Aid no alternative to foreign policy in Africa

When Kenya exploded into violence and crisis after the disputed election in December, British government concern focused inevitably on trying to resolve what to do next rather than speculate on its longer term goals for the country. Yet the crisis has also raised far deeper problems about the management of foreign policy: in particular, about the adequacy of resources given to policymaking as opposed to rapid deployments when things go as pear-shaped as they have, spectacularly, in Kenya.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office employs 40 per cent fewer UK-based staff than 30 years ago. They work very hard on rapidly changing tasks from service delivery to climate change. (I am quite sure the staff of the British High Commission in Kenya are working to breaking point now.) Aid from the Department for International Development to Kenya last year was £50m; the FCO’s largest global programme budget was worth £70m, of which £4.7m was directed towards climate change and energy issues.

Where are the resources for political work, the seed corn that provides the harvest of analysis and early warning, and the source of our diplomatic versatility and strength? The FCO’s total budget is about equal now to all of DfID’s aid to Africa (by 2010 aid to Africa will be £2.6bn; the FCO’s budget will then be £1.7bn).

If there is no doubting the need for a development policy and a budget in Africa, there is equally no doubting the need for a proper foreign policy, too. There is also a need for a sensible budget – in 2005, Tony Blair’s “year of Africa”, staff in the Africa department was cut by 21 per cent.

Ten years ago, one of this government’s earliest foreign policy scandals concerned Sandline, a British privately owned security group that was accused of selling arms to Sierra Leone in breach of a British-sponsored United Nations arms embargo. Much of the blame for the very many mistakes that were made by officials during the affair was attributed to overwork and inept top management. Some placebos were applied immediately, but how many lessons have been quietly forgotten once attention from parliament and the press moved on?

The FCO’s other traditional areas of strength have also been starved. Shifting resources to cover new priorities sounds sensible. However, retaining old tasks at the same time but leaving them to wither neglected on the vine is dangerous.

We need a discussion of how better to marshal the instruments that we have if we are to be effective in helping manage the world’s problems. The FCO serves British interests across the board on a shoe-string budget. DfID sees its mandated duty to attack poverty as a unique activity isolated from all those other interests. DfID has less than half the staff of the FCO and 330 per cent more funding. DfID hates being challenged on the effectiveness of its programmes. Although it has spent £323m on “good governance” in 2006-07 the harvest is a bitter one in many cases, as we are seeing now in Kenya. Social spending in the teeth of the evidence of gross misgovernance there has left DfID exposed in the present situation.

There needs to be a readjustment of the way we run and resource foreign policy. As things go, can we expect to be able to afford the “subscription” of global reach, political skills and coherence of world vision expected of one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council? And we seem indifferent to the interest of other Europeans in developing joint diplomatic instruments – witness the drying up of our European Fast Stream in the civil service. We should see a European external act­ion (ie diplomatic) service as an opportunity to do more of what we are best at.

You cannot pick a foreign policy and an identity in the world off the peg. You have to cultivate a role, protect and promote your assets, look ahead, take a long view, recognise and cultivate your human resources. On top of all that it helps to have political leadership that likes and respects the institution and earns affection and trust in return. Trust is something better cultivated than legislated about.

And you cannot have two foreign policies any more than you can have two embassies in one country. The British presence has to be coherent, with all our many interests managed in harmony. In Africa, development is a key part of British policy; it is not a separate policy pursued in isolation.

Sir Edward is a former British high commissioner to Kenya