Political

Editor

CLARE SHORT'S office is an oasis of quiet away from the storm of words raging about her. From her desk she can gaze on the giant multi-coloured map of the world that dominates one wall. It serves as a daily reminder that her work, as she reminded us yesterday, ''is the most noble cause in politics''.

The International Development Secretary is locked in a tussle with the aid agencies over the value of emotive appeals that use shock pictures of dying babies to attract the cash that keeps the food flowing.

Her latest salvo came yesterday in a speech to the One World 98 international media conference. She criticised the unrelenting, gloom and doom message the agencies aim at the public. What she wants instead is a balanced account of both the problems that face the developing world, and some of the positive things this Government and others are doing about it.

Peer through the thicket of newsprint her campaign has attracted since she launched it last week, and you will see opinion shifting in her favour. Beneath the froth of ''yet another outrageous statement from that irrepressible Clare'', the point she is trying to make is sinking in.

Interviewing her on Tuesday, I was struck by not just the passion but the enthusiasm she brings to a job which - on the surface at least - is about dealing with the globe's unhappy places. Montserrat is the only blot on an otherwise good first year in which she has emerged as one of the Government's success stories.

Her department is new - it used to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the Foreign Office - and has a budget of #2200m - a tenth of what the Government spends on defence and just 2% of social security expenditure. She rightly points out that it won't be difficult for the Prime Minister to make her and the voters who believe in the development cause happy when he announces the outcome of the Government's comprehensive spending review.

Away from the row over famine images and emotive fund-raising appeals, her department is putting through a radical exercise in public openness which will see her come to Glasgow for a public meeting next week.

She wants to do more to address what she believes is a growing public concern about the world's future. Tony Blair speaks of globalisation, but just what, exactly, does it mean?

This summer will see the launch of a regional tour involving open debates with all those interested in development: churches, trade unions, charities, politicians and ordinary members of the public. A key participant, Ms Short hopes, will be the private sector. Gone are the days when international capital was seen as an evil force out to subjugate the Third World.

The openness she has in mind goes far beyond public meetings. The workings of her department, and the policies it implements, are being opened up not just here, but abroad.

In a matter of days the first of a series of country reports will be published in Kenya. For each country where Britain has a significant aid presence - there are more than 20 - the Government will produce and distribute an assessment of the country's condition, what it needs, and what Britain is doing to help.

Critics of Cool Britannia need not concern themselves. These won't be glossy brochures accompanied by designer videos. The documents will be plain paper, easily photocopied for distribution through libraries, embassies and churches. They will also be posted on the department's Internet Website.

''The document will set out our analysis of where the country is, what needs to happen, the strengths, the weaknesses. Of course it takes progress on education, health, water but that's not all. It also takes progress on economic growth and regulation of the banking sector and how is the financial department raising its taxes,'' Ms Short says.

And there is a direct financial consequence for the countries involved. Those that obey the terms of the British prescription will be rewarded. Those that don't will have their aid cut.

The implications are interesting. I suggested the likes of President Daniel Arap Moi in Kenya might not take kindly to having the British Government distribute criticisms in his backyard. Ms Short will not be deterred: ''That's open government. You can't tell the truth and put it out without possibly annoying somebody, but that's what we are doing,'' she says.

''In developing countries people are entitled to know how everybody thinks their country is doing and what the priorities might be.''

Her task now is to open up the debate on what development aid does, and what it can do. She argues the media is underestimating the public's interest in the issue's complexities.

''I'm not saying people are not compassionate. I know they are. People's compassion also needs some explanation so they can see a way forward. If it's all pain and failure people get very despondent. And then they get compassion fatigue.'' The public's money, I would guess, is on Clare.

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