4. Statement by the Minister for Social Justice: Wales and Africa

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:05 pm on 9 November 2021.

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Photo of Jane Hutt Jane Hutt Labour 4:05, 9 November 2021

I just want to give you an example of the Phoenix Project again with Cardiff University. Many of you will know Professor Judith Hall who leads that partnership. We were able to give a grant of £125,000 to roll out a vaccination programme in Namibia—this was from us to enable them to do that work, which was crucial; it's their programme, it's enabling them—because they have a major COVID-19 vaccination resistance, especially among the vulnerable, remote and disadvantaged communities. But what they did—. In partnership, the Namibian Ministry of Health and Social Services, the University of Namibia and Cardiff University have co-produced help, promotion and awareness campaigns for 90,000 of the most disadvantaged people, and that included disabled people, elderly people and prison inmates, and then they were able, in Namibia, to deliver the vaccination programme itself, saving many lives. But also, the People's Vaccine Alliance is a coalition of organisations and activists. It's campaigning for a people's vaccine for COVID-19. And I thank you for your support for this, because this should be based on that shared knowledge and making it freely available to everyone. It's a global common good, and it's also backed by past and present world leaders, health experts, faith leaders and economists.

I think it is very important that we look at all of the issues around deforestation and the work that's been—. There's so much of a profile about this in the last few days and the last week in COP26. To look at the Mbale tree programme in Uganda, which clearly demonstrates our commitment to tackling change. It's about climate justice, isn't it? Rural Ugandans who've done very little to cause the climate change that is now causing them so many problems. So, this is an Ugandan-led project—we're helping some of the very poorest people in the world adapt to climate change—delivered by the Size of Wales charity in partnership with the Welsh Government. It's a Mount Elgon tree-growing enterprise, locally delivered and for local NGOs in the Mbale region of eastern Uganda.

And what's very important in terms of the tree planting as well is to link this to the work that's being undertaken in other parts of our Africa with our support, which is addressing the very key points you make about deforestation and reforestation. So, if you look at the Ogongo indigenous forest park project, that's another collaboration between Cardiff University, the Phoenix Project and the University of Namibia, supporting reforestation in the Ogongo indigenous forest park, working in partnership, again, creating 100 hectares of restored woodland in the far north of Namibia. And that's about establishing a whole ecosystem in an area that was once green and fertile, and it's about encouraging this self-sustaining project to take this forward in partnership with the Phoenix Project. Again, the Bore community forest in Kenya, we've been supporting over the last 13 years, and that's again a locally managed project to plant 2.4 million climate-cooling, tropical trees, expanding current annual capacity, with 1 million seedlings distributed to 3,000 family farmers and 460 schools. This is, again, a very large expansion in terms of addressing these issues.

It's very important that we look to ways in which we can link our procurement policy to the importance in terms of supply chains and recognise that this has to be ethical. We have a code of practice on ethical procurement that we've developed, and that has an impact and, of course, is important as we take forward our social partnership and procurement Bill, new legislation, in the near future.

So, I just want to again say that Africa has been hit by COVID-19 and climate change. We see the first climate change famine in Madagascar, but we see a professor from Bangor University working in Madagascar to address these issues. So, we've got experts and we've got partners across Wales who are working to address these issues, and, of course, it is about sustainability, and it's about a partnership approach that will deliver the transformational change with our partners, alongside our partners.