Dfid has given UK global 'clout', says David Miliband

Former foreign secretary David Miliband has praised successive Conservative governments for not "trashing" a Labour innovation: the Department for International Development.

In an interview with the Telegraph Mr Miliband, now president of US NGO International Rescue Committee, was asked whether he feared a merger between DFID and the Foreign Office, as has been touted by some Conservatives.

He said: "The creation of DFID in 1997 has been a really positive development. The Foreign Office and DFID need to work closely together but I think DFID has more than proved its worth both in driving aid effectiveness but also in increasing British clout.

"It’s been striking and good that an innovation of the Labour government has not been trashed by the Tories but has been continued."

He also praised the appointment of Rory Stewart as international development secretary, particularly as he has experience of working in Afghanistan and Iraq as a soldier and in the department as a junior minister.

"It’s an exciting appointment, a welcome appointment and one which hopefully means that he’s not going to need a year or two to bed himself in," he said.

Mr Miliband was talking to the Telegraph from Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he was visiting staff responding to the Ebola epidemic currently raging in the North Kivu region of the country.

He said that he had concerns that the outbreak was not being brought under control and that a "reset" was needed.

The latest figures from the DRC ministry of health show that as of May 9 there have been 1604 cases of Ebola, including 1074 deaths, since the outbreak was first declared in the North Kivu region of the country in August.

Mr Miliband was unable to visit IRC staff at the heart of the response because of an upsurge in the violence in Butembo, one of the cities at the epicentre of the outbreak.

On Wednesday armed men launched several attacks in the city, killing a policeman. In a counter-attack by government forces 10 of the assailants were killed and six were captured.

Mr Miliband, who was UK foreign secretary between 2007 and 2010, said that it was time to rethink the response.

“The current financing plan runs out in July and there’s no way this is going to be over in July,” he said.

“Carrying on as we are is not going to sort this crisis out,” he added.

He said there needed to be better coordination between large multilateral organisations such as the World Health Organization and the various NGOs that were responding to the crisis.

He added that responders had to work harder had to build trust among the communities affected by the disease.

“The view among our own staff is that there is a lack of trust in the local community and that’s fuelling the insecurity that exists. We don’t have armed guards in our facilities because our experience is that’s not the way to engender the support or acceptance or trust of the community,” he said.

There are more than 100 armed groups operating in the North Kivu region and the threat of violence has overshadowed the response - just last month a doctor in one of the Ebola treatment centres was killed, prompting health workers to stage a strike.

Mr Miliband said that that it was “unprecedented” to fight an Ebola outbreak in what is essentially a conflict zone

He added: “This is already the second largest Ebola outbreak in history, already 1000 people are dead but my takeaway is that this is a far more dangerous situation than the statistic of 1000 dead - appalling as it is - suggests.

“There are good reasons to believe the disease is not under control. April saw the highest recorded number of cases - 406. Now we’re in month 10 the danger is it spikes and spreads,” he said.

More than 111,000 people have been vaccinated against the disease in the affected area and earlier this week WHO announced that it would be expanding the pool of people eligible for vaccination. It also said it was considering the introduction of a second vaccine to those at lower risk of contracting the disease.

Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, said the epidemic was in a “truly frightening phase”.

He added: “If there is any hope of bringing it under control there has to be a significant shift in the response and we welcome the new recommendations [from WHO].”

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