livestock.

(HHI have helped fund and establish a Mission Hospitals at Mpongwe and a children’s ward at a clinic in Kaloko in central Zambia. I recommend Member take a look at their website to see for themselves this charity’s remarkable work.

HHI also helped with the financing of a school clinic at Monze in Southern Zambia. The Hinjali Clinc gave a medical presence for the first time in this rural area, 11kms from the nearest Health Post along tracks and roads that are impassable in the rainy season.
The charity‘s next task is to fund the construction of a house so that a resident nurse can be accommodated.)

There have been some heartening examples of progress in meeting the Millennium Development Goals, such as the 91 percent reduction in measles deaths in Africa and new inroads against malaria. That people in South Wales East are proclaiming through their actions that poverty, famine, injustice and suffering from preventable diseases is unacceptable in the Twenty First Century is a huge source of pride for towns and communities in the region and I hope their efforts will continue to be supported, acknowledged and bear fruit in their target areas of Africa. For there is unquestionably still much work to be done. It is important that Wales continues it’s commitment to these most laudable of Government targets through the Wales for Africa framework and the UK Government’s International Development programme even in times of a global recession. The mutual benefits of the links between Africa and Welsh Communities are tangible, and aim to strengthen the communities in which they exist while breaking the cycle of poverty.