Development in a downturn
Last week, after a fringe event on democracy in fragile states, I rushed to the conference centre to catch the second half of a party policy motion being debated on development.
After being debated with various people called to speak, the MP John Barrett made the closing remarks. He said that it was this very type of issue that made him proud to be a Liberal Democrat and that development will be at the heart of their campaigns in the future.
As Nick Clegg wrote in the foreword of ‘Development in a downturn; Dealing with the Global Emergency’, “The Liberal Democrats have always been at the forefront of the debate on international development, but at this time of economic uncertainty it is more important than ever to argue the case for meeting our obligations to those so much less fortunate than us.”
This was something that my colleague Alexander raised in his earlier blog post and it was a recurring theme throughout the events I attended at the Lib Dem party conference actually.
The motion (and all its amendments, including one on microfinancing) was passed with pretty much full support from all the voting members. It was reassuring to hear so many MPs, and Lib Dems more generally, talking so encouragingly about the importance of development.
-Oliver Buston
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