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Home » NEWS » Sobering study: South could fall even more behind
Sobering study: South could fall even more behind
Posted by: Becky Gillette in NEWS June 28, 2004
"The only road out of poverty leads by the schoolhouse."
That is the quote by former Mississippi Gov. William Winter featured on the cover of the new State of the South 2004 report by the non-profit group MDC (Making a Difference in Communities) Inc.
The State of the South report predicts that the region could fall even more behind economically if current trends continue that leave large numbers of residents ill equipped to make a livable wage.
Winter, who is chairman emeritis of the MDC board, said the report shows it is critical to intensify efforts at providing better education to more of the people in Mississippi.
"We still have a huge gap in terms of our commitment to educate all of our people," Winter said. "About 25% are getting left out for whatever reason. What the State of the South report stresses is that there are fewer and fewer jobs now available in the unskilled categories. The economic future of this state lies in creating more jobs that will command higher and higher levels of education. We're not doing a very good job of that."
Winter said there are still too many, low-income minority children attending poor schools, and not developing the skills they need to thrive economically and culturally.
"Equitable public education is the linchpin of healthy communities, a vibrant economy and an effective democracy," the State of the South report states. "However, 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education, Southern schools are rapidly resegregating, failing to provide equitable public education while radical economic and demographic shifts threaten the region's well-being.
"State of the South 2004: Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education calls on the region to ensure integrated, equitable, effective public education to equip our youth for the economic, social and civic challenges of the next 50 years. Much as we might have hoped, the death of legally sanctioned segregation has not yielded full equity in the education Southern children receive. Whether we become a high-performing, multi-racial society, capable of living together harmoniously, or we degenerate into a region marked by cross-cultural tension will depend on how well our public schools teach today's youth how to live, learn, and work with people who are different."
Currently, the state is sending all of the wrong signals with regard to education by failing to adequately fund public education this year, Winter said.
"We had put education on top of the political agenda, and now it is not at the top of our political agenda," he said. "The state is going to slip back competitively if we do not restore more adequate support for education."
Some critics of the special session on tort reform have pointed out the daily cost, about $33,000, represents the average salary of a schoolteacher for a year. But that may be comparing apples to oranges. Winter considers the special session unfortunate, but said the cost of the session is a drop in the bucket compared to the greater needs of the state.
Winter is critical of the "no new taxes" campaign pledge taken by many legislators.
"To blindly say 'no new taxes' is self-defeating," Winter said. "We will pay dearly for that in the future. I think the business community must do what a number of individual leaders in the business community have done, which is call for additional investment on the part of the state for raising more revenue. We must have additional revenue. It is self-defeating to say we are not going to increase revenues for essential services, including creating more self-sustaining citizens. We are going to have continuing problems from having too many unproductive citizens. We have to raise more revenues to make our citizens more productive. Arkansas and Tennessee have raised taxes. Georgia has raised taxes. Other states are raising the revenue, and we are going to drop farther behind."
The former governor also believes that just providing more money for K-12 education won't solve the problem. There must be better preparation for kids to go to school, and that means an expansion of educational commitment to the pre-K years, the early childhood education years that are so vital. That is going to require a substantial additional investment on the part of the State of Mississippi.
Sen. David Jordan, an African-American legislator from Greenwood who grew up in the days of segregation and was a teacher for 32 years, agrees that early childhood education could be the key to a turnaround. He said there is little to no education in many low-income homes where parents didn't get a basic education for various reasons. Early conditioning that doesn't place a value on reading and education can have lifelong impacts.
"When children are five or six, sometimes the damage has already been done," Jordan said. "They have been molded in a way that makes it difficult to change their mindset. Children start learning at age two or three, and need to be steered in the right direction. We need early childhood education programs, and we need to put in an accountability system. I'm not saying just throw money at the problem. We need schools for early childhood that are fully funded and tracked for accountability."
Jordan was one of the "Senators for Education" who lobbied unsuccessfully in the recent legislative session for more funding for education. He says that failure to adequately fund education hurts all state residents regardless of race.
"I'm grossly disappointed we fell $45 million short in funding K-12 education and $100 million short on funding higher education," Jordan said. "Last year, education was a priority. This year, it was not. I think we can do better."
Jordan said it isn't just minorities in Mississippi who aren't being adequately prepared by the educational systems. He likened it to whites having a cold, and blacks pneumonia.
"We both have shortcomings," he said. "With 149 districts, some are rock bottom poor. It isn't necessarily their fault, but their town and county can't afford better education because they don't have any industry there to help."
The Mississippi Adequate Education program passed in 1997 provides $135 million over a period of six years to help districts in the worst shape obtain basic equipment. Needs were closer to $500 million, but the $135 million is a good start, said Jordan.
"There were some districts that didn't have basic equipment and basic programs," he said.
He also favors figuring out what the trends are, and educating children to be successful in those fields. The high paying jobs of today and the future involve technology. So Jordan recommends four years of science education in high school be mandatory — instead of letting kids decide what they take.
Teachers shouldn't get blamed for the state's shortcomings.
"Don't be hard on teachers," Jordan said. "Don't be so quick to criticize what teachers are doing. I think teachers are doing an excellent job in most cases. As a retired chemistry teacher, after 32 years in the classroom, I have been there."
He recalls the days before Brown versus Board of Education when there were no science labs for blacks in the Mississippi Delta. In many instances, there were no books. What books they did get were handed down after being used four or five years at white schools.
"Growing up under those conditions supposedly put most of us behind," Jordan said. "Some of us may have defied that to go on in spite of those shortcomings. Brown vs. Board of Education was supposed to have ended segregated schools. Yet, it was years after that before it was implemented in any amount. The system was so blocked on racism that it was a decade or more before we could get things started initially. Then when that happened, the black schoolteachers in many instances weren't allowed to teach in integrated schools. They became hall monitors and things of that nature.
"It has been tough all the way. In spite of that, we have made our contributions, and will continue to make them. But the playing field has never really been level. There has been an improvement, but it isn't a level playing field. The sad thing about it, we can't get whites to come back to the public schools. For grades one through six, they will remain in public school systems. But when they leave sixth grade, they go to private school."
Pete Walley, director of long-range planning for Mississippi, said solutions to improving education are difficult when you are dealing with emotionally charged race issues. For example, he said there is an unspoken rule that teachers will not discipline because a black might discipline a white, or a white discipline black. The result could be charges of racism. That can result in teachers not being able to teach, and children being labeled as problems or delinquents when they really just need discipline.
Walley agrees something has to be done in the early childhood years to help children value education.
"Some kids as early as the third grade have decided they can't make it," Walley said. "They say, 'This is not for me. I can't learn. I can't make it. So why should I waste my time?' They have no way to factor in what that means in terms of their economic well-being 10 to 15 years down the road. They come from a background that says education isn't important, then learn street-type education and knowledge that gets them to show up as part of Medicaid or the prison system later on down the line."
Contact MBJ contributing writer Becky Gillette at bgillette@bellsouth.net.
Trends Shaping the Future of the South
The State of the South report discusses four crucial trends facing the South:
– The region's continued prosperity requires more people with higher skills and education beyond high school. Structural changes in our economy mandate it. The region now has more white-collar workers than blue-collar, with that trend predicted to continue. Fewer and fewer jobs that pay a family-supporting wage are available to people who do not have high skills and education or training beyond high school.
– The region's young population is increasingly Latino and African American. These population groups will comprise an increasing percentage of the South's future workforce as well as its communities. Meanwhile, Southern public schools are becoming increasingly resegregated, reducing opportunities for all children to learn to live and work together.
– Many low-income and minority youth attend isolated, resource-poor schools, where they cannot get the education they need. Our schools continue to be afflicted by separateness and inequality, and our students as well as our region continue to suffer from it.
– Our high schools fail to engage and inspire many students, regardless of income and race. There are two clear pathways out of high school. One leads to further education and career. One leads to disconnection from society and opportunity, and — for the most unfortunate — to prison. Between these two pathways is a muddled middle, filled with young people for whom high school fails to provide direction or motivation.
The implications of these trends are clear: structural changes in our economy, increasing racial and ethnic diversity and a growing gap between the haves and have-nots are putting increased pressures on the region to prepare all young people for lifelong learning, work and civic participation. Our response to these changes will determine the future health of the region's economy, civic culture, and democracy. MDC calls on the region's leaders to develop public schools that meet the needs of a fast-changing economy and a multi-ethnic, democratic society. In doing so, they will bolster both the competitiveness and democratic life of our communities. Fifty years after the Brown decision, the South must act to ensure integrated, equitable, effective public education to equip our youth for the economic, social and civic challenges of the next 50 years.
The report urges regional, state, and local leaders to consider a number of goals to work toward and factors to consider, including:
Ensure that all young people graduate from high school prepared for further education.
– The South must align high school curriculum and standards with the requirements of the emerging economy and postsecondary education.
– Across the South, states and communities must extend literacy instruction through high school.
– Give students multiple pathways through and out of high school — more options and equitable options.
– The South needs high school programs that propel students toward skilled occupations that do not require a baccalaureate degree.
– The South should expand and upgrade the ability of high schools to offer accelerated learning options.
– "Blended institutions" are promising models.
– One size does not fit all.
– Career themes can add value.
– Build stronger connections between adults and adolescents, between schools and communities.
– Guidance counselors can be powerful connectors.
– The South's schools need strong connections to their communities.
Eliminate high-poverty schools to bring an end to ethnic and social class isolation.
– Local school districts should ensure that no schools have a high concentration of students living in poverty.
– Where entire school districts are so resource-poor that they cannot provide adequate education, it is essential for states to intervene by providing extra resources and/or encouraging regionalization.
Develop a corps of superbly trained, well-paid, professional teachers.
– Faced with demographic destiny, every state must redouble its efforts to identify and train new teachers.
– The South has a compelling need to retain incumbent teachers and to expand their professional development opportunities.
– The South needs to break up the systematic assigning of the most vulnerable teachers to the most vulnerable students.
The State of the South report was funded by Coca-Cola, the Ford Foundation, Progress Energy Foundation and Spencer Foundation. For more information on the state of the South report, see the Web site www.mdcinc.org.
Becky Gillette
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U.S. Fifth Circuit
Toora v. Holder, No. 09-60073
By FindLaw Staff on April 09, 2010 1:03 PM
Toora v. Holder, No. 09-60073, involved a petition for review of the BIA's denial of petitioner's motion to reopen his deportation hearing. The court of appeals denied the petition on the ground that the departure bar, 8 C.F.R. section 1003.23(b)(1), applied to an alien who departed the U.S. after receiving notice of his deportation proceeding, but before the proceeding was completed and the Immigration Judge entered a deportation order.
As the court wrote: "Petitioner, Dhanvir Toora, proceeding pro se, raises on appeal the question of whether the departure bar, 8 C.F.R. § 1003.23(b)(1), applies to an alien who departs the United States after receiving notice of his deportation proceeding, but before the proceeding is completed and the Immigration Judge ("IJ") enters a deportation order. We find the departure bar does apply in this situation and divests the IJ of jurisdiction to hear the alien's motion to reopen his deportation proceeding."
Full Text of Toora v. Holder, No. 09-60073


Photos taken during the Spring. *Note some of these are technically summer, but springlike in the mountains.
Mostly overgrown with vegetation so it's kind of pretty even though it's called "Mud Lake"
Aaron watching the storm roll through and clear out.
Taken after a spring storm quickly passed through.
Taken in Point Reyes National Seashore.
Taken from the beach near Coast Camp. The little valley next to the cliffs is the way down to the beach from Coast Camp.
As seen from just North of Arch Rock along the Coast Trail.
A beautiful trail to take in the spring when everything is in bloom!
Taken at Clearwater Beach, Fl.
Some of the softest sand I've ever felt at Clearwater Beach.
I love the pirate ship that cruises off the coast of Clearwater Beach!
The River was extra full because of the releases at the damn in preparation for the storm.
In the Effie Yeaw Nature Preserve.


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The Plan Is All
Book Reviews | Winter 2011
Blair A. Ruble
MAKESHIFT METROPOLIS:
Ideas About Cities.
By Witold Rybczynski.
Scribner. 240 pp. $24
3m 58sec
Witold Rybczynski, the author of more than a dozen extraordinarily popular treatises on cities and architecture, is a master of making professional quarrels—over the value of the American suburban landscape, the relative importance of psychological comfort and technical perfection in home design, and others—accessible to nonspecialist readers. In Makeshift Metropolis, which grew out of a 2007 lecture at the National Building Museum, he seeks to place contemporary American city planning within the context of American life past and present. This slim and elegant book is just the thing for readers who want to acquaint themselves with the American planning tradition during an evening by the fireplace.
Rybczynski's core argument is that the United States does indeed have a worthy planning tradition that often is ignored or denied by those who promote an image of a country shaped by individualist capitalists who function absent state control. He makes his case with profiles of well-known urban visionaries of the past—such as Washington, D.C., planner Pierre L'Enfant and architect Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as 20th-century urban landscape critics Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs. He also highlights those who are little known beyond professional circles, such as Charles Mulford Robinson, who promoted the City Beautiful movement at the turn of the 20th century, and Robinson's English counterpart, Raymond Unwin. And he reaches back to recognize largely forgotten figures, including Washington, D.C., surveyor Joseph Ellicott and Francis Nicholson, who helped establish colonial Annapolis and Williamsburg.
In Rybczynski's view, residents—rather than planners—ultimately determine a plan's success when they decide whether to live, shop, play, and linger in the space the designer has created. Rybczynski demonstrates his point that people drive the process by tracing the movement of America's retail spaces from streets to covered arcades, the latter of which launched the department stores that eventually migrated from downtowns to anchor suburban shopping centers, only to be usurped in recent years by big-box stores. Cities and their surrounding regions are makeshift creations that build up incrementally, as coral accretes on a reef.
The collective expression of individual preference through the market, however, is insufficient to create the sorts of cities required for 21st-century life. The metropolitan regions that constitute many of our modern cities are larger than any single planning entity can handle. Still, metropolitan development requires government support and intervention in myriad ways. Rybczynski cites architect Moshe Safdie's design for Modi'in, a town in Israel that encourages private development of an overall plan that emphasizes access to public space, as a hopeful vision for the urban future.
Rybczynski bookends Makeshift Metropolis with descriptions of two very different projects that illustrate Americans' new fascination with waterfronts, which only a generation or two ago were avoided by anyone who sought respectability. He begins with Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York City, a two-decade effort to convert deserted piers into recreational and park land. I was living in Brooklyn Heights when discussions of the project began in 1988, and have followed its evolution since. A rough-and-tumble political and consulting process delayed, but probably perfected, the final plan. I quite agree with Rybczynski that this initiative is likely to grace the pages of planning and urban design textbooks a century from now.
Rybczynski ends with an examination of The Yards, a new office-condominium development adjacent to Washington, D.C.'s new baseball stadium, next to the Navy Yard. He sees in The Yards an attractive high-density plan that doesn't rely on towering apartment buildings. But to me it feels like an etiolated variation on the ever more popular waterfront development scheme. It fails to promote with serendipity and surprise the texture of life as it is actually lived. In a way, however, my misgivings about The Yards underscore Rybczynski's larger point: Only the passage of time and the accumulation of thousands of individual decisions can reveal a plan as a success or failure.
Rybczynski quotes Edward G. Rendell, when Rendell was mayor of Philadelphia. "We can't simply let our cities decline," he declared in 1996 to a group of developers and investors. "After all, you can't have a society without cities." And Rybczynski makes a compelling case that you can't have cities—even sprawling, automobile-oriented cities—without planning, albeit of a makeshift kind. That planning must be humble in its ambitions, fostering multiple projects and urban visions rather than striving to impose just one from above. Fortunately, Americans have a planning tradition worthy of pride. We also have Witold Rybczynski to help lead the way.
Blair A. Ruble, the director of the Kennan Institute and the Comparative Urban Studies Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center, is the author of several books about cities, most recently Washington's U Street: A Biography (2010).


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A source said that assistant Mike Phelan will stay on, while the decision to make the caretaker's job a full-time appointment was taken after Solskjaer gave the "world's best audition" for the role. United's improved style of play, impressive results and focus on youth development also factored into the decision.
Solskjaer, 46, leaves Molde having won two top-flight titles and a Norwegian Cup in two stints with the club, and becomes United's fourth permanent manager since Sir Alex Ferguson's departure in 2013, following David Moyes, Louis van Gaal and Mourinho.
A source told ESPN that Molde are expecting a fee following Solskjaer's appointment, while United are set to offer a "gesture of goodwill" to the Norwegian club, which could include a friendly between the teams at a later date. The source added that Erling Moe is expected to be named Solskjaer's successor at Molde.
Ed Woodward, United executive vice chairman, said: "Since coming in as caretaker manager in December, the results Ole has delivered speak for themselves. More than just performances and results, Ole brings a wealth of experience, both as a player and as a coach, coupled with a desire to give young players their chance and a deep understanding of the culture of the club.
In the Norwegian's first match in charge, United scored five for the first time since Ferguson's last match when they won 5-1 away to Cardiff, and that victory sparked a sequence of positive results which brought the club back into contention for the top four.
Meanwhile, in the Champions League, United became the first side in history to win a tie after losing 2-0 at home in the first leg after they beat Paris Saint-Germain 3-1 in the return fixture last month. Solskjaer's side face Barcelona in the quarterfinals, with the first leg at Old Trafford on April 10.
Solskjaer's appointment also ends speculation over Mauricio Pochettino's future at Tottenham and comes following high-profile backing from United's senior players. Midfielder Nemanja Matic said he hoped Solskjaer and the rest of his staff would remain with the club, given their importance to the improvement in form this season. Romelu Lukaku urged United to hire Solskjaer permanently after their victory over PSG, while Paul Pogba told Sky Sports the players wanted the Norwegian to stay.
The Manchester United Supporters' Trust reacted positively to the announcement, but in a statement, said the club must back Solskjaer in the transfer market.
"Along with the overwhelming majority of supporters we welcome the appointment of Ole as our permanent manager," a statement read.
Solskjaer's record as United manager reads: played 19, won 14, drawn 2, lost 3. As a player, he scored 126 goals in 366 appearances for the club, including an injury-time winner in the 1999 Champions League final against Bayern Munich that completed an unprecedented Treble.


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Digital Shoreditch
42 - 46 Princelet Street, E1 5LP, United Kingdom (London)
May 14 - Oct 22
EPSRC and AHRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Media and Arts Technology
EPSRC award to Queen Mary, University of London
NEMOG: New Economic Models and Opportunities for digital Games
EPSRC award to University of York and Peter Ivan Cowling
Creativeworks London
AHRC award to Queen Mary, University of London and Morag Shiach


"Rizzoli & Isles" lost one of its own last summer when Lee Thompson Young took his life at 29.
Now, as the show concludes its fourth season and prepares for a fifth, it's figured out how it wants to say goodbye to the young actor.
The detective series aired its season four finale on Tuesday night and declined to live tweet it out of respect for Thompson Young, according to executive producer Jan Nash.
According to Deadline, Thompson Young died while in production on the second-to-last episode. The series went on to wrap the fourth season, with plans to address his passing with the start of season five.
"Hope you enjoyed @RizzoliIslesTNT season 4 finale," star Angie Harmon tweeted. "Season 5 eps 1&2 address our beloved Lee w/ love, honor & respect."
« Previous entry'Game of Thrones': What's this we hear about movies?


Cincinnati is looking to add around 1,500 units to downtown neighborhoods to support the influx of new residents that they believe will come with the opening of new businesses and new projects that are meant to bring jobs to the area. The plans are building on themselves as with new residents expected, neighborhood businesses such as grocery stores, dry cleaners, and more affordable restaurants are expected to stabilize the area. All of this is expected to happen within the next two to three years with apartments and condos being the goal for housing. They will range from one to two bedrooms and both luxury and more affordable prices for the range of people that will be moving into the neighborhood to be closer to work. The plan is to build as well as renovate historical buildings for the project.


APB Reloaded players previously banned for cheating — or suspicion of cheating — may find themselves getting a second chance. Little Orbit CEO Matthew Scott addressed this topic in a post on the APB Reloaded blog where he was answering several player questions.
Players wanted to know if cheat detection would be seeing any changes and if that meant that players who had been previously banned might get a reprieve. As it turns out, the answer to both questions is (somewhat) yes.
In addition to previously existing cheat detection — which the developers plan to continue adjusting and improving — Battleye will be implemented as a client-side cheat solution. Players of Fortnite and PUBG will already be familiar with this program. The team is already working on implementing it and, reportedly, it will be included in the game's next patch.
As for unbanning people, Scott states that after some serious review of the previous cheat ban policy during which the team went through logs, talked to players, and tested the cheat detection, it has been decided that that a "significant portion of the player base" would be unbanned.
The unbanning won't be taking place until after Battleye is implemented. They also ask that no one contact customer support to ask to be unbanned. Those who are lucky enough to get a second chance will do so automatically. Those who don't get unbanned… Well, they probably violated other rules or engaged in illegal activity like credit card fraud.
As noted above, the full statement on this is available on the APB Reloaded blog, with the other parts of the Q&A. If you're interested in what else will be happening in the game, head over and take a peek.
When a handful of streamers promote cheating in a game the game is long gone, that has been APB for a very very long time. This new guy, Scott, seems to be the savior.
G1 AND TIGGS(CM) F'dup and banned lots of innocent players because they called out the GMs abusing power or siding with certain players !
I hope Battleye will keep up with APB cheaters and hackers …. because APB is like most infested game i ever seen.


Dysfunctional Family Roles Worksheet Third Grade Math Worksheets Times Table Worksheets Dysfunctional Family Roles Worksheet is just one of the many collections of pictures or photos that are on this website. you will get a lot of information about in here. We not only provide information about only, you will get a lot more references to design your dream home. So , don't forget to keep visit soccerphysicsonline.com to get the latest information about home design, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, living room, and furniture and more. Dysfunctional Family Roles Worksheet Third Grade Math Worksheets Times Table Worksheets Dysfunctional Family Roles Worksheet was posted in December 15, 2018 at 4:14 pm. Dysfunctional Family Roles Worksheet Third Grade Math Worksheets Times Table Worksheets Dysfunctional Family Roles Worksheet has viewed by 11 users. Click it and download the Dysfunctional Family Roles Worksheet Third Grade Math Worksheets Times Table Worksheets Dysfunctional Family Roles Worksheet.


There really isn't much to report on the Olive Garden printable coupon front this month. Sorry, but the search has come up empty. There are still some promotions worth looking into where you won't need to bring in a coupon to save money at The Olive Garden.
Soups, Salad, and Breadsticks is still on! For those of you that don't know about this, Olive Garden offers unlimited refills of their garden-fresh salad, homemade soup, and warm garlic breadstick. Arriving before 4:00PM gets you this special for a mere $7.95. Show up after 4:00PM and the salad alone is $6.50. You still get unlimited refills though.
Also, we have another ongoing special at Olive Garden. It is another lunch special for you early eaters.
Show up during lunch hours and you can get a lunch combo for $6.95.


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Distressed Oxidized Brass Layers on a 16" Brass chain with 2" extender for optional additional length.
All items are made to order and will be shipped 2-4 business days (M-F) after order is placed. AMJ is still a labor of love. Your patience on shipping is appreciated. If expedited shipping is needed, please send me a message to inquire if it's possible. I'll let you know as soon as possible.


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Novel X-ray lens sharpens view into the nano world
(Nanowerk News) A team led by DESY scientists has designed, fabricated and successfully tested a novel X-ray lens that produces sharper and brighter images of the nano world. The lens employs an innovative concept to redirect X-rays over a wide range of angles, making a high convergence power. The larger the convergence the smaller the details a microscope can resolve, but as is well known it is difficult to bend X-rays by large enough angles. By fabricating a nano-structure that acts like an artificial crystal it was possible to mimic a high refracting power. Although the fabrication needed to be controlled at the atomic level — which is comparable to the wavelength of X-rays — the DESY scientists achieved this precision over an unprecedented area, making for a large working-distance lens and bright images.
Together with the improved resolution these are key ingredients to make a super X-ray microscope. The team led by Dr. Saša Bajt from DESY presents the novel lens in the journal Scientific Reports ("High numerical aperture multilayer Laue lenses").
Reconstruction of the focused X-ray wave. The lens achieves the spot size of 8 nanometres at the smallest waist. (Image: Saša Bajt/DESY)
"X-rays are used to study the nano world, as they are able to show much finer details than visible light and their penetrating power allows you to see inside objects," explains Bajt. The size of the smallest details that can be resolved depends on the wavelength of the radiation used. X-rays have very short wavelengths of only about 1 to 0.01 nanometres (nm), compared to 400 to 800 nm for visible light. A nanometre is a millionth of a millimetre. The high penetration of X-rays is favoured for three-dimensional tomographic imaging of objects such as biological cells, computer chips, and the nanomaterials involved in energy conversion or storage. But this also means that the X-rays pass straight through conventional lenses without being bent or focussed. One possible method to focus X-rays is to merely graze them from the surface of a mirror to nudge them towards a new direction. But such X-ray mirrors are limited in their convergence power and must be mechanically polished to high precision, making them extremely expensive.
An alternative means to bend X-rays is to use crystals. A crystal lattice diffracts X-rays, as the German physicist Max von Laue discovered a century ago. Today, artificial crystals can be tailor-made to sharply focus X-rays by depositing different materials layer by layer. From this building block comes the multilayer Laue lens or MLL, made by coating a substrate with thin layers of the chosen substances. "However, conventional Laue lenses are limited in their converging power for geometric reasons," explains Bajt. "To gain the maximum power, the layers of a MLL need to be slightly tilted against each other." As theoretical calculations have shown, all layers of such a "wedged" MLL must lie perpendicular on a circle with a radius of twice the focal length.
This rather specific condition could not be fabricated — until now. Bajt's team invented a new production process, where a mask partially shields the substrate from the depositing material. In the half-shade of the mask a wedged structure builds up, and the tilt of the layers is controlled simply by adjusting the spacing of the mask to the substrate. The wedged MLL is then cut from the penumbra region. "Before us, no one came close to building such a wedged lens", says Bajt.
Scanning electron microscope image of the novel X-ray lens. The bright area is built from 5500 alternating layers of tungsten and silicon carbide. The dark area is the substrate. The width of the lens is 40 micrometres. (Image: Saša Bajt/DESY)
The researchers manufactured a wedged lens from 5500 alternating layers of silicon carbide (SiC) and tungsten (W), varying in thickness. The final lens cut from these deposits was 40 micrometres (millionths of a metre) wide, 17.5 micrometres thick and 6.5 micrometres deep.
The team tested their novel lens at DESY's ultra brilliant X-ray source PETRA III. The test at the experimental station P11 showed that the lens produced a focus just 8 nm wide, which is close to the design value of 6 nm. The tests also showed that the intensity profile across the lens is very uniform, a prerequisite for high quality images. The lens design allows to transmit up to 60 per cent of the incoming X-rays to the sample.
The scientists focussed the X-ray beam in just one direction, resulting in a thin line. Focussing in two dimensions to obtain a small spot can be done by simply using two lenses in line, one focusing horizontally and the other vertically. "Our results prove out our fabrication technique to achieve lenses of high focussing power. We believe we have the requisite control to achieve even higher power lenses," elaborates Bajt. "It appears that the long-sought goal of focusing X-rays to a nanometre is in reach." This will put X-ray imaging on par with the quality achieved with scanning electron microscopes, that typically have a resolution of 4 nm. The advantage is that X-ray imaging is not limited to viewing surfaces or extremely thin samples only, but can penetrate a sample. "Our novel lens concept will help scientists to peer deeper into the nanocosm and make previously inaccessible details visible," says Bajt.
Source: DESY
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text:
The Land Sale procedure begins with the Government Land Sales (GLS) programme. Each GLS Programme is planned and announced every six months. The GLS Programme comprises sites on the Confirmed and Reserve Lists to provide flexibility in the supply of land for development.
You can find the list of Confirmed and Reserve List sites for sale here.
Confirmed List
Sites identified for sale on the Confirmed List are launched for sale at pre-determined dates and most land parcels are sold through tenders.
Sites on the Reserve List are not released for tender immediately but are instead made available for application. A Reserve List site will be put up for tender when a developer has indicated a minimum price which is accepted by the government.
The Government will also consider launching a Reserve List site for tender if it has received sufficient market interest for the site. This is when more than one unrelated party has submitted a minimum price that is close to the government's Reserve Price, within a reasonable period.
You can refer to the Reserve List procedure for more information.
eDeveloper's Packet
Developers can apply for sites once detailed sales conditions are released in the eDeveloper's Packet. This document contains:
• Conditions of Tender
• Technical Conditions of Tender
• Form of Tender / Application Form
• Other relevant documents and information for the tender and the Land Parcel.
The eDeveloper's Packet is available at S$181.90 (inclusive of GST), $170.00 (w/o GST).
To use this e-service, you need to login using SingPass or CorpPass. If you do not have either or have questions relating to SingPass or CorpPass, please go to:
(a) www.singpass.gov.sg or call +65 6643 0555
(b) www.corppass.gov.sg or call +65 6643 0577
Key Considerations: Requirements for Foreign Developers
Application: Foreign housing developers who intend to purchase vacant residential land are required to apply for a qualifying certificate (Form QA) with a security equivalent to 10% of the land price. They can apply from the Controller of Residential Property of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA).
Completion: The foreign housing developer would be given up to 5 years to complete the development of the residential land.
However, residential land sold under the GLS Programme is exempted from this requirement. Instead, foreign housing developers are required under the land sales conditions to sell all the dwelling houses within 2 years from the date of the Temporary Occupation Permit for the dwelling houses.
Please visit SLA's website for more details or call their hotline at 6323 9829.
FAQs on General Land Sales


Before I became a parent, we had some strong ideas about what we would and wouldn't do, especially as it relates to gender and consumerism. However, I always kept an open mind since I didn't really know what it was like to be a parent. Despite being a bit shocked by the use of Baby Einstein videos by very smart friends of mine, I refrained from passing judgment, because maybe it really WAS necessary to get such a break from time to time. I kept hearing that, with a girl, there was no escaping the flood of pink princessy items, and while I hoped otherwise, I left a little mental room for it to be true just in case.
I'm very proud of the fact that Ruby has no idea who Dora the Explorer, Bob the Builder, or the Sesame Street characters are. I'm sure she'll pick up on them eventually, when she goes to school, but there's no need for her to know about them now. As nice and cute (and even educational) as they may seem, I never forget that they're specifically designed to use a kid's affection to get to their parents' wallet. Ruby has stuffed friends (a teddy bear, kitten, beluga, and doll are her favorites) who, while mass-produced, are not vanguards of a massive marketing campaign.
The things above were easy. There are other things that we've done as parents that were a little more work. Having one parent at home made it possible to do hippie things like use cloth diapers and wipes and make Ruby's baby food from scratch. The parenting work I'm most proud of, that of helping Ruby become independent and disciplined, takes the most time and effort, but is obviously not impossible.
I do need to acknowledge the importance of having a family that respects our wishes. It's been so great that my parents and Steve's parents understand our thoughts about toys and clothes and take the time to find wonderful gifts that don't cross the line. I think it's vital that new or expecting parents take the time to express their thoughts up front about what they think is important. We did that by writing the blog posts linked above, as well as through conversation, and I think it helped to make things clear before any gifts were given.
I still take the open-minded approach when it comes to the future. I'm going to try to keep doing things this way as Ruby enters preschool and then elementary school, but I can't be sure it'll all go the way I want. All I can say for sure is: have hope, new parents – for at least the first two years, it's possible!
Maybe it's different now, but when I was a kid Sesame Street was just public television. It was as far from rampant consumerism as tv can be! Some of my fondest childhood memories are of Sesame Street (and Mr Rogers). But you're right, a bit early for Ruby yet.
You're right about Sesame Street back in the day. And, as I found out today, it is still a non-profit organization. I guess they're not as bad as one might think when you see the large range of Sesame Street branded products for sale.
yeah, it's not really that hard.. the boys have managed to make it to ages 8 & 10 with only the vaguest concept of most of the garbage that would normally be peddled at them.
most important things are that the default setting for the television is "off" and that the default response for "i'm bored" is "go read a book" or "go play outside".
Just a warning (you already mentioned this), it gets a LOT harder to do what you do when your child is in school and all of their friends have pink Dora EVERYTHING and have Princess birthday parties.
Combine that with an increased awareness of the world around them (just wait until Ruby can read billboards!). I think Isaac and Aaron's intake of marketing messages went up exponentially when they started school.
But you're the boss of your household, so that's what it comes down to.
Even Valentines Day for crying out loud! All the children brought in candy and/or cards, and every single one was a store-bought card with some cartoon character on it and some unhealthy piece of junk attached to it.
I&A were the only children out of both classes (50 kids total) who brought hand-made cards that took 2 adults and 2 children about an hour to make.
Sorry, this got me really worked up!
Oh, I totally hear you on Valentines Day cards! I was always the one with handmade cards in my class (even back then many kids bought them). And I have such great memories of making them through the years! It's not that hard, as you said, and the kids enjoy it. This year, Ruby and I collaborated on making valentines and it was a blast.
I love this! I really agree with this philosophy and I'm definitely going to follow your advice about making our key parenting positions clear to family and friends before our baby's born.
I really hope I can make such a positive report in a couple years. I see a lot of my friends struggling. My friend's two-year-old son never watches TV at home and only goes to daycare once a week for a couple hours but he's still managed to pick up on Bob and Dora. At the library, he goes straight for Dora's market-tested face.
You're doing well. Alas, all your efforts may go up in smoke once your child enters school. There they will spend 14,000 hours in front of proxy parents and there is little you can do to keep your influence prominent. Actually, there is one thing and you're already doing it right now. Teach your children at home. Sometimes its called home-schooling. But you have the perfect mindset for this. You decide what they learn.


text:
Commons: 6 July 2009
Commons Chamber
Building our Common Future
Volume 495: debated on Monday 6 July 2009
The Secretary of State for International Development
(Mr. Douglas Alexander)
With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the White Paper on international development that I am publishing today. Copies of both the White Paper and this statement have been placed in the Vote Office.
We stand at a critical juncture for international development. Although millions have been lifted out of poverty over the past decade thanks to sustained economic growth, reforming Governments, debt relief and increases in aid, much of that progress that we have seen is now imperilled. The global recession, the climate crisis and ongoing conflict and fragility in many countries threaten now to turn back the clock on the development gains made since the beginning of this century. The White Paper therefore sets out how the Government will pursue the fight against global poverty, and places new emphasis on four key areas: supporting growth; tackling climate change; tackling conflict and fragility; and improving the international system. I will say more about each of those areas in turn, but I will first set out the context for the White Paper.
The past decade has, of course, seen real achievements in the fight against global poverty: aid increases and debt cancellation have helped to get 40 million more children into schools around the world; the number of people with access to AIDS treatment has increased from just 100,000 to more than 3 million today; and the proportion of the world's population living in extreme poverty has fallen from a third to a quarter. Yet it is clear that with 9 million children dying each year, 70 million denied the opportunity to go to school, and a billion people around the world still without enough to eat, the world remains far from meeting the millennium development goals set in 2000.
Now the global recession threatens to trap as many as 90 million more people in poverty, which would push back progress towards the first MDG—the goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger—by as much as three years. The likely impact of the economic crisis is a stark reminder that the gains made in moving towards the MDGs can indeed be fragile. Those gains are also threatened by the advance of climate change—if temperatures continue to rise at current levels, an extra 600 million people will be affected by malnutrition by the end of the century—and by the effects of conflict and poor governance. Each year, at least 740,000 people are killed as a result of armed violence, with many more injured or disabled. So unless all three of those global challenges—the recession, climate change and conflict—are tackled, the MDGs will be pushed further out of reach.
Now is therefore not the time to turn away from the mission to tackle global poverty. I am proud to say that the Government are keeping the promises that we made to dedicate 0.7 per cent. of national income to development assistance by 2013. By next year our assistance will be equivalent to 0.56 per cent. of national income, in line with the European Union's collective commitment, and by next year we will have nearly trebled our bilateral and multilateral aid to Africa since 2004. Half our global bilateral aid will be invested in public services, helping to get 8 million children into school across Africa, and delivering not only our promised 20 million anti-malaria bed nets by next year, but an additional 30 million treated bed nets by 2013. We will work with others to help developing countries provide free health care to their citizens, and we will press the international community for more support to save 6 million mothers and babies by 2015.
We will continue to tackle sickness, hunger and illiteracy across the developing world. We will also support developing countries to pursue economic growth, to protect their citizens from the impact of climate change, to help resolve conflicts and to build capable, accountable and responsive states.
Let me take each of those challenges in turn. I am sure that we would all accept that growth is the exit route out of poverty and aid dependence. Fifty years ago, income rates in east Asia were equivalent to those in Africa; today, incomes in east Asia are five times higher. In the midst of this recession, we will help to protect 50 million poor people in more than 20 countries from the worst effects of the present downturn. We will press for the rapid delivery of the commitments made by the G20 at the London summit to provide further financial support to the poorest countries. We will work towards concluding a successful and equitable Doha development round that would boost the global economy by more than $150 billion a year.
We will help developing countries to build fairer and more sustainable economic growth, double our agricultural research funding, and provide investment for infrastructure and reforms that will help African countries to trade with each other and the world. The Fairtrade label now certifies more than £1 billion-worth of goods, helping more than 7 million producers and their families around the world. We will continue to support that success story, and indeed quadruple our support for Fairtrade and ethical trading.
We will advance our work with law enforcement agencies to clamp down on bribery and corruption, which have a parasitic effect on many economies. DFID support to the Metropolitan police has already led to the recovery of £20 million of assets and the freezing of £131 million of assets. We will now triple our investment in these efforts, supporting the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the Crown Prosecution Service, and helping the Met to pursue more investigations across more countries.
The scale of the economic crisis and its impact on the developing world is now clear, but climate change presents, if anything, an even greater long-term threat to the prospects of alleviating poverty in the developing world. Two weeks ago, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change launched the UK's Copenhagen manifesto, setting out our detailed proposals for an ambitious deal in Copenhagen at the end of the year.
This White Paper will ensure that new and additional finance is made available, over and above our aid commitment to reach 0.7 per cent. of gross national income. We will also increase our investment in helping developing countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change, but set a limit of up to 10 per cent. of official development assistance.
We will also give countries practical support to help in that process of adaptation, including by supporting the world-renowned Hadley Centre to model the effects of climate change in developing countries. We will also encourage low carbon development by investing in clean technology and tackling avoidable deforestation.
Alongside the climate and financial crises, the third great threat to continued progress in reducing global poverty is the continuing and enduring level of conflict and state fragility. One third of the world's poorest people live in conflict-affected or fragile countries. Half of all children who die before their fifth birthday live in such places. If we are to make further progress towards meeting the millennium development goals, we must work differently in those countries and directly address the causes of war and weak government. Half of all our new bilateral aid will go to fragile and conflict-affected countries. We will place security and justice alongside other basic services—tripling spending on those areas and addressing violence against women in particular as a priority. We will also create jobs, benefiting 7.5 million people in five fragile countries by 2013. In all fragile countries, we will help to develop joint strategies with our colleagues in the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence. Internationally, we will press for the United Nations, the World Bank and the European Union to provide rapid assistance in the aftermath of conflict.
It is increasingly clear that global challenges demand global solutions. If we want to make real progress in solving the economic crisis, the climate crisis and the persistence of ongoing conflict, we will need to work more, not less, through the international system. But if international institutions are to live up to these new responsibilities, they must become more accountable, more responsive to and more able to address current challenges, and more representative of all their constituents.
The White Paper sets out our strategy for improving the effectiveness of international institutions in tackling global poverty in the years ahead. We will invest a higher proportion of our new aid resources through the international system in return for securing key reforms. Our funding for the United Nations will be subject to performance and will be increasingly channelled in ways that encourage UN agencies to deliver as one in developing countries. We will push for the creation of a single, powerful UN agency for women by merging existing structures and will at least double our core funding for work on gender equality to the UN.
In Europe, we will press for the EU to create a single development commissioner, to re-prioritise resources towards fragile countries in Asia and the middle east and to make poverty reduction a primary aim of all EU external policies such as those on climate and security. We will continue to press for improved governance and performance of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the regional development banks so that they can do more to support poor countries during the downturn. To meet growing humanitarian demands, we will lobby internationally for a stronger humanitarian system and humanitarian access, including through increasing the UN's central emergency response fund.
In turn, we will maintain our own rigorous focus on aid effectiveness and the effectiveness of DFID as an organisation to deliver on its mission of poverty reduction. At this time of economic challenge, we will work harder than ever to ensure that every pound of UK aid contributes to direct and tangible results. We will prioritise our efforts and work in fewer countries. We will deliver an additional £155 million of efficiency savings by next year by making value for money improvements in our research budget and other areas.
As well as meeting our commitments on aid effectiveness made in the Paris declaration and in the Accra agenda for action last September, we will further improve the transparency of the projects we fund through a new searchable database on our website. We will set aside at least 5 per cent. of budget support funds to help developing countries' Governments to improve accountability to their citizens. We will establish deeper and broader partnerships with civil society organisations and the private sector, doubling our central support to civil society to £300 million a year and launching a new innovation fund to help community groups and individuals in the UK to support small but innovative development projects.
Finally, as the Select Committee on International Development noted in its recent report, signs that the downturn is beginning to undermine previously strong support in the United Kingdom cause concern for all of us who are concerned about development. The White Paper sets out our plans to do more to help show the UK public how Government assistance is helping to fight poverty, including through the use of the new UKaid logo to increase the visibility of our work.
In conclusion, the mission of the Department for International Development, as clearly set out by the White Paper, will remain reducing poverty and supporting sustainable development. A world in which too many countries lack not only the basics of life but the opportunity to fulfil their aspirations diminishes us all. For the Government—and for many people across the United Kingdom—this is a profoundly moral cause, but in the 21st century development is not merely a moral cause: it is also a common cause.
Several hon. Members
Mr. Speaker
Order. I am extremely grateful, and I am sure that the House will be. However, the Secretary of State modestly exceeded his allotted time. I hope that the House will take it in the proper spirit when I say that in future, in accordance with Standing Orders, I am keen to enforce those time limits, principally in the interests of Back Benchers.
Mr. Andrew Mitchell
(Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. There is much in the White Paper that we welcome, not least since it adopts a number of themes and specific ideas that the Opposition have been championing now for more than four years. We welcome his commitment to do more on agriculture and to focus on women, who bear the brunt of conflict and poverty. We look forward to hearing how he will breathe new life into the very important Doha process.
This time of economic crisis, which particularly affects the world's poor, is a time not to withdraw our support but to redouble our international development efforts. Poverty breeds extremism, incubates disease and drives migration and conflict. Tackling poverty and deprivation is not merely a moral duty that we must discharge with passion and rigour—it is also in our best national interest.
It is also a matter of relief to many of our fellow citizens that this is no longer a Labour or Conservative agenda but a British agenda that commands widespread support. The Government are clearly listening to Conservative arguments on international development, particularly on the need to improve our performance in fragile states.
Over the past few years, I have seen for myself the impressive work done by DFID staff in a number of conflict-affected countries—the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Burma, the Somalia border, Iraq, Afghanistan and the west bank—and I pay tribute to DFID's brave staff, who put themselves in harm's way in those places. One thing that has emerged from those visits is the intense difficulty of operating effectively in such environments. Security costs are often astronomic. The capacity of the Governments with whom we work is frequently, by definition, very low or non-existent. Insecurity makes monitoring and evaluation difficult. The risk of corruption is high. Local politics is often opaque and complex, and there is a real risk of aid exacerbating tensions.
As the recent highly critical evaluation of DFID's performance in Afghanistan has shown, we need a dramatic improvement in the effectiveness of our aid in conflict and war zones. What estimate has the Secretary of State made of the increased security cost to his Department of working more in fragile states? He will be well aware of the National Audit Office report that found that only half of DFID projects in the most insecure countries achieve their aims and that almost a quarter suffer from fraud or financial problems. Does he accept that, if we are to get value for money from our spending in those countries, we need radically to improve the quality of our aid effort and demonstrate that through independent assessment and validation, so that any lessons can be learned?
The Secretary of State is rightly keen to raise the profile and visibility of British aid, but he will be aware that, in this age of austerity, spending on rebranding will be very carefully scrutinised. How much does he estimate that the rebranding exercise will cost? What value-for-money inquiries and cost-benefit analysis did he undertake before announcing this policy? Does he recognise the risk that UKaid could be confused with USAID. Does he agree that the most effective way to raise awareness and public support for British aid is to focus on the outcomes and achievements that it generates, rather than on the inputs so beloved of the Government?
The White Paper has been launched during the dying days of this Labour Government. The country and Britain's international development effort need a renewed sense of direction. There are some good points and sensible suggestions in the White Paper that we strongly support, because many of them originated on this side of the House. I hope that we will all have the opportunity to debate them at more length over the coming months, for the prize of a more effective British international development effort is clear: a better life for millions of people and a safer world for Britain.
Mr. Alexander
I thank the hon. Gentleman both for his welcome of the White Paper and his warm words of congratulations to the staff of the Department. It has been a great privilege for me over the past couple of years to work with an extremely expert, experienced and dedicated staff, and I think that there is a consensus on both sides of the House that they are among the best of British and that they deserve our congratulations.
Although the challenge of climate change is a key theme of the White Paper and we all recognise that recycling is a necessary part of responding to climate change, the hon. Gentleman will notice that we did not accept all the Conservatives' proposals—for example, the recycled assisted places scheme, under which British aid money would be spent on promoting private education in developing countries. By contrast, the key theme of the White Paper is extending access across the developing world to public education that is available to all. It has not been because of ideological dogma that DFID has come to be recognised as a global leader over the past decade; it is because we have undertaken the hard yards of investing in new schools, new classrooms and new teachers and worked closely with Governments and a range of other organisations, including non-governmental organisations, to deliver those changes.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his brass neck in suggesting that there is widespread support for the DFID budget, as his statement comes only a week after it was exclusively revealed on the Conservative homepage that only 4 per cent. of endorsed Conservative candidates support the protection of DFID's budget—less than one in 20 does not seem to me to be a commendation of the proposals advanced by Opposition Front Benchers. However, I am confident that, if we take the right steps, there will be a broad consensus in favour of the proposals set out in the White Paper.
The rebranding—the use of the UKaid logo—is a necessary step in response to concerns that the public have expressed not just to the Department but to the International Development Committee about the profile of UK development expenditure. Frankly, perhaps in the past, DFID has been the best-kept secret in the British Government, and I make no apology for the expenditure that has been incurred in making sure that we have branding that will, I believe, resonate with the British public in time, as a reflection of their long-standing commitment to the concerns of international development.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the quality of international aid. Perhaps the most obvious example, given the question that he posed, is Afghanistan. He asked what the independent assessments were. I reflect on the recent Oxfam report on Afghanistan, in which the Department for International Development was highly commended for working, albeit in challenging circumstances, with the Government of Afghanistan. We will continue to pursue that course, with all the necessary caveats relating to corruption and the protection of British taxpayers' money, because we believe that it offers a better, more sustainable way to deliver aid. Finally, I genuinely believe that there is potential for public consensus on development in the future. I believe that the White Paper takes a significant step towards answering the questions that the British public have had in their minds.
Mr. Michael Moore
(Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (LD)
May I, too, thank the Secretary of State for an advance copy of the statement and the White Paper? However, I echo the shadow International Development Secretary's plea for a full debate on this substantive issue as soon as possible. In a world of enormous disparities of wealth and life experience, we clearly have huge moral responsibilities to provide official development assistance, as the White Paper recognises. However, in a world that is increasingly globalised and interdependent, and where the consequences of poverty, conflict and climate change affect all of us, there is also a clear national interest in supporting developing countries as they tackle challenges of an unprecedented nature and scale.
We on the Liberal Democrat Benches will study the White Paper carefully, but we certainly support the identification of conflict and climate change as key priorities, alongside the still-important focus on poverty, hunger and disease. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the White Paper does not signal a departure from the primary pro-poor focus of his Department? The resources required to deliver on the priorities are underscored by the welcome continued commitment to the 0.7 per cent. target, but we still have no indication of how that spending level will be reached.
In the absence of a comprehensive spending review, will the Secretary of State publish his Department's detailed planning assumptions, showing how it wants the resources to be allocated in the run-up to 2013? In the absence of a strategic defence review, will he tell us how other Departments will be reconfigured to make effective use of the welcome extra resources planned for conflict issues? On interdepartmental working, will he confirm that as he allocates funding to deal with climate change and conflict to other Departments, his Department's increased resources will not simply be laundered to the Ministry of Defence and others to bail them out of the Government's overall Budget crisis?
The Secretary of State's ambitious agenda is being set out at a time when his Department continues to reduce its staffing complement. Surely that means that ever-larger cheques will be written to international organisations, so how will he ensure that he achieves his avowed intent to improve accountability and transparency in the provision of development assistance? Finally, he pledges the rapid delivery of the recent G20 commitments, but how can anyone take that seriously when a key part of it, the G8 countries, have failed miserably to deliver on the Gleneagles promises of four years ago?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his welcome endorsement of the themes of conflict and climate change in the White Paper, and indeed for his broad agreement, if that is not to prejudge the debate that I hope we can have in the months ahead on the themes that the White Paper sets out. I am happy to give the confirmation that he seeks that the focus of the Department will remain poverty reduction—the pro-poor focus, as he describes it. The themes that emerged in the White Paper reflected the insights that we have garnered in recent years, which showed us that to deliver fully on the millennium development goals and that pro-poor agenda, we needed better to incorporate climate change, and the challenge of working in fragile and conflict-affected states—and indeed with the whole multilateral system—than we have perhaps done in the past.
As for the Government's position on forward public expenditure, it is of course the Government's long-standing position that we will meet the target of 0.7 per cent. by 2013. The credibility of that claim rests not simply on its recent reiteration by our Prime Minister, but on the fact that as recently as the previous spending review, we were clearly on track to meet that commitment, and that continues to be the case.
On the hon. Gentleman's rather inelegant but challenging phrase about interdepartmental working and the laundering of the DFID budget, I simply ask him to reflect on the fact that it is not a former Prime Minister of the Labour party and a former Foreign Secretary of the Labour party who have, in recent days, argued for the reincorporation of the Department for International Development into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; that proposal came from Members on the Conservative Benches. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are sincere in our commitment that DFID should remain a separate and distinctive Cabinet-rank Department that is determined to work effectively with our colleagues in the Foreign Office and in the Ministry of Defence.
In relation to the issue of accountability and transparency that the hon. Gentleman raises, we have listened carefully to recommendations from the International Development Committee on how we could improve our website to make sure that there is a searchable facility whereby we will be able to provide better and more accessible information, not just here in the United Kingdom, but internationally.
On the hon. Gentleman's final point, I can assure him that, in the days between now and L'Aquila and in the preceding weeks, the British Government will be and have been arguing with our G8 colleagues that now is the time to publish what could be called a Gleneagles framework whereby the whole world will be able to judge by the time of the L'Aquila summit which countries have met their Gleneagles commitments and which countries have fallen behind. I welcome the fact that as recently as last month one stated categorically that the British Government were meeting their Gleneagles commitments. I hope that in the days between now and L'Aquila, other countries will reflect on their responsibilities and set out credible recovery paths.
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Order. Eighteen Members are seeking to catch my eye. I am naturally keen to accommodate as many of them as possible. I therefore look to each Member to ask one brief supplementary question and, of course, to the Secretary of State to offer us a characteristically succinct reply.
Hilary Armstrong
(North-West Durham) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on this important White Paper. Will he and his fellow Ministers back up the very welcome commitment to seek a single UN agency for women by working with other countries to make sure that they give that commitment and the financial support to such an agency? That will make a tremendous difference in developing countries, where women do most of the work.
Let me begin by succinctly paying tribute to my right hon. Friend's long-standing concern and campaigning on development issues. I am able to give her the assurance that she seeks. As recently as last week, when Helen Clark, the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, was in the Department, I was able to discuss with her the importance of the coherence of the UN's effort, and nowhere is that effort more needed than in relation to a single agency dealing with the gender question.
Malcolm Bruce
(Gordon) (LD)
I thank the Secretary of State for the White Paper, and for taking account of many of the recommendations of the International Development Committee. He is right to say that in the present climate aid, is needed more, not less, and we need public understanding and backing for that. On the conflict country support, will he clarify how many fewer countries the Department will operate in? If 50 per cent. of the bilateral money is going into conflict, what will that mean in a situation where multilateral donations are rising? Can he put a figure on the sum we are talking about?
I fear that I will have the opportunity to answer the right hon. Gentleman's questions in a great deal more detail shortly, when I appear before his Committee. Let me record my gratitude for the work of the Committee; it has been invaluable in framing our analysis and our prescription in the latest White Paper.
On the specific point that the right hon. Gentleman raises, this is not a sudden handbrake turn for the Department. He is as aware as I am that over recent years we have reduced the number of countries in which we have been working—my recollection is that we have done so by about 10 in recent years. We plan to continue that progress on the basis of the best principles of aid effectiveness, rather than a sudden move towards working in conflict and fragile affected states. However, we also want to see an improvement in the effectiveness of the multilateral system so that some countries can take more of the burden than they have done in recent years.
Hugh Bayley
(City of York) (Lab)
When donor countries pool their resources in multilateral institutions, they raise substantially more people out of poverty per pound spent than when countries go it alone with their own bilateral programmes. I am pleased to see the Government's commitment to multilateral aid in the White Paper, but what will they do to persuade other countries to do the same?
As in so many areas, I hope the Department has the opportunity to lead by example. I do not see a choice between increasing the resources to the multilateral system and improving our policy influence over those multilateral institutions. I believe we can demonstrate to other donors a continuing—indeed, increasing—commitment to those institutions, at the same time as convincing them that they can have real influence to ensure a progressive outcome to the policy agenda.
Mr. Peter Lilley
(Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State's emphasis on growth as the only sustainable route out of poverty, and I am delighted that he has decided to reverse the mistaken and long-standing decline in the share of aid going to agriculture and infrastructure, but does he agree that the countries that have been most successful in growing out of poverty are those that have traded out of poverty? Will he therefore put more emphasis on extending duty-free, quota-free access to all low-income countries, not just less-developed countries, and on making more generous and simple the rules of origin, which at present inhibit many countries in taking advantage of duty-free access?
I know that the right hon. Gentleman has prior knowledge of many of those issues from the globalisation report that he published some time ago, but, as the Minister of State, Department for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas) suggests from the Front Bench, in relation to economic partnership agreements, some progress has been made on one of the issues that the right hon. Gentleman addressed.
On duty-free and quota-free access, however, there is a judgment to be made about whether we should push the development part of a multilateral deal, or whether we best serve the interests of developing countries by going for a comprehensive conclusion to the Doha round. It would be a great risk at this stage, with the election of a new Congress party Government in India and a more realistic prospect than there has been recently of a breakthrough on Doha in the months ahead, if we averted our gaze from the prize of a Doha deal and looked at what would, none the less, be an important part of a deal for developing countries.
I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that no Government have been stronger in their resolve to try to conclude the Doha round than the British Government. Our Prime Minister continues to take a very active role, discussing with Pascal Lamy and others what progress can be made, and, as I have said, on the basis of certain changes among key players, I feel a cautious optimism that we may see real progress in the months ahead.
Mr. Eric Joyce
(Falkirk) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend will be aware that the US Government tie US aid very tightly, in some respects, to US foreign policy objectives. Can he confirm that he has no plans to do the same in the UK when it comes to UK aid by, for example, reintegrating DFID with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office?
Yes, I am very happy to give my hon. Friend the assurance that he seeks. Distinguished members of the Labour party do not propose that approach; it is, however, the approach of the former Prime Minister and the former Foreign Secretary from the Conservative party.
But not that of Conservative Front Benchers.
I hear that it is not the position of Conservative Front Benchers. They do not seem to command the support of the former Prime Minister, the former Foreign Secretary or the prospective candidates of the Conservative party: quite whom they speak for is really for them to answer.
Dr. Andrew Murrison
(Westbury) (Con)
The Minister has made a big virtue of spending an increasing proportion of our aid through international bodies, but does he consider it wise to spend ever-increasing amounts of money through the European Union? It is widely regarded as being pretty poor when it comes to spending money efficiently, and it has been widely criticised for spending money on populations that cannot be described as among the world's poorest.
Once again, Conservative Back Benchers seem to be rather at odds with Conservative Front Benchers, because, if I recollect properly, the leader of the Conservative party recently made a speech in which he said that the European Union had a key role to play in climate change and in tackling global poverty. However, I do not want to intrude on private grief.
On the hon. Gentleman's substantive point, I agree that the European Union has a central role to play in tackling global poverty, and I welcome the real strides that have been made in reforming the EU's development budget in recent years. The case that we will make towards the end of the year for a powerful single EU development commissioner will strengthen the arm of those who want further reform in the EU. However, this issue exposes a fundamental difference between the parties: some on the Opposition Front Bench argue for multilateralism but do not command the support of all their party; on the Government Benches, there is a universal consensus that there should be excellence in our bilateral programme and that we should work multilaterally to tackle global poverty.
Sir Gerald Kaufman
(Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
In congratulating my right hon. Friend on the extremely effective and compassionate work carried out by his Department, whose role before its existence was one responsibility of a junior Minister in the Tory Foreign Office, may I ask what success he is having in getting aid into Gaza, which I know he has visited, but off which in international waters last week the Israeli navy committed an act of piracy against an aid ship and kidnapped its crew?
I am grateful for the words offered by my right hon. Friend, who has a long-standing commitment not just to the concerns and suffering of the people of Gaza, but to people throughout the developing world. He knows, as I do, that the Government have been pressing hard on the Israeli Government to allow not simply access for the aid we have provided, but for aid workers from a range of British NGOs to undertake their vital humanitarian work. We have not seen the progress that all of us, from all parts of the House, would have liked from the Israeli Government, but we continue to press the case for humanitarian supplies to be allowed free and unfettered access to Gaza. Ships should not need to travel to the coast of Gaza, because there should be free and unfettered access in Rafah and at the other land-based crossings, and I assure my right hon. Friend that we will continue to press that case to Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Ministers.
Mr. Nigel Evans
(Ribble Valley) (Con)
I have learned from my discussions with Commonwealth Members of Parliament that the thing that upsets them more than almost anything else about international aid is how much of it is spent on consultants' reports, which are fairly widespread when aid is given, not only by the UK but by countries throughout the world. Will the Secretary of State assure us that he will look critically at how much of his departmental money goes on consultants' reports? Will he ensure that the money spent on them is minimised as much as possible so that more money gets through to the front line?
I shall be happy to write to the hon. Gentleman on that matter. I shall set out the details in the letter, but my recollection is that there has been such a reduction recently. However, I come back to the latest independent review of DFID's work; it said that DFID was a world leader in aid effectiveness. That did not happen by chance, but by choice. We are continually looking at how we can deliver aid most effectively. Obviously, that varies from country to country, but I am glad to say that we have made progress that has established DFID as a global leader in recent years. However, we are never complacent.
(Brent, North) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that poverty reduction requires us to focus on climate change; that was a welcome part of his statement. Will he go slightly further and recognise that in tackling climate change as part of the anti-poverty strategy, we must focus on land-use change and ecosystem services, which are a part of the parcel?
I recognise the centrality of both those issues to the challenges described in the White Paper and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the service and work that he has undertaken, particularly on forestry.
In 2005, I was privileged in taking seven busloads of my constituents to the streets of Edinburgh in our shared plea to make poverty history. Unless we now engage in the policy consequences and challenges of climate change, poverty will become the future for billions of our fellow citizens. That insight underpins the policy prescriptions of the White Paper.
Hywel Williams
(Caernarfon) (PC)
What discussions has the Secretary of State had with the non-governmental aid organisations about prioritising some of the budgets on security and justice? Given their aims and campaigns, does he enjoy their full and unqualified support for that prioritisation?
Anybody with even a fleeting acquaintance with development NGOs in the United Kingdom knows that they never agree with each other, never mind with every paragraph of a White Paper—even one from the Department for International Development. In recent weeks, we have been unstinting in our efforts to try to ensure a genuine consultation and dialogue with the NGOs; if I remember rightly, we have had eight or nine regional consultation events around the country to make sure that not only London-based NGOs, but those right across the United Kingdom, can contribute.
We have received about 2,500 responses to the White Paper from a range of institutions, individuals and organisations. Some of the concerns that they might have had about our full commitment to NGOs have been answered by the doubling of our funding to civil society organisations. Whatever issues they might have about the focus on conflict in fragile affected states, they are issues on which we can work with NGOs in the years ahead.
Tom Levitt
(High Peak) (Lab)
In eight weeks' time, I shall be in Tanzania—at my own expense—looking at what is being done by British university students working in Tanzanian schools for the summer. They are there under the auspices of READ International, a charity of which I am patron. Does my right hon. Friend agree that however good the relationships between voluntary organisations in this country and services in developing countries, and between our Government and Governments such as Tanzania's, our aim has to be to ensure that the capacity of Governments in developing countries is sufficient for them to make their own decisions about how they manage services such as education? That is preferable to a paternalist or dogmatic approach to the sort of education that should be delivered, which appears to be the message coming from some on the Conservative Benches.
I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of capacity-building and the continuing country-led development that runs like a golden thread through the White Paper. I pay tribute to the organisation he describes and to the thousands of others across the United Kingdom that undertake vital contributions to the task of development. Their work inspired us to announce a new innovation fund in the White Paper. It will allow small organisations in constituencies across the country to apply for often small sums that could facilitate exactly the kind of visit that my hon. Friend is making.
Mr. Nicholas Soames
(Mid-Sussex) (Con)
I applaud the renewed emphasis on agriculture and infrastructure. What are the two biggest research projects that the Secretary of State's Department is undertaking, and from which other projects does he intend to save £155 million?
We are undertaking a significant programme of agricultural research; we committed £1 billion towards research only last year. I will set out the figures for the hon. Gentleman in correspondence later. We have looked carefully at finding ways better to align that spend in what is a significant envelope to ensure that we get the most effective return. Our particular focus on agricultural research, which has moved up the agenda relative to the traditional health research that we have performed for several years, stems from our belief that it is the most effective way of engaging effectively within agriculture. Under a previous Government, there were a large number of agronomists within DFID, as well as many field-based workers. That is no longer the most effective contribution that we can make, which is instead to contribute to the raising of agricultural productivity, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, in a manner that was achieved on the Indian sub-continent 20 to 30 years ago.
Ms Gisela Stuart
(Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
I very much welcome the new emphasis on fragile and conflict countries and my right hon. Friend's intention to develop joint strategies with the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office. Should the statutory definition of poverty reduction be found to be a hindrance in that development of joint strategies, either here or in working with other countries, will he have an open mind in reconsidering some of those parameters?
I read with some interest a recent report indicating that statutory change was necessary, but that has not been my experience as Secretary of State for International Development; indeed, I struggle to think of a single instance where I have felt constrained in the choices put before me under landmark legislation passed by this Labour Government. It is vital that we continue to be trusted as an organisation that sees poverty reduction as its core task, while at the same time working in an effective and collaborative manner with our colleagues in the Foreign Office and the MOD.
Mr. Philip Hollobone
(Kettering) (Con)
The Kettering-based charity, Casa Alianza, is a world leader in providing effective aid to street children, particularly in central America, many of whom suffer abuse at the hands of state authorities and local and national police forces. What emphasis does the White Paper place on helping the growing number of street children across the world?
The White Paper contains language on the challenge of urbanisation, which is directly related to the issue of street children. There is a strong and continuing focus on the need to provide basic health services, which are essential to the needs of street children. At the same time, we are considering the challenge of providing education, because many street children find themselves in circumstances where they are denied formal education. We are also seeking to increase our investment in social protection, because in many households it is the absence of income that has driven children on to the streets. I applaud the efforts of the charity in question, which are reflected in several other charities working on this important issue across the United Kingdom. If the hon. Gentleman sends me further details of the charity, I shall certainly be interested to have a look at them.
Mark Lazarowicz
(Edinburgh, North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend will be aware of the growing concern in Parliament and beyond about the scandal of vulture funds. How will the White Paper allow the Government to further their work in tackling this issue?
The formal answer to my hon. Friend is that my colleagues in the Treasury lead on these issues. I would simply reflect on the fact that, as in other areas of policy, the challenge is to build a consensus on how we can move forward. I recognise that there is strong pressure growing as regards vulture funds. I take heart from the fact that in an equivalent campaign in relation to tax havens, we have seen, as a result of the leadership of our own Prime Minister at the G20, decisive action that I hope will be taken forward in Pittsburgh in September.
Mr. Shailesh Vara
(North-West Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The House is aware that many of the countries to which funds go have high levels of corruption and the leadership probably have overseas bank accounts. In the interests of proper accountability, is the Secretary of State able to give us a percentage of the amount of money given by his Department that reaches the people for whom it is intended rather than a Swiss bank account?
It is a sad fact that corruption is both a cause and a consequence of poverty, and it is almost inevitable that if we have a Department focused on global poverty reduction, it will be working in environments where there is a real challenge in relation to bribery and corruption. It is for exactly that reason that we put such emphasis on building the capacity and public financial management of those countries. However, we have a zero-tolerance policy in relation to the misuse of British aid, and if the hon. Gentleman is aware of any examples of aid being misused anywhere across our global network, I will be grateful to take receipt of them.
David Simpson
(Upper Bann) (DUP)
I also welcome the Secretary of State's statement. He will be aware of a recent meeting that I had with him and an agency called Christian Blind Mission, which works in the field of preventive procedures against blindness and child poverty right across the developing world. Does he agree that organisations such as CBM and others in the UK deliver the value for money that he mentioned in his statement?
As I shared with the hon. Gentleman when I met him and a representative of CBM, I think my ancestors would cry out if I did not pay tribute to such organisations, given that both my grandfather and grandmother were medical missionaries. We are fully aware of the contribution that organisations such as CBM have made over many years to tackling the scourge of blindness in the developing world.
I also shared with the hon. Gentleman the recent experience that I had on the Thai-Burma border, where a Scottish surgeon, using his holidays from work as an NHS surgeon in Aberdeen, had flown out and people had walked across the border from Burma to receive free treatment at a hospital on the border. I hugely admire the work of not just CBM but many other committed people of conscience and good will in this field. I would certainly welcome the opportunity to take forward our dialogue with that organisation.
Bob Spink
(Castle Point) (Ind)
I warmly welcome the White Paper, with one caveat, which perhaps the Secretary of State's grandparents would agree with. Malaria is killing millions of people, particularly children under five, in sub-Saharan Africa, yet it is not one of the key priorities such as climate change and conflict. Will he look again at that and ensure that we do nothing to threaten the funding for malaria research and prevention, and indeed consider increasing it? That is one of the key ways in which we can help the world.
I should correct the hon. Gentleman. I emphasised in my remarks the fact that we are taking forward our spending on malaria. I am glad to say that we will be increasing the number of treated bed nets that we were committed to prior to the White Paper, because I have seen for myself in developing countries, and our experts have seen, case after case in which insecticide-treated malarial bed nets can make a huge difference to the rate of infection and reinfection. That is why I made a judgment that we should not end our commitment at 2010 but take it forward thereafter, and I am proud to reiterate that today.