Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent assessment she has made of the food security situation in Ethiopia; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by James Duddridge
The worsening food security situation in Ethiopia is a significant concern. Ethiopia faces the triple threat of drought and floods, the worst desert locust outbreak in generations, and Covid-19. The UN and GoE estimate that 15 million people will be in need of humanitarian food assistance in the coming months and over 4 million children and mothers will face acute malnutrition as the full impacts of the triple-threat crisis materialise. The UK is a committed partner to the Government of Ethiopia and is supporting food and nutrition responses for the most vulnerable people. The UK recently announced £17 million for the East Africa desert locust response, bringing our total contribution up to £25 million.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will allocate additional funding to the World Food Programme to enable it to increase assistance to East African countries; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by James Duddridge
We are deeply concerned about the food security situation in East Africa, where nearly 25 million people are at crisis levels of food insecurity. Existing humanitarian need will be exacerbated by climate change, the desert locust outbreak and the impact of Covid-19.
The UK is working across East Africa to provide life-saving assistance, cash transfers where markets are still functioning, and tools and seeds to build a longer-term ability to respond to shocks. We are working through both our country programming and multilateral responses, which includes through the World Food Programme (WFP). In 2019, DFID has provided almost USD 700million to support WFP's operations. In 2020, our contribution so far is USD 254million (this includes a USD 19million contribution to WFP's global services in response to Covid-19).
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps he is taking to integrate nutrition into his Department's programmes in Rwanda; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Tackling malnutrition is an important part of the Department for International Development’s work in Rwanda. It is delivered through nutrition-specific interventions in programmes on early childhood development and stunting. It is also integrated into broader interventions such as those on agriculture and social protection, for example through nutrition and child sensitive cash transfers and investment in fortified foods. A new research programme will generate evidence on what works to strengthen nutrition service delivery at scale. DFID’s support for nutrition in Rwanda over the last three years has reached 560,000 children under five (180,000 of whom are children under two) and 1.1 million women of reproductive age (of whom 680,000 are pregnant or lactating women).
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent assessment he has made of the humanitarian situation in Yemen.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
Yemen remains the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with nearly 80% of the entire population, over 24 million people, requiring some form of humanitarian assistance. More than 20 million people in Yemen do not have reliable access to food and almost 10 million people face extreme food shortages.
The UK is providing £200 million in response to this humanitarian crisis this financial year, bringing the total UK commitment to Yemen to £770 million since the conflict began in 2015. This support is meeting the immediate food needs of more than 1 million Yemenis each month, treating 70,000 children for malnutrition and providing over 1 million people with improved water supply and basic sanitation.
We are clear that a political settlement is the only way to fully address the humanitarian crisis and we encourage further constructive engagement from all parties to achieve this.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much funding his Department has allocated to charitable organisations based outside the UK to implement his Department’s international development programmes in each of the last five years.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
A full answer to this question could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. DFID is committed to working with charitable organisations based outside of the UK. Funding is available through our country offices, and both streams of the latest funding round of UK Aid Direct were open to applications from the global south.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent assessment he has made of the food security situation in East Africa; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
DFID is concerned by the severe food insecurity in East Africa and has taken early action through its substantial portfolio of humanitarian support and longer-term responses to tackling chronic hunger. According to Save the Children nearly 13 million people across the Horn of Africa, of whom 50% are children, now face critical levels of hunger owing to insufficient levels of rain in 2019 and earlier years. Prevailing dry conditions across the region have led to the deterioration of farmland and pastures, loss of livestock, sharply increased food prices, and reduction of the availability of water.
In Ethiopia, DFID supports the Government of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme that reaches 8 million chronically food insecure people in drought affected regions. The UK remains at the forefront of the humanitarian response in Somalia, delivering emergency aid to over 1 million people and supporting up to 1.5 million people through long-term resilience projects. In Kenya, DFID supports the Government of Kenya’s Hunger Safety Net Programme, which also provides cash transfers to some of the poorest households.
Our work on humanitarian early warning systems raises awareness of crises where food security is deteriorating. We also prioritise longer-term responses to support food security, including through our agricultural programmes and the UK’s global leadership on tackling climate change and its impacts.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that nutrition is incorporated within the UK’s commitment to the Global Partnership for Education; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Government is proud to be the largest bilateral donor to the Global Partnership for Education, which has supported 22.2 million children’s education since 2015. This can include providing nutrition to children, often in the early years of life, depending on the needs within the country. Examples of these grants can be found on the Global Partnership for Education website: https://www.globalpartnership.org/search/site/nutrition. The UK Government is a global leader on nutrition; we have reached 60.3 million people with nutrition services in 25 countries since 2015.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much funding his Department has allocated to UK based charitable organisations to implement his Department’s international development programmes in each of the last five years for which figures are available.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
A full answer to this question could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. UK based charitable organisations are critical policy and programme partners for DFID. Funding opportunities include the Small Charities Challenge Fund, UK Aid Direct and UK Aid Match.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps his Department is taking to ensure its Water, Sanitation and Hygiene programmes integrate nutrition objectives; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
Access to water, sanitation and hygiene is a key part of tackling undernutrition. For example, the act of infant and child feeding needs good personal hygiene – hand washing with soap and water, and good food hygiene. Since 2015, DFID has helped over 51 million poor people in Africa and Asia get access to a drinking water supply or toilet for the first time.
DFID also supports programmes where water supplies are developed for multiple uses, which include nutrition objectives. For example, a DFID-supported project in Madagascar has partnered with the agricultural sector to develop water supplies for domestic use and for irrigating market gardens, to improve nutrition and build resilience to future shocks.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much money was paid by organisations contracted by his Department to deliver aid projects to consultants in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
DFID does not hold information on the contractual monetary value of work our suppliers subcontract across all our programmes, nor can we determine whether this is to consultants or not.