Asked by: Lord McCabe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 31 January 2017 to Question 61410, on developing countries: children, how her Department measures the effectiveness of humanitarian assistance which is not included in her Department's annual targets.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
DFID programmes are assessed by annual reviews during the course of the intervention and again by project completion reports when they conclude to test their effectiveness.
In 2016 the UK’s Multilateral Development Review systematically assessed the performance and effectiveness of 38 multilateral institutions, including humanitarian partners who respond to crises involving vulnerable people including children.
Agencies were scored against results, value for money, risk and assurance, transparency, accountability, alongside their relevance in meeting today’s most urgent challenges. This is a more rigorous measurement of humanitarian impact than analysis based on annual targets. In response, 30% of our core funding to UN humanitarian organisations will be dependent on improved results and effectiveness.
Asked by: Lord McCabe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what information her Department collects on the children supported by UK aid funding.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
DFID measures progress against its targets annually, including those related to children. For example, in 2015 DFID immunised approximately 20 million children, saving 250,000 lives, and in 2015/16 helped over 3.1 million children gain a decent education.
Asked by: Lord McCabe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 20 October 2016 to Question 48999, what estimate she has made of the number of civilians injured during the coalition forces' attack on Mosul; and how many children have been protected by the humanitarian assistance provided by the £40 million of extra funding announced on 21 September 2016.
Answered by Rory Stewart
Operations started in Mosul and surrounding areas on 16 October 2016. UN casualty figures for Ninewah (the governorate in which Mosul is located) estimate that 332 civilians were killed in November and 566 civilians in October. The UN, the UK and our partners are clear that the situation in Mosul is a result of Daesh’s utter disregard for civilians. The Iraqi Security Forces and the Coalition are making every effort during operations to protect civilians. The UN cannot verify these figures and state that they are likely to be at the lower end of the scale. The numbers are not disaggregated by the cause of civilian deaths.
As of 9 December, more than 85,000 people have been displaced from Mosul, half of them children. The UK is supporting the UN and partners to assist these people and around 45,000 people still inside Mosul in areas re-taken from Daesh, including children. This includes vital humanitarian assistance, including food, water, shelter, medical and protection services.
Asked by: Lord McCabe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, (a) how many and (b) what proportion of the staff employed by her Department are non-UK nationals.
Answered by Rory Stewart
All Government Departments are bound by legal requirements concerning the right to work in the UK and, in addition, the Civil Service Nationality Rules.
Evidence of nationality is checked at the point of recruitment into the Civil Service as part of wider pre-employment checks, but there is no requirement on departments to retain this information beyond the point at which it has served its purpose.
More broadly, the Government will be consulting in due course on how we work with business to ensure that workers in this country have the skills that they need to get a job. But there are no proposals to publish lists of the number or proportion of foreign workers.
Asked by: Lord McCabe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 13 September 2016 to Question 45678, on Ethiopia: security, what non-overseas development assistance elements were included in the executive masters programme in security sector management, which closed in June 2015.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
UK non-Overseas Development Assistance support for the Executive Masters Programme in Security Sector Management – totalling £140,000 - covered the costs of the non-civilian students that attended the course.
Asked by: Lord McCabe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what plans she has to increase investment in decentralised renewable energy in developing countries.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
The UK Government is playing a leading role in improving energy access in developing countries. DFID has a range of programmes which are working with developing countries to ensure renewable energy markets work effectively as well as supporting energy businesses to grow, and providing consumers with access to funding to buy solar goods. For example, our Energy Access Ventures programme is investing in off-grid electric and we are delivering green mini-grid solutions across Africa.
Through the UK Government’s Energy Africa campaign we are working with solar firms to help them access the finance they need to expand their businesses, create jobs and help reach millions of people in Africa without electricity access.
Asked by: Lord McCabe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether funding for her Department's executive masters programme in security sector management in Ethiopia is classified as Overseas Development Assistance under the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act (2015).
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
UK support for the Executive Masters Programme in Security Sector Management Ethiopia (MSc) included both Overseas Development Assistance and non-Overseas Development Assistance elements.
DFID suspended support to the programme in June 2014 and the programme was closed in June 2015.
Asked by: Lord McCabe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 15 June 2016 to Question 39874, whether the donations listed were specifically for children affected by the conflict in Yemen
Answered by Rory Stewart
Our humanitarian aid is provided on the basis of humanitarian need. The funding commitments listed in the Answer of 15 June 2016 to Question 39874 support men, women and children affected by the conflict; it is not possible to say exactly how much has been used specifically to support children. Since the UN reports that the conflict in Yemen has spread to 20 out of 22 governorates, it is likely that most children in Yemen have been directly or indirectly affected by the conflict.
Asked by: Lord McCabe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she is taking to ensure that UK aid for the conflict in Yemen benefits its intended recipients; and what proportion of the £85 million of aid for Yemen committed in the last year has been used to support children.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
The UK is the 4th largest donor to the crisis in Yemen and has more than doubled its humanitarian support over the last year to £85 million for 2015/16. We work with trusted and impartial partners such as UN agencies and NGOs who have good access and a strong track record of delivering and monitoring assistance in difficult and dangerous places. We regularly monitor and review our programmes and have an independent monitoring programme to provide independent assurance on what we are delivering.
In 2015/16 DFID provided the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) with £6 million, United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) with over £21 million and Save the Children with over £3 million. Amongst other activities, our funding helped treat over 150,000 children under 5 with severe acute malnutrition and screen 140,000 children for childhood infections. It also helped support and refer displaced children and enabled 3,500 refugee children and Yemeni children from their host communities to resume education. DFID has also supported education in Yemen through the Social Fund for Development (SFD). Since 2010, more than 240,000 children have attended schools supported by SFD.