 Good morning. Following the private session in which members considered its work programme, I now move the meeting into public. I welcome you to the 16th meeting of the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee in 2017. I would like to remind members and the public to switch off their mobile phones and any members using electronic devices to access committee papers during the meeting should ensure that their switch to silent. Apologies have been received from Jackson Carlaw and I welcome Margaret Mitchell as a substitute. Our second item of business today is a decision on taking item four in private. Are members content? Our third item of business today, we will take evidence on the Scottish Government's international development strategy and we have a range of stakeholders who have come to give evidence to us today. I would like to start by inviting our witnesses and members of the committee to introduce themselves. I'll start by my name is Joan McAlpine and I'm the convener of the committee and MSP for South Scotland. Lewis MacDonald, North East Scotland, deputy convener of the committee and also a convener of the cross-party group on international development. Marie Evans, MSP for Angus North and Merns Richard Lochhead, MSP for Murray Stuart McMillan, MSP for Grunogand and Burkwyd Ross Greer, MSP for the West of Scotland Margaret Mitchell, MSP Central Scotland Jen Sammonson, chief executive of NIDOS, the network of international development organisations in Scotland David Hope-Jones, chief executive of the Scotland-Malawi partnership. We represent around 1,200 different organisations and individuals that have civic links with Malawi. My name is Hazel Gray, I'm a lecturer from the Centre of African Studies and I'm also a member of the Global Development Academy at the university. I'm Tanya Wisley, I'm the coordinator of ideas which is a third sector network of organisations that support, develop and deliver global citizenship education in Scotland. I just say as well that I consulted with the committee clerks because I was also elected as a councillor in the May elections and they just suggested that I make you aware of that but that I'm not here in that capacity, I'm here for ideas. My name is Geraldine Hill, I'm the advocacy manager at SCIAF which is the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund. I'm Hina Cumber, I'm the charity development manager for First Aid Africa which is a grassroots international organisation that brings partnerships of first aiders in East Africa and Scotland. Hi, I'm Joe Sharp, I'm a professor geography at the University of Glasgow and I'm here to represent the Glasgow Centre for International Development, which is an interdisciplinary research grouping across the university. Thank you very much. I think perhaps we could start with maybe perhaps a general question on what you see as the main challenges are for your sector in Scotland and perhaps respond to the refreshed Scottish Government international development strategy, which was unveiled last year in December. Who would like to begin? I shall begin. When I joined NIDOS last year, we took part in a major strategic planning exercise which involved going around to speak to members of the organisation all the way around Scotland. So the voice of the membership came across in what were people's main fears, challenges, aspirations, hopes, goals and so on and so forth. The main challenges involved particularly concerns over funding, how they will manage to get funding for their work as more and more sources of institutional funding appear to be shrinking and with fears over whether Brexit and other elements were going to have a squeeze on consumer spending therefore individual donations. So a concern about where the money was going to come from to fund their work. To have a look at the international development strategy in that light, whilst 10 million from the international development fund is obviously not a huge amount of money, that source of funding being secured and furthermore increased and if you like the moral endorsement and encouragement given to the sector in Scotland is really very warmly welcomed. So the production of the new strategy, not just a little bit of extra funding but the encouragement from the sector came at a time I think which was very well received by the international development community in Scotland. Thank you. David? Maybe if I may three headline points that I'm sure we as a panel will drill down further into later on challenges and opportunities. I guess the first obvious one for me is the sustainable development goals, that this is a real challenge and an opportunity for Scotland and the 191 other countries that have signed up to these goals both in the international work and the domestic work and I hope we have the chance this morning to talk about the goals. I think there is a challenge in Scotland and across the UK in the media. I think there's certain sections of the media that are never one to miss an opportunity to do down international development and international cooperation and there is a role for civic society as well as the government, the parliament and business to be promoting the many many good news stories that are out there and the clear impact that that work is having. I guess the third point for me is the constructive synergy that exists between government, civic society, parliament, business and academia. I think that's been the great strength of Scotland's approach to international development. There has been close collaborations and synergies between government and civic society and I think this very strong new policy sets out a clear framework of how that synergy can continue. So three points from me, SDGs, the media and the synergy between government and civic society. Thank you very much for inviting me here. I think that for the Centre of African Studies and the Global Development Academy at the University of Edinburgh, obviously, in engaging with international development our biggest concern at the moment is the implications of Brexit for students and research. But it's also a very exciting time for us because there's such a thirst to understand international development from our student body so we've got a lot of interest in development courses and across all of our teaching areas in issues related to international development and our student body is an incredibly outward looking group of students. Our challenges are also very much around building ethical partnerships with organisations and institutions in the countries where we are researching. That's at the core of our objective so we are trying to develop strategies around how to build capacities and capabilities and develop a common goal setting and strategies around priorities of research. Another big challenge that we have is around monitoring and impact and how we assess the validity of the programmes that we are trying to support and draw from all of the disciplinary expertise that we have across the university. All of these things chime very much with the new strategy and particularly around the role of expertise and what that means, what our long relationship is an African studies centre that was established in 1952 and is the biggest in Europe, what we can do to help to bring expertise together on Africa and more broadly on developing countries through the GDA. But also because our research is very much based on collaborations both within Scotland across universities and different types of organisation and also across countries where we research. We are really delighted to see the strategy is focusing on these kind of aspects as well. I think first probably to say our work with global citizenship education obviously spans the international development side and the education side so it's really the international development side that I'm talking about here and I think the key thing for us is the need to continue to build and develop public engagement and understanding with international development. Obviously the issues involved are very complex and dynamic so in our view this needs to be underpinned by processes of education, by global citizenship education which is a well established and participative way of engaging people rather than simply informing people about international development. In terms of this strategy I think the key frameworks for developing this public understanding are certainly the sustainable development goals but also policy coherence for development which is seen I think all of us here would agree is crucial to taking forward this agenda in a constructive and innovative way. The other two points are we also have a strong European Union context for our work which have flagged up in the written evidence and also issues around building the evidence of the impact of global citizenship education which is an important part of our work as well. Thank you very much. Hi, I would echo some of what my colleagues have said. I think a skiaf, we have been really delighted to see the on-going commitment both in the Government and in the Parliament to international development, the commitments to the Fund, the Climate Justice Fund, the Humanitarian Emergency Fund. Given the challenges faced in climate today it is really good to see the separate fund on climate justice, we really welcome that. We have been really glad to see the focus down in the strategy, we think focusing in on limited countries and geographical areas is the way to go. We also think focusing down thematically is the way to go and making sure that what is done in DFID is not replicated and duplicated. What I can and what my colleagues have said, I think that David mentioned the challenges with the media. We see that as well. I think that we are not quite as bad up here but it is definitely an on-going challenge about general perceptions on international development. I echo again what Tanya was saying about policy coherence for development. It is really important that there is a whole-of-government approach to this and that all government departments are considering pro-poor policies and what that means for different government departments, so policy coherence for us is also a really important thing. First, I would like to thank the committee for its invitation to give evidence. We are a young organisation with diverse membership across Scotland and Africa, and the majority of our members are under the age of 24 and do not often get a seat at the table, so we appreciate the committee's efforts in widening participation and to include voices like ours. My colleagues here have given examples of how it has worked and how they were able to give a much more broader idea of how it works, but I could give you examples of how it works for smaller organisations. Small organisations provide great value for money. For example, First to Africa has projects where we can train and equip local partners as first responders under £10 per head. However, there is a limit to how much we can scale this up and monitor value outcomes at the same time without additional staff capacity. That is the same for many innovative Scottish organisations, where the barrier to scale is staff time. Our colleagues at the Turing Trust also backed us up and we had conversations with them as well. We are well-networked with the sector of small international organisations, and that is a challenge that permanates civil society groups at our level. I concur with everything that has been said by my colleagues. I think that this is going to be the problem of being the last person speaking. I will not simply reiterate what others have said, but we are also encouraged by the language of the statement and the emphasis on Scotland's role as a good global citizen. It is particularly important around some of the discussions about Brexit, which has led to a lot of instability in the minds of staff and students not feeling confident in their role. That is a positive image for Scotland on the global stage. We are particularly encouraged by the language of partnership and capacity strengthening. As others have said, there are challenges with engaging Scottish civil society, but there are other challenges to ensure that the voice of our partners really comes through in the partnership to ensure that policies are developed collaboratively between partners in the south and ourselves. I should say in response to Professor Shardart that this was a general question, so you all had an opportunity to answer, but you do not have to do that for every single question. You can come in as and when. Can I just ask Nidus and the Scottish Malawi partnership? I note that you are core funded by the Scottish Government and you mentioned the squeeze on public finances at the moment, and the need to diversify. Are you able to give us any indication as to how you have been meeting that challenge of diversification of your income? It is not easy, partly because if you do not want to cut across your own membership in your fundraising, the raft of charitable trusts and foundations or private fundraising that you can do, always have to answer that question, am I taking money from my own membership? The strategy at which we are now taking is to prioritise increasing our membership and our membership fee income, and it is that that will be for us the number one source. We think that what we actually deliver through being successful as an organisation is greater opportunity for networking, which Hina mentioned connectivity, working with universities, working across all sectors. If we are successful in doing that, we will not only diversify our income, but by definition, at the same time, get far better of what we are doing and add more value through our work to the international development sector in Scotland. What Nidus does with Scottish Government funding is primarily its effectiveness and learning programme. Therefore, for organisations such as First Aid Africa, the support that we can give and our own organisational development and capacity building is key to the outcomes, to the success that is cross cutting, helping the sector to develop and do better to exercise good practice development. Therefore, we feel that we should not really charge people to take part in the services because we are co-funded to do it. The Scottish Government has enabled the services to improve the performance of the sector, but we are moving, as I think I put in my briefing, to become an alliance, Scotland's international development alliance, which will open up the opportunities for people from universities, companies and other sectors involved with international development to join us, which hopefully will not only help us to do the job better, but also bring in extra sources of non-governmental income for us. Thank you, David. Thank you for the question. I am keen to preface my answer by reiterating the very good points that Jane made about the impact of the three core funded networks. There is the Scotland Malawi partnership Nidus, the Scottish Fair Trade Forum and other key networks such as Ideas and SCVO. I think that it is a great strength of the sector in Scotland how the impact that these networks have, but also how well these networks work together. From our own perspective, we know from our research—in fact, the University of Edinburgh's research—that for each pound put into the Scotland Malawi partnership, it supports £180 coming from Scottish civic society. That is a return on investment that would be enviable for funders anywhere in the world, and that is in part because of the sheer number of Scots involved in some way with civic links with Malawi. Separate research suggested that 46 per cent of Scots could name a friend or family member with a connection to Malawi. Working with and through networks unleashes a powerful multiplier effect. The Scottish Government on its own £10 million a year would have comparatively modest impact in its international development work unless it worked collaboratively, co-operatively with civic society. We think that networks are an excellent conduit for that. In specific answer to your question, we are funded with taxpayers' money, and it is entirely right that we are accountable and entirely transparent about where that money goes. We look to reduce that commitment each year from the Scottish Government. We are actively working, as NIDOS and the other networks are, to diversify our income. Similar modalities, as Jane mentioned, are increasing our membership fees. I am looking at sponsorship, corporate partnerships and about half a dozen or so other different modalities for bringing in income. However, there is a critical point here, and that is how we do that in a way that is scalable and sustainable without undermining the very values that have made it so successful. We have 237 Scottish primary and secondary schools engaged with Malawi and a part of our network. It would be very sad if we hiked up membership fees such that that reduced to eight or nine private schools alone. It is keeping the values, the breadth and the diversity while acting innovatively to diversify income. Thank you very much. I will now pass on to Lewis MacDonald. There is a lot in the strategy that I think has very broad support that certainly. I think that the case among members of Parliament and clearly it is the case from the evidence that you have given thus far. Some of the questions, I guess, are around the practicalities of how that is actually delivered. I know from the submissions that we received, there were some issues around the way in which that funding is provided. I know that Hina may want to comment on the gap between small grant funding for small organisations and mainstream development assistance for well-established projects and how that gap might be registered. I would be very interested in that. I also think that it would be interesting to hear a little more from Schiaff about the question of ensuring that funding is predictable and well-managed and ensuring that it is always held to the same standards of accountability and transparency. I wonder if I could ask Hina and Jordan to start on those points. Currently, as we have highlighted in the notes, the small grants programme supports organisations with a specific turnover and small grants up to 2,000 per year on new innovative projects. Within the development assisting funding stream, the Government could bridge the gap between successful small grant recipients and the main development programme by allowing assessors flexibility on guidance around turnover in Scottish overheads. Alongside bridging that gap to create clear pathways for scaling innovative—sorry, I can struggle with that word—Scottish development programme projects, the Government could fund network organisations such as NIDOS and my partnership to support charities or partnerships following this pathway. Direct funding through small grant funds, which has been beneficial for many small organisations that we have been in touch with, would be easy to lose focus if the geographic focus was reduced. We would support broadening the geographic reach of the small grants, however we understand that, as it is not a devolved issue, the need to focus on four countries at the moment is what works. I will pass it on to any other points to be made there. In our written submission, we made the point about the need for predictable funding and funding models. I think that the trialling of new models has been in response to some of the consultation that happened prior to the strategy. That has meant that some funding opportunities are more predictable now, but for most of the large grant funds that are announced today on Zambia, Rwanda and Malawi, and also on the climate challenge programme in Malawi, it looks like there is only going to be one funding opportunity every three or four years, and that is pretty limited. We welcome innovation, but we would also like to see new models of funding developed and discussed with Scottish agencies before they are trialled. We recently had the experience of bidding for the climate challenge programme fund for Malawi. Frankly, we felt that it was a bit confused and rushed. There were only five weeks between the invitation to tender and the deadline for submitting the bids, and it was unclear whether the tender was going to be for a fund manager. Questions were submitted, but the answers to the questions only came in just over two weeks before the bids were due in. That is very limited time to do all the consultation that you need to do with your partners overseas, and you are implementing partners. We felt that that did not work really that well. There is also a question around the increasing use of fund managers to manage the different rounds. For Zambia, Rwanda and the Climate Innovation Fund, my question round about that would be the expense of using external contractors and whether that is coming directly from the development spend. The other thing that we talked about in the written submission was the split between development assistance, capacity strengthening and investment. The private sector investment is going to be around about 5 per cent of the spend, so we would be keen to understand a bit better how money designated for investment is going to be used and who will determine objectives and activities around that, and just urging that everybody who receives money would be held to the same standards of transparency and accountability. Do you have a view, when you talk about some of the difficulties with some of the funding streams, do you have a view as to why that is? Is that partly because they are being managed by external contractors or is it to do with... I don't know the answer to that. No indication of that. When I was struck again in the evidence from First Aid Africa about how satisfied you are with Lloyd's TSP Foundation as an administrator of the small grants, but clearly your experience in dealing with larger projects is not satisfactory. I wonder if there is any wider lessons that any of the witnesses would suggest could be drawn on how the Scottish Government... David Scott's point about this is a modest sum, it is by definition a modest sum, and therefore in order to be effective it has to add value. I wonder if we are hearing different versions as to how effectively value is being added and what might be the number of that? I mean certainly listening to our members the points that Hina makes are not in isolation. I think there are a large number of particularly smaller NGOs who have really benefited from the Scottish Government's innovative small grants programme, and I think that the role and the tone set by the independent grant manager is critical to the success of that programme because it needs to be a supportive space. These are smaller organisations, often not used to the language and process and structure of formal applications like this, and I absolutely commend the Lloyd's TSP Foundation. Every single applicant who is eligible in this programme, it wasn't a contractual requirement, but they picked up the phone and they spent 60 to 90 minutes chatting through with these small NGOs. Well what do you mean by this? What do you mean by that? That means that things that could otherwise be insurmountable hurdles because of technical language, because they are not using the jargon of the sector, allowed them to choose the very best projects, not just the best presented projects. I think that the role particularly in the small grants programme was critical for Lloyd's TSP Foundation. I think that it has really been very well run. On that basis, and with a very strong positive feedback from our members of the role that they have done, we welcomed their involvement throughout the programme, but I think that very good points made there that it is a slightly different constituency, the larger NGOs that are applying for the larger programme, but so far it's maybe too early to tell. I haven't seen any evidence that the way they've been managing that has been inappropriate, and really all I can say is that we've been very impressed with the Lloyd's TSP Foundation, but it's also a fair and valid point that making sure that there is an efficient and effective programme and that those grant managers are offering good value for money, but so far we've had only positive things to say about Lloyd's TSP Foundation. I would echo the praise that's given to Lloyd's TSP Foundation where the small grant scheme is concerned, and the feedback that we've received, even from the classically unhappy applicant who didn't get on the treatment from Lloyd's TSP Foundation, is generally very good. I think where the main grants go and the Rwanda and Zambia main grants screen is new, so it's been tried for the first time a new way. I've certainly received some negative feedback on the handling of that one, but the extent to which the new scheme is developing, the way it's being rolled out, how much is that in the hands of Lloyd's TSP Foundation and how much they're operating a mechanism that was delivered to them. I wouldn't be entirely sure, but I would just say that I would welcome the fact that the Scottish Government is trying out a new approach to its development assistance with these larger, longer-term grants. In terms of the impact that could actually be made in-country in Zambia and Rwanda through funding for a much longer period and larger sums of money, it's a good and worthwhile experiment, which I think we should all be welcoming, but it then gives Lloyd's TSP Foundation a completely different type of challenge. I do think that the way some of the partner organisations overseas were expected to develop a concept in a very short space of time has been very challenging, but perhaps lessons can be quite usefully learned for another time, so we can learn as we go along and for it to get better. I would also want to support Heena's point that there is a gap in the middle. I think what are some of the most interesting and useful international development organisations in Scotland is, if you like, the graduates of the small grant schemes. The organisations who have grown and developed and become really useful in long-term sustainable development outcomes that they are achieving overseas, but they are not yet big enough to reach up to the Scottish Government's main grant schemes or other funders like DFID. I would hope that, as the new Malawi programme, the programme is developed. There won't be the same gap left so that it's only the larger organisations who are able to apply and the smaller ones who have done well in the small grant scheme won't be able to reach up that far. Could I just echo the point of the necessity of having the range of size of grants if we really are emphasising the importance of partnership to be able to demonstrate and to build genuine partnerships? It takes a long time and may have to start in a relatively small scale. It's really important that there is support at each of those scales to build up for longer-term projects that really can make a difference, but they have to be built upon developing those relationships of trust over time. Margaret Mitchell I thank the witnesses for their written submissions, but it would be good to get on record some of the projects that you have been funded for and to tell the committee about the outcomes. Over the past few years, we received funds for a feasibility study, a capacity building grant and a project grant. In total, we have received just over £60,000 in funding. With those funds, we have provided access to locally sustainable first-aid resources for over 10,000 people. We have developed online learning resources, reached remote communities where access to pre-hospital care is lacking, and worked with local partners to save lives in communities across East Africa. In terms of sustainability, funding has helped us to build our capacity and the capacity of our partners. For example, in Tanzania, we used some of the funds to launch a training initiative for local companies, which raised over £5,000 in local revenue in the past six months alone. Those funds can then be used to provide free and low-cost training to low-income communities in more remote areas of the country, creating sustainable local funding streams, which does not require western handouts. Our restlessness and the restlessness of other organisations like ours in the sector come from the fact that we know that we can do more. Because of the small grants programme, we are a better organisation and our partners are thriving. We are now working on a motorbike ambulance project that will provide access to emergency response vehicles to communities across northern highlands of Tanzania. Over the years, SCIAF has received considerable sums of money from the development fund, particularly for food and nutritional security of small-scale farmers. The Calema grant was for that. We had the Zambia part of the work funded by the Scottish Government and SCIAF co-funded cost-shared with Burundi and Malawi. In that programme, the techniques that were being learned for sustainable agriculture were really key. There were really good exchanges going on between the countries and the learning was coming out about minimum tellage and mulching, the techniques that are used in sustainable agriculture. In fact, those techniques we are now promoting in other countries and other parts of the world. There has been really good learning from the work that is funded. SCIAF has also received considerable funds from the climate justice fund for water in water projects in Rwanda and matched funding for food crisis appeals and various other things. We would have absolutely no complaints. We have received considerable support and there have been great lessons learned from the work that has been funded. It is slightly different for us because we are a network rather than an operational project, but maybe a few headlines from our perspective over the last couple of years or so. One of the new pieces of work that we have been involved in is supporting business trade, investment and tourism with Malawi. Malawi needs a sustainable economy if it is to develop. We have been building Scottish markets for 15 Malawian exports and encouraging Scots to holiday in Malawi. On youth in schools, we run annual youth congresses. We are very pleased to welcome Ross Greer speaking at our last one, which brought together more than 400 Scottish young people from over 20 different schools, the length and breadth of the country, to celebrate and share about their links with Malawi. On the media over the last three years, we have had more than 500 pieces about Malawi in the Scottish media, with around 95 per cent positive in tone. Much of what we work to do is to change the narrative when it comes to international development and the relationship with Malawi, to move away from a narrative of pity to one of partnership, away from sympathy to solidarity. We work to co-ordinate Scotland's links. We have various national forums, including in health, primary and secondary education further and higher education. We support the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. It was a great pleasure to be in this Parliament three weeks ago for the week inviting MSPs to come to our SDGs exhibit, which showed examples of Scotland-Malawi co-operation in all 17 of those goals. More than 100 of this Parliament's 129 parliamentarians recorded individual videos championing one SDG. Finally, the Scottish Government also funds our sister network in Malawi, the Malawi-Scotland partnership, that is Malawian-owned and Malawian-led. I only ever go to Malawi at the invitation as a guest of my colleagues and counterparts in Malawi, and I think that that is a real strength of the Scottish Government's far-sighted approach and its commitment to the sense of dignified partnership. I think that particularly the SCIAF example is the very best practice of how funding was used, the outcomes not just for that country but how they can be then repeated in other countries. With those kinds of outcomes, the likelihood of gaining funding in the future becomes much more opposed to project. More to do with effectiveness, so what we have been able to do over the last three years, we have just come to the end of a three-year funding period and we have an evaluation report available on our website. If anybody would like to look at it, we had an external evaluation commission, but it's mentoring schemes. One-to-one mentoring is available. We have increased the readership of a monthly newsletter to about two and a half thousand readers now who are able to see what the prime concerns are of the international development community in Scotland. We have training events and organisational development events. We have a website which people can use for their own effectiveness toolkit at school to improve their own organisational development. In the last year of our three-year funding period from the Scottish Government, we received about £125,000. That's been increased for us now in the new three-year funding period, which has just started. The piece of Scottish Government funding, which we are most pleased with and grateful for in the new year going ahead, is the investment on a complete overhaul of the website, which is coming shortly. The improved functionality is to allow organisations from all the way around Scotland from the outer aisles down to the depths of the borders to be able to use online training resources and online connectivity in a way that hasn't so far been possible. That for us is a key development in getting more people able to participate over the next three years ahead. Geraldine Hill spoke a moment ago about the farming aspects. Have SKEAF worked with or managed to engage with any of the farmers in Scotland or NFUS to assist with any of the projects that you are involved with elsewhere? No. We haven't done that to the best of my knowledge, but I was just going to come in in response to something that Margaret Sett, which was that we have developed promising practices that capture the learning from each of those projects. If anyone is interested in the key learnings that have come out of the work that has been funded by the Scottish Government, we have a series of promising practices, and we can certainly share them with people. I have a point that was raised earlier on regarding duplication and networks. I am keen to establish fully on how you work with other core-funded organisations to avoid any duplication of work, such as the work with the Scottish Fair Trade Forum to help them to promote the buying of Malabien products. If I may, just a comment with regard to your last question as well. The Scotland's rural college in Dumfrieshire is very actively involved with its own links with Malawi, so there are strong systems to harness the expertise in Scotland and really strong two-way sharing in that regard. Also, the rural agricultural commonwealth society, based here in Edinburgh, is an active member of the network as well. In regards to your current question, yet there are very strong structures and systems to be able to network well together. Jane, myself and Martin, not with us this morning, the chief executive of the Scottish Fair Trade Forum, work very closely together. We meet probably every couple of months or so formally in a cross-network forum meeting, though we use those opportunities to share everything that we are doing strategically going forwards. We regularly map out thematically what we are doing, and we identify through that mapping process the synergies, I would say synergies rather than overlaps, and in those areas particularly we have strong commitments to working together in that space. I think all of the networks here would very much say we are stronger when we work together and that it is in no one's interest to duplicate what each other is doing. Each other is doing. So I'd say there's very strong systems there, but I would also say that each of us exists independently to represent our own constituencies, our own membership. So one of the things that we do is map our own membership, and actually the proportion of overlap is comparatively very small compared to the whole overall, and that's why you have different networks, but we do work very well together and happy to give, I think, in our last core funding application to the Scottish Government we gave something like 30 or 40 examples even within the last year or so of collaborative work in between the networks. I'm very happy to share recent case studies to evidence that. Just to say that in the CLEMA project for Zambia and Malawi in Burundi, we did collaborate with Aberdeen University, so there were agriculturalists there who were working particularly on soil analysis, and that was helping the programme to do its monishing and evaluation. Just to say briefly, so the ideas network doesn't get core funding, but part of our network are the six development education centres that cover all local authorities across Scotland, and they have core funding that part of it comes from international development, the bulk of it comes from education, so it's just really in terms of how they work together. Again, there's very strong supportive engagement between development education centres and Scotland Malawi Partnership and Fair Trade Forum, and again it enables people to focus on their core work, but also it means that, as David said, the core work of the other networks we can access that understanding quite easily without having to work under our own limited capacity, because obviously we all work under limited capacity, but I think it's the real strength of the networks, not just that they're there, but the way that we interact is of mutual benefit and adds value definitely to the core funding that does go to the various organisations. Well, I think it extends reach, it adds value, they're all needed. NIDOS is there to promote and support international development, so that's its distinct mission, that's what it's there for, international development across the peace, so we have members who are working in Central Asia or the Philippines, and we will do everything we can to support them. The work that we do on things like supporting the Scottish Government's small grant scheme is for organisations who may be working in Malawi or who may not, they may be working in other countries, but because we collaborate with the Scotland Malawi Partnership we can extend the reach into their networks and make sure that more people get the chance to participate in small grants training and support, which we at NIDOS might be doing as more of our core business because we are there to improve effectiveness. So it works well, I think it adds rather than detracts value and we're all too busy and our members would not anyway allow us to get away with seeing duplication of effort. It doesn't, it doesn't happen, it's not to us something that we struggle with, but that joint working, which is a strong part of our ongoing existence, makes sure that it does work well. We see ourselves at the Global Development Academy as being very fortunate to be part of these networks and adding in in terms of drawing together best practices in international development, in project management and in assessment of outcomes and impact, but we also feel like we can play a useful role and have played a useful role in terms of generating new thinking through our research on international development that we do in partnership with organisations in Scotland and also across Africa and Asia. So we see ourselves as very fortunate as being in this position to be able to draw from other organisations within the network, but also adding in a unique perspective on what's new out there and what could be adapted today. Yes, so just in relation to the sustainable development goals, I think the importance of the networks is kind of multiplied by that because it's such a broad-ranging set of goals and obviously the crucial distinction between them and the millennium development goals is that they apply domestically as well and David's flagged up that we're now kind of building links and joint working with SCVO very much to ensure that we're joined up with the domestic agenda and I think while there has been kind of top level commitment to the SDGs, I think going forward over this period and hopefully with the support of the committee that needs to be brought down into concrete action and articulated more clearly the actions that are going to be taken under that and the networks are absolutely crucial to enabling that to happen, I believe. Sorry, were you not finished? We don't have a great deal of time so it could be as short as possible in terms of questions and answers. No, I'll just target it towards Mr Hope-Jones. My constituency of Game and Chamber Clyde obviously has links with Scotland Malawi partnership and there's also links with Rwanda, with Aid for Education charity. How do you see your organisation actually trying to increase the awareness of what you're trying to do and to try to get more people to fully understand the actions that you're undertaking but also to help to combat that other situation of some aspects of the media not wanting to fully promote the positives of the actions that you're undertaking? I'll be brief because I know time is short. Firstly, you're obviously right that there's a lot of links in your constituency and every single constituency in Scotland. On the Rwanda point, we work very closely with the networks for Rwanda and Zambia as well. In fact, this evening I'll be chairing a meeting where we're specifically supporting the capacity building of those networks as well and I think a good example of networks working well in the sector. On your point on media, on how do we combat the negative narrative in, I emphasise, some sections of the media. For me, three points I'd like to raise. Firstly, we're engaging and celebrating community involvement. The great thing about Scotland's international development effort, and this is no criticism of government, but it is driven by civic society. It is hundreds of churches and hundreds of schools, of hospitals, of universities, of local authorities coming together with one voice and saying, we can achieve more through dignified partnership than we can one way charity. It's very hard for any tabloid newspaper to be critical of what such a large section of Scottish civic society is doing. The narrative that they want to paint is one of top-down, of wastage, of corruption, of dependencies, and that is not what we see in the relationship between Scotland and Malawi and other countries as well. It's celebrating and recognising the breadth of civic engagement. Transparency is absolutely key as well, making sure that the Scottish Government continues to be absolutely transparent, sharing all the information about all the projects that it funds, but also to do more to celebrate the impact case studies that we're seeing. Edinburgh University estimates that 4 million Malawians benefit each year from those civic links with Malawi, but so too they find a 300,000 Scots. How do we get that narrative out there to show the benefit at both sides and celebrate the civic involvement? David Stewart points on engagement within the community. It is highlighted in Nidos's brief as well that more can be done to draw attention to the selfless and praiseworthy efforts of the great number of Scottish citizens who raise funds and attract public attention. As with many organisations in Scotland, volunteers are the backbone of First Aid Africa, and we started as an entirely volunteer-led organisation. More and more we see students rejecting the notion of tokenistic gap beer style volunteering and instead wanting to know how they could best contribute to Scotland's international development efforts. They represent a significant and a largely untapped source. Additionally, many older people find that they have time to volunteer after retirement. They have often built up a wealth of knowledge over their careers, and their experience should be recognised as a resource it is, but regardless of their age, gender or race, we would welcome efforts from the Scottish Government to highlight the unsung heroes and heroines of our sector. To do that, it is important to support a wider demographic. Civil society represents a significant section of Scotland's international development offering. From churches, mosques, schools and hospitals, much of the strength of the development sector in Scotland exists outside rooms such as this one. If the strength is harness, we will have a united voice to push back against this tabloid rhetoric that says that development money is wasting money. Most importantly, our country will be able to take pride in the fact that we demonstrate our strength not through aggression but through our compassion. Two relatively brief questions. He had touched on it just in that last comment there, the first one. We sometimes get comments that, even in rooms like this, when we are having a discussion about international development in Scotland's links with the rest of the world, it is the usual suspects. He covered it in his opening statement as well, and you are written evidence first at Africa. I thank the committee for inviting you. We are very happy to do that, but we, as a committee, obviously only do this every soften. We have a very broad remit. How do we expand this conversation beyond the usual suspects and the big players? We spent a substantial part of the first bit this morning praising the small grants scheme and the success of it. How do we involve the people getting those small grants more in this level of the conversation, not just the usual suspects? A new initiative that has come possibly out of the cross-party group, and Lewis has been wrote to the minister, to Dr Allen recently, to suggest setting up a series of, I think, quarterly round-table meetings where we could bring more people from the international development sector together. Again, not only the international development organisations, maybe also the universities, businesses and all sorts, but that sounds to me like exactly the kind of forum where not just the larger, but also the smaller or non-traditional or volunteer-led organisations can come to the table and can come and share at ministerial level and with the committees what their work is, and so have a better opportunity to describe who they are in the place that they play, both here in Scotland and in global citizenship. That is not the be all and end all, but it is an extremely good way to start. We at NIDOS have also been trying to work up a proposal whereby we could find a way of funding a piece of work, which was media communications work, but on the front foot to be proactive, rather than reactive in case of yet another piece of strident attack from the right-wing media, whereby we could offer our members, particularly the smaller ones, a way of going out and telling their, perhaps local media, perhaps the weekly free sheet about successes that they have had in raising money or delivering programmes overseas, so that you could have an on-going drip drip drip led through the members, through the smaller civil society organisations engagement with their local media about what they are actually achieving. That still remains on the wish list, but it is something that we at NIDOS would very much like to see become a reality soon. It goes back to the point that public understanding and engagement should be an integral part of international development strategy. I think that there are nods to it, but it needs to be formally articulated better because it goes hand in order to continue and build the support for international development. It needs to be understood better, people need to be more aware of the projects and initiatives that Scotland is involved in. With the SDGs, it offers such an important opportunity to do that. In the new strategy, which I think we all welcome, two of the priorities are to enhance our global citizenship by inspiring communities and young people to realise their role as global citizens and to engage the people of Scotland to build on Scotland's history as an outward-facing country. Those are two priorities, and this is the time to move beyond that and lay out how that is going to be done. In the European Union, there are very strong statements about development, education and awareness that is raising. In many European countries, funding is a designated part of the funding programme. It is crucial that we use this period, the context of the Sustainable Development Goals, to ensure that public engagement and understanding is developed. As I said at the beginning, global citizenship education is a means of ensuring that this is done not as just informing people of information but engaging people with that process, because we are all aware of the changes that have happened over the past few years that are difficult to explain. They need concentrated engagement. The tabloid press will give one line. It requires a process of education to develop understanding of what international development means to us all. I think that one of the quotes that we often use is that the understanding that this is not about charity. The quote is that there are chains of cause and effect that prompt obligations of justice, not pite and charity. This is the opportunity that we have in the scale of Scotland with the players that are in place to really build on that under the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals and through policy coherence for development. Sorry, I have done a bit. If we have time, my second question was going to be on global citizenship education, so Tanya has led very neatly into that. I have had some experiences that have seen that the kind of schools in Scotland that are engaged with us through the Malawi partnership and brilliant work that is going on, which is how I met First Aid Africa for the first time, but it is not everyone. I was wondering if you were able to outline what the barriers are for engaging more schools. Are there schools from particular socioeconomic backgrounds in general that are the ones that find it harder to engage or are there patterns there? What are the barriers to us really expanding this so that every young person in Scotland is not just getting global citizenship education through the curriculum but has the potential for direct experience through project work? In the written evidence, ideas members have worked with around 5,000 to 6,000 teachers over the past few years and about 1,500 schools. It is something that we are building and within education there is the policy context for it. In terms of, it is just really sustaining that and understanding that education is much more than around literacy and numeracy. We have a very strong commitment to global citizenship throughout the policy context in Scotland, but it is just ensuring that that is delivered. In terms of the socioeconomic factors in the schools that are engaged, I do not think that that is a case because one of the key things about global citizenship education is that it really reinforces people engagement so that it can have the most attraction, if you like, where there may be disengaged pupils who do not feel that they are getting what they want at education so that it can really pull in across the board. I think that what I would encourage all members of the committee to do is to go and visit their local development education centre. As I said, there are six of them across Scotland and they cover all local authorities, and it is really the best way of understanding what global citizenship education is. I put in the written evidence table, the Oxfam table of what global citizenship education covers, and you can see that it is a wide range of issues. The best way to understand what it means is to go to the development education centres and they will enable you to see what it means in schools. It is absolutely crucial that that is supported, sustained and not lost as a commitment. I highlighted our connections with Europe and the work that we have done there. It should be recognised that Scotland really has huge expertise that is recognised and respected across Europe in this field and is really something for all that MSPs to engage with. I would like to thank you for that question. That is something that, personally, I feel quite strongly about. It is one of the areas where we believe that some improvement and support within members of the Black minority ethnic representation could be done better. The fact that the committee would invite a 23-year-old Muslim woman from Dumfries to give evidence is humbling. I also know that many other people who look like me or share my faith do not see international development sector as a viable career path. I have been lucky to have role models at First Aid Africa. The chair of the board, when I first volunteered, was the feminist leader, Talat Ykuwb. Equally, I could point to Humza Yousaf to counter a common argument within my community that international development was white people's work. On top of that, the chart is taking simple but effective steps such as giving guidance to our Muslim First Aid instructors on volunteering during the Holy Month of Ramadan. Last year, First Aid Africa volunteers represented half of all Scottish universities and came from across the country, from Stirling to Shetland. Among them were Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, atheists, etc. Yet, across the sector, only 2 per cent of formal volunteers are non-white. There is clearly more the sector can do to remove those structural boundaries that exist in participation from non-white Scots. Money donated to charity by British Muslims during Ramadan was 10 times the Scottish Government's yearly international development budget. Funds sent to the global south by diaspora communities dwarf all government spending on international development. We suggest that it will be important for us to acknowledge this contribution as the international development strategy is implemented. Scotland welcomes a world and it is something that we should be so proud of. There is more that we can do to engage the diaspora and BME groups. The stronger our international development sector will be. I was looking to pick up on a couple of the statements that were made earlier. One of the points that I was going to touch on was raised by Stuart McMill in relation to the media and what you think could be done there. Dr Weisle talked in particular about the strong statements from the EU in terms of the sustainable development goals. Is that something that you think needs to be given, almost a higher priority here and more focus here as well? I was also looking to tease out some of the links that each of you has across the EU as well. We have talked a bit about Brexit and the potential impact. In your initial comments, Jane Weisle talked about how that is put in a squeeze on individuals and their own ability to be able to personally donate, but just if there is wider funding implications for you as part of that as well. Just on a very specific point around funding. In the written evidence way, there is a funding stream called Development, Education and Awareness raising, the DEAR funding. In the previous funding round, ideas and its members secured funding of around £600,000 and the Scottish Government committed co-financing of around £100,000 to that. Ideas and two of its members have just been part of bids that have been accepted for funding, and we are at that stage between signing off on it. There is an issue that we will be looking for co-financing for those projects, but it is smaller than the previous percentage. I suppose that there is that issue, but there is the wider issue that that certainly, as I mentioned, ideas do not have co-funding, but we had been developing our engagement with this fund. Actually, the last time we spoke to the committee in the previous Parliament, there was a strategic engagement whereby a Government if focused on those streams can actually build the money that comes through them. Obviously, that is a serious implication for us if that is lost. Although I know that the committee is working on that anyway, the continuing engagement post Brexit or with the EU is something that is really important across international development. That is our specific point in relation to Europe. As I mentioned before, we have expertise in global citizenship education that is important in Europe, and I have highlighted a global education intergovernmental network that I would really encourage and really hope that the Scottish Government might engage with over this period because whatever happens, the importance is to maintain and strengthen links with other European countries on issues like this, which are necessarily global. On private charitable giving and disposable income, that is more of a fear on what will happen if disposable income shrinks than what is going to happen to the capacity to give money. However, I would just quickly like to draw attention to the fact of engagement back to the question of the media and public engagement with international development. If it was possible to act proactively, to work on building relationships with the media so that international development is understood and warmly supported in Scotland and what Scotland civil society organisations do, then that affects the operating environment in which the smallest charity can go out and fund raise in the car boot sale on a Sunday. You need ordinary people to feel receptive towards international development as part of creating the atmosphere within which private individual donations can be made. There is a link between supporting engagement and creating the atmosphere for private charitable giving. Just very quickly on Europe and Brexit, some of the larger organisations will be directly affected if they can no longer bid for, win and implement European funded programmes. We watch with great interest what is going to happen to say the European Development Fund. The money is 1.2 billion a year that goes from the UK into the European Development Fund. What is going to happen to that money after Brexit? On a more philosophical point, even without the hard financial loss that comes out of Brexit, it is back to global citizenship and how we feel about the people of different nationalities who live amongst us. Therefore, for us in the international development community to live with the threat of EC nationals losing their citizenship in this country, it is a parent to most of us in our sector, so there is that philosophical fear or threat or damage that goes beyond the hard financial threat. Thanks. Just to add on some of the funding issues, we do receive a considerable amount of money from EU through co-funding. I do not know the exact figure, so I am not going to give you the exact figure, but that will be a loss of a funding stream for us. A point about that is that through the EU, we have had funding for working countries that no one else will fund any more, particularly in Latin America, so considerable funds for Colombia and Central America, which no one else is funding now, so that is going to be a big impact for us. The whole thing about when funding rounds are open now, we just fear that they just will not even consider bids and applications that are coming from the UK, because what is the point? So, yes, it is having implications. Your question was the sustainable development goals. If I may, on that now, civic society, academia, business have very key roles, and I am very happy to talk through that if that is useful. If I may, to start with the Government and Parliament's role, I am absolutely delighted that the sustainable development goals were visible, both in the consultation behind this policy and in the policy itself, indeed, on its front cover. I think the headline, the tone, the language is all very encouraging, but there is a need for more detail. There is a need for more detail on the exact structures of how Scotland will deliver on the 17 very far-reaching and incredibly ambitious goals. To date, the main focus has been about mapping across from the national performance framework how will those achieve the STGs. That is entirely understandable in many ways. We do not want to reinvent a completely new delivery infrastructure, but there is a risk that if that is the end, rather than the beginning, it becomes more about packaging and presentation rather than additionality and impact. I very much encourage the Scottish Government to continue its genuinely world-leading commitment to the sustainable development goals with two years into a 15-year commitment. That is not the beginning anymore. There is a real need for clear cross-departmental structures. Ideally, at a cabinet level, the UK Parliament's international development committee made some very, very good recommendations in an inquiry about this time last year. I very much encourage this committee to look at those and we stand behind them. The Parliament also has a key role. Wouldn't it be fantastic if every time an MSP in the chamber stood up to give a speech on a specific subject, they were able to preface it by saying that, in keeping with the Scottish Government's commitment to STG, whatever it is, the Scottish Government does not feel. For the Parliament to think about what structures it needs to be able to deliver and hold the Government accountable to the delivery of the STGs. Indeed, what role does the committee have on the STG? Civic society has a clear role, but so do does Government and Parliament. I will add further impacts on Brexit. Clearly, the university sector has considerable amounts of money from Europe, but there is also an impact in terms of the highest-quality staff not coming to our universities. We have seen people in the last year or so turning down job offers, people who will be leading on EU grants being politely asked by their European counterparts to step down so that they can lead. It is already having impacts on our role in world-leading research. It is not just the anticipation of what might happen, it is already impacting. We have staff members from Europe who have lost their security about the future, so it is offering many challenges. I want to come back briefly on the development education question. Tanya Weisley talked about development education centres and about the role that they can play. I visited the Montgomery Development Education Centre in Aberdeen last week. The answer to the social-economic position was reflected there. The Riverbank primary school was praised for its particular role in that, and that is a relatively disadvantaged part of Aberdeen. What came up, and there were people there from development education centres around Scotland at this meeting, was an issue around how you get the very broad buy-in at primary school level through the filter of curriculum for excellence into the same level of engagement at secondary school. I wonder if you would want to comment on that or if other witnesses would want to comment on that in terms of how the very good basis that is laid in the earlier stage of formal education can be maintained in secondary education. Tanya Weisley says that it has always been much more challenging in the secondary sector, but certain aspects under curriculum for excellence have been really important, particularly in interdisciplinary learning that enables teachers to work across their subject areas to build context for learning. I think that this goes back to the pupil engagement issue that attainment is heavily dependent upon pupil engagement, which is one of the key drivers for this. I think that that is a really important part of it. We have also focused on one of the other European projects that, in the last round of funding, teach global ambassadors was really important in this, and it highlighted the need for in-depth engagement and also systemic engagement. That project worked with a fairly limited group of secondary teachers. It was in conjunction with Lithuania. We worked with the teachers across both countries to really develop their critical engagement with global citizenship education, and we also worked with the local authorities. The teachers were ambassadors to engage with the local authorities. Local authority staff were involved with the training as well, and that is really seen as a strong model for building systemic change so that secondary schools can engage with those issues. The other thing that we have looked at is that the teachers sometimes need the engagement of the young people to justify their engagement with the area, although it is fully embedded in the teaching standards and it is fully embedded through the curriculum and it is under learning for sustainability and entitlement for all Scottish pupils. Although those are all their teachers, as we all know, are under a lot of pressure. We had an event on Friday, and we have a few coming up that worked directly with young people as advocates around the sustainable development goals. That is another strand of engagement, so it is definitely possible in secondary schools that it has always been more challenging. In relation to how to sustain this, which was Ross's point, we have had funding streams through DFID historically, but as you are probably aware, everything in DFID is under review at the moment, so it is not clear what is happening there. As I said, we are losing the potential loss of the EU funding stream, so that will be potentially an issue to come back to the committee with how this work is sustained. We have a number of undergraduate courses, for example Africa in the contemporary world, which is available for first and second year undergraduates and one on international development as well. We really notice that undergraduates from across the university take these courses and are really keen to take it, but it is a comment that comes up from the students themselves that this is often the first opportunity that they have had to engage in these issues, and particularly on the Africa in the contemporary world course, where a lot of students do not have access to the detailed country-level knowledge to get an understanding of the variation across the continent. Great comments from young people from the African country diasporers who were saying that this is the first time that they have had courses that have talked to their experiences of their parents, etc. I think that there is a huge demand from certainly the young people at the university to know more through the secondary school system about development and about Africa in particular. Last night was an excellent event with Scott Deck and ideas that brought together nursery, primary and secondary teachers to look at what support they need to be able to advance their agenda, particularly through the Sustainable Development Goals. I was facilitating a workshop there and came out with quite a number of really good bits of suggestions and evidence from those teachers, rather than going through it now. I wonder if I could offer that as a supplementary written evidence directly from teachers themselves about what for them do they need to be able to take this forward. Thank you. We are coming to almost the end of our time. The issue of Brexit has been raised by nearly everyone on the panel today. Has any evaluation been made of the impact of Brexit on your sector financially? I will work on it. A sister organisation in London and they commissioned some research. I am not sure whether or not the findings have been presented yet, but if they haven't, they will be shortly, so I would be very happy to forward that to the committee if you would be interested to say it. I think that that would be very useful. I would like to thank all our witnesses for coming to give evidence today and we will now go into private session.