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Opening address by the Presiding Officer George Reid at the 10th session of the
Africa Caribbean Pacific - European Union (ACP-EU) Joint Parliamentary Assembly.

Edinburgh International Conference Centre, 21 November.

George Reid speaking at the ACP-EU event

Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Fàilte gu Dùn Èideann agus ceud mìle fàilte gu Alba.

Welcome to Edinburgh, welcome to Scotland. Or, rather, welcome back to Scotland - since it was in our Highland capital, Inverness, that your unique, intercontinental assembly met for the very first time some 20 years ago.

Your predecessors pledged then to work in partnership for a fairer world… a world where aid and trade complement each other… where all are born equal in dignity and rights… and where we recognise that, in a global economy, we are all increasingly interdependent.

In that spirit, which we wholeheartedly share, we welcome you all - from the countries of Africa, the Caribbean, the European Union and the Pacific - to our country again for your Joint Parliamentary Assembly.

Much has changed in Scotland over the past two decades.

Six years ago, the Scottish Parliament was re-established - defining, debating and deciding domestic life north of the border. Holding to account our Scottish government for its policies and finances, almost £27,000,000,000 this year alone.

Adding value to the United Kingdom through participative forms of governance appropriate to the 21st century and working always to our fundamental principles of:

• Accessibility - inviting the people of Scotland in all the time
• Accountability - publishing everything we do
• Equal Opportunity - promoting the rights of our women, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities
• Sharing of Power - between Parliament, Government and People in public recognition that politics, these days, is too important to be left just to the politicians.

We are a country which recognises we must make our way in the world. We are already a global player in international finance, in the life sciences and knowledge industries, in energy and in academic excellence. We are also an egalitarian society which is determined to put its humanitarian values into practice at home, and abroad.

I have a warm personal reason for bidding you welcome, and for following your discussions with real interest.

For 15 years of my life, between my time in the Westminster and Holyrood parliaments, I worked as a director of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent. I worked in the field — in conflicts and in disasters, both man-made and natural — in at least 14 of the ACP countries represented here this morning.

I have seen too much poverty, close up. I have seen how poverty fuels fanaticism and violence.

I have seen too many women, labouring under a violently hot sun, not to feed their families but to put cash crops on Western breakfast tables, in an attempt to pay off crippling national debts.

I have participated in the coverage of dozens of earthquakes and tsunamis and floods and famines on the international media… the quick soundbites from the aid agencies, the shots of relief planes heading skywards… but very little of the work of the hundreds of thousands of local volunteers or in-country NGOs without whom the food, the shelter, the medicines, the water would never have reached those who would otherwise have perished. This morning I pay tribute to them.

And I have learned a great deal. That participative decision-making - talking your way through an issue for days under a village tree until the whole community is on board - does work. That the conspicuous consumption of the West does not necessarily bring happiness, and that for sheer joie de vivre you should go to Africa.

That, in view of your discussions today on disasters, that failure to prepare is in reality preparing to fail. That you have to recognise a problem before it becomes an emergency. That, as I am sure Bangladeshi colleagues will recognise, that concrete cyclone shelters on stilts… a decent early warning radio system… and a local volunteer on a bike with a loud hailer shouting “take cover” need not cost the earth but can save countless lives.

And most important of all, that women - their education, their reproductive health care, their social standing, their human rights - that women are the key to sustainable development.

We have been talking a lot about these issues in Scotland this year - not least because we hosted the G8 summit at Gleneagles.

250,000 people - old people, young people, faith groups, trades unionists, writers, artists, entrepreneurs, mothers with push-chairs and babies in arms, politicians from all parties - marched peacefully through the streets of this city to make their own personal statement in support on the war on poverty.

In our Parliament, we hosted the Commission for Africa Conference - Bob Geldof in a passionate appeal for justice, ministers and members from the developed and developing countries, and the real experts… the NGOs who are doing the hands-on work… all promoting practical policies which should produce change.

We hosted the J8 summit - teenagers from around the world bringing their message of compassion and justice to Gleneagles. And the World Youth Congress, dedicated to community action projects and the achievement of the UN Millennium Goals.

And just this month, we have had three days of debate and dialogue in our Chamber and in our committees through the Scotland-Malawi Partnership, bringing together the politicians, the aid agencies and the voluntary sector in both countries.

The President of the European Parliament, Josep Borrell, addressed our Chamber this month.

He said: “Ending poverty is more than a moral duty and more than an expression of charity and altruism. It is also a matter of self-interest”.

We recognise that. We recognise that if there is to be peace and prosperity in out time it cannot be secured on the backs of a billion people who live on less than a dollar a day.

We also, in a distinctly Scottish way, recognise the wisdom of one of our sons… the richest man in the world, Andrew Carnegie, who gave his fortune away… and whom we honoured at Holyrood earlier this year. He said:

“No man can be truly rich unless he first enriches others”.

Fàilte gu na h-Alba.

Welcome to Scotland.

We trust that, after your deliberations here, you will leave the world a little richer — economically, socially, ethically — in recognition that we share this planet and that, in the words of Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“All human beings are born equal in rights and dignity”.

Ends.

For further information, the media contact is :

Sally Coyne Tel: 0131 348 6269
RNID TypeTalk calls welcome
email: sally.coyne@scottish.parliament.uk

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Text phone: 0845 270 0152 RNID Typetalk calls welcome

email: sp.info@scottish.parliament.uk