Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-04-11-Speech-2-176"
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"en.20000411.7.2-176"2
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". – If the honourable Member, who has made some serious points, does not have anything else on tomorrow morning, he might come to the debate on Ethiopia in which I shall be taking part myself because my colleague has to be elsewhere. I shall be setting out the figures for our actual disbursements of food aid in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
I just wish to add two points. Firstly, I do not share the honourable Member's views on ECHO: it does a very good job in difficult circumstances. I want to make this point about the Horn of Africa. I was a development minister from 1986 to 1989 and I spent much of my time trying to deal with the food crisis then in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
I feel rather strongly that we have managed over the years, despite problems from time to time, to increase our ability to get food and other assistance to people in the most appallingly difficult circumstances. We have managed to increase our ability to deliver humanitarian assistance. What we have not done is to increase our ability to make that humanitarian assistance unnecessary in the first place. There is a food crisis in the Horn of Africa. There are two large armies dug into trenches, buying expensive military equipment from other countries with money which should be going to agricultural extension, to improving water schemes and the life chances of babies and young mothers. So I hope I catch your eye tomorrow in the debate and make some of these points.
I have great sympathy for the problems being faced by Ethiopia and Eritrea. However, I have to say that I was dealing with these problems 13 or 14 years ago and, alas, much less has happened to the good than one would have liked."@en1
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