Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that religious identity as an indicator of vulnerability in certain communities is taken into account when allocating UK aid.
Answered by Nigel Adams
DFID is committed to working with all its partners, including faith-based organisations, to ensure that the most vulnerable people and groups are prioritised for humanitarian assistance, in line with international humanitarian principles. This includes religious and ethnic groups who are at risk of discrimination and persecution.
We work closely with our partners to ensure they are rigorously assessing vulnerability and needs (including those linked with religious identity) ahead of allocating assistance as well as conducting robust monitoring to ensure that aid is reaching those most in need.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that Christians and other religious minorities do not face discrimination at the frontlines of aid distribution as a result of their faith.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The UK Government works to ensure that recipients of UK Aid, including Christian and other minority religious communities, are not discriminated against because of their faith. The UK is committed to delivering its humanitarian aid according to internationally recognised humanitarian principles. These principles ensure that humanitarian assistance is delivered to those who are most vulnerable and most in need of this assistance irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity. This includes minority religious communities, who are assessed by our partners when determining those most in need of protection and assistance.
Vulnerable religious minority groups will experience COVID-19 outbreaks differently. COVID-19 is likely to reinforce their marginalised position in society, their experience of discrimination, violence and stigma, and further limit their access to essential support and services. For this reason, guidance was circulated across DFID highlighting that inclusion must be central to our response and the specific contexts and needs of vulnerable religious communities and other vulnerable groups should be taken into account when developing practical programmes to tackle COVID-19.
On 8 June, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister of State responsible for Human Rights, hosted a roundtable to hear from faith leaders and faith-based development organisations to discuss how minority faith communities were facing specific challenges during this COVID-19 pandemic.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps he is taking to help tackle the humanitarian crisis in Idlib, Northern Syria.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
We are gravely concerned about escalating Syrian Regime and Russian military action and its humanitarian impact in Idlib. As of 6 February, the UN reports that 586,000 people have been displaced since 1 December 2019, and many more are at risk of imminent further displacement.
This financial year DFID has already allocated £103 million to organisations delivering aid cross border from Turkey primarily into North West Syria, including Idlib. This has helped to provide hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people with food, clean water, shelter, and healthcare including psychosocial support.
Given the rapidly deteriorating conditions in North West Syria, we have put options in place to increase our funding further to address the pressing needs of those displaced by the conflict. We have provided funding to response partners including the UN to preposition essential supplies to support innocent families and civilians displaced by conflict and we are supporting all our partners to respond to this humanitarian crisis.
I visited Turkey on 5-6 February and discussed the crisis in North West Syria with UN agencies and humanitarian NGOs, as well as with Turkish authorities. DFID partners on the ground are working tirelessly to provide aid to those affected by the military offensive.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps his Department is taking to help strengthen the tax systems of developing countries in order to increase funding for services to support the poorest people.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK is committed to supporting countries to achieve the Global Goals, including working actively with countries to help raise and manage public revenues, and thereby to invest in their public services and infrastructure.
In February 2019 we announced a new £47 million package of support to assist developing countries in strengthening their tax systems. This package will provide technical assistance and capacity building support through a number of partners. It will also help contribute to economic growth by helping to tackle tax avoidance and evasion, and by creating a more level playing field for businesses. In addition to this new package of support, the UK has a number of other initiatives underway to help strengthen tax systems; in August 2018 DFID Ethiopia launched a £35 million programme to support the Ethiopian government in transforming the country’s tax system, and HMRC’s Capacity Building Unit provides peer-to-peer expertise to raise the standards of tax systems of developing countries.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that its policies and funding support equal pay for female and male farmers.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
DFID’s 2017 Economic Development Strategy commits to tackling gender discrimination and to delivering safer, more secure and higher-return work for women, building on the 2015 UK commitment made through our G7 membership to include gender objectives in at least 50% of agriculture and food security programmes. A 2018 review of DFID’s commercial agriculture programmes found that 31 of DFID’s 65 commercial agriculture programmes aimed to increase the returns received by women working in agriculture.
The Department also assists the development of standards that help smallholder farmers reach a decent standard of living: for example, by providing £3.7 million in assistance to the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance (ISEAL Alliance) which supports systems such as Fairtrade. DFID is also a founding member of the Living Income Community of Practice.
DFID’s 2019 review of commercial agriculture programmes finds that since 2007, 22 million smallholders have benefitted from DFIDs current commercial agriculture programming (3.4 million of them women) with 4.7 million of these (1.1 million women) having benefited financially.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps his Department is taking to strengthen global civil society throughout the world.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
In financial year 2016-17, DFID spent £1.3 billion funding the work of civil society. DFID provides assistance to strengthen civil society in the UK and overseas through capacity building support and funding opportunities. This assistance is delivered through our centrally-managed programmes and our country programmes.
Since 2016 we have provided funding through our centrally-managed programmes to more than 200 civil society organisations (CSOs) of diverse sizes and policy areas, delivering projects across at least 35 countries. DFID is acting to increase support to CSOs based in developing countries, including through broadening out some of our centrally-managed programmes to accept bids from Southern-based CSOs.
Through UK Aid Connect we are funding programmes specifically targeted at enhancing civil society effectiveness in the UK and overseas.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps his Department is taking to increase coordination of its work with charities operating in rural Africa.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
DFID continually evaluates the effectiveness and impact of the important development work delivered by the charities it funds in Africa. Lessons learnt are shared widely and integrated to improve programme delivery.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the is Government taking to support Commonwealth governments to establish universal health coverage systems to ensure that children do not die from preventable diseases.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
The UK is a strong advocate for the achievement of universal health coverage to ensure child survival, through strengthening health systems. DFID provides technical assistance and financial support directly to countries, including Commonwealth governments. The UK invests around £1 billion per year through bilateral aid programmes in reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health, and our support to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has contributed to the safe vaccination of over 700 million children.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what funding her Department has allocated to the promotion of universal health coverage in developing countries.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 11 April 2019 to Question 241478.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will make an assessment of trends in the level of food production in Zimbabwe.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
According to Government of Zimbabwe figures, the Zimbabwean average national cereal production for 2013-17 was 1,356,000 tonnes. In 2017 2,535,000 tonnes were produced, in an unusually good agricultural season. In 2018, this dropped to 1,937,000 tonnes. The current season has been negatively affected by economic crisis and poor rainfall. A significant shortfall in cereal requirements is forecast.