Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, how many girls have been supported by UK Official Development Assistance funding to (a) enter and (b) continue education.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
Girls' education is a UK international development priority. We champion the right of every girl to access 12 years of quality education. Since 2015, UK Official Development Assistance has supported over 10 million girls to gain a decent education. The FCDO supports girls to access education through a number of mechanisms. Our Girls' Education Challenge programme has enabled over 1.6 million of the most marginalised girls to access education. We have 18 bilateral education programmes globally, and we are one of the leading donors to the global funds for Education - the Global Partnership for Education and Education Cannot Wait (ECW). Between 2017 and 2021, ECW supported over 6.9 million children (48 percent girls) to access education.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, what recent assessment he has made of the impact of UK Official Development Assistance spending on the resilience of primary and secondary school education in crisis-affected countries.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The FCDO supports resilient education systems through our investments through multilateral partners; bilateral programmes; and education policy influencing. This includes FCDO's position paper, 'Addressing the Climate, Environment, and Biodiversity Crises in and through Girls' Education' (2022), which provides a framework of priority actions to build resilient and climate smart school systems in the face of increasing extreme weather events. The UK recently pledged £80 million to Education Cannot Wait which supports education in crisis-affected countries, including those affected by natural and weather-related disasters. FCDO is also the second largest donor to the Global Partnership for Education, which spends over 60 percent of its funds in fragile and conflict-affected states.