Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of recent reports by NGO Monitor that UK aid dispensed by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs to support coronavirus relief efforts in the West Bank and Gaza has been sent to organisations with links to terrorism.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
The UK maintains robust measures to ensure that UK aid is not diverted. DFID’s funding agreements also commit partners to understand and comply with UK and international counter terrorism legislation.
No UK funds have been provided to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs for COVID-19 relief efforts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs). The UK has provided £840,000 to WHO and UNICEF to help respond to COVID-19 in the OPTs. This funding did not go to any other partners and was used to purchase and co-ordinate the delivery of medical equipment, treat critical care patients, train frontline public health personnel and scale up laboratory testing capacity.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what discussions she has had with her international counterparts on reports by NGO Monitor that funds from the Covid-19 emergency response plan for the West Bank and Gaza have been allocated to NGOs with ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
The UK maintains robust measures to ensure that UK aid is not diverted. DFID’s funding agreements also commit partners to understand and comply with UK and international counter terrorism legislation.
No UK funds have been provided to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs for COVID-19 relief efforts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs). The UK has provided £840,000 to WHO and UNICEF to help respond to COVID-19 in the OPTs. This funding did not go to any other partners and was used to purchase and co-ordinate the delivery of medical equipment, treat critical care patients, train frontline public health personnel and scale up laboratory testing capacity.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the implications for value for money of reports by NGO Monitor that UK aid distributed by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs to support covid-19 relief efforts in the West Bank and Gaza has been allocated to organisations involved in political activism for the purpose of funding politically motivated letters and press releases.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
The UK maintains robust measures to ensure that UK aid is not diverted. DFID’s funding agreements also commit partners to understand and comply with UK and international counter terrorism legislation.
No UK funds have been provided to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs for COVID-19 relief efforts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs). The UK has provided £840,000 to WHO and UNICEF to help respond to COVID-19 in the OPTs. This funding did not go to any other partners and was used to purchase and co-ordinate the delivery of medical equipment, treat critical care patients, train frontline public health personnel and scale up laboratory testing capacity.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the implications for the efficacy of UK aid of reports by NGO Monitor that the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs has distributed funds for Covid-19 relief efforts to organisations that employ members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
The UK maintains robust measures to ensure that UK aid is not diverted. DFID’s funding agreements also commit partners to understand and comply with UK and international counter terrorism legislation.
No UK funds have been provided to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs for COVID-19 relief efforts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs). The UK has provided £840,000 to WHO and UNICEF to help respond to COVID-19 in the OPTs. This funding did not go to any other partners and was used to purchase and co-ordinate the delivery of medical equipment, treat critical care patients, train frontline public health personnel and scale up laboratory testing capacity.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to support developing countries to make their agricultural practices more environmentally friendly.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
At the UN Climate Action Summit, the UK announced support to the ‘Just Rural Transition’ initiative under which governments, businesses and civic organisations are uniting to drive a shift to sustainable land-use. This initiative includes a policy coalition that will help developing countries put policies in place for more environmentally friendly and sustainable agriculture, and an investment partnership to leverage private sector investment for sustainable land use and improved livelihoods for poor farmers.
DFID is supporting smallholder farmers in nearly 50 countries to improve sustainable agriculture. At the Summit, we announced an additional £61 million for climate adapted agriculture and innovation to help small-scale farmers increase productivity without degrading the environment.
DFID support to tackle deforestation in developing countries has brought 2.6 million hectares of land under sustainable management and mobilised £260 million of private investment in sustainable production of commodities like palm oil, cocoa and soya.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to support countries around the world to tackle deforestation and illegal logging.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
DFID leads work internationally and across Government to drive efforts to tackle deforestation and combat illegal logging. It does so directly through bilateral programmes aimed at supporting countries and businesses to lock out illegal activities, promote sector reforms, and foster public-private partnerships which catalyse investment into sustainable land use, including environmental and forest protection. DFID also works through multilateral instruments that have broader geographic coverage, particularly through the World Bank’s Forest Investment Programme and the Global Environment Fund.
DFID, together with the international teams in BEIS and Defra, are actively engaged in international policy processes to galvanise the action of other governments and business to stop illegal logging, deforestation and promote sustainable land use. Most recently, the UK led efforts at the UN Climate Action Summit, to agree actions to build natural resilience to climate change.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 1 April 2019 to Question 236490, what comparative assessment she has made of whether the Palestinian Authority prisoner payment system is equivalent to conventional welfare payments.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
The UK Government deplores any act of violence or incitement to violence. The UK government does not consider the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) prisoner payments system to be equivalent to conventional welfare payments. The UK government acknowledges that people in need are entitled to access support that is based on objective social need. For this reason we continue to press the PA to make the prisoner payments system more needs based, transparent and affordable. UK Ministers have raised this personally with the Palestinian Foreign Minister, and officials raised this with the PA at senior levels most recently on 28 March 2019. No UK aid is used for payments to Palestinian prisoners or their families.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the implications for the Middle East Peace Process of Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat's reported assertion that Palestinians who have murdered Israelis are paid higher salaries.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
No UK aid is used for payments to Palestinian prisoners or their families. The UK government continues to press the Palestinian Authority (PA) to reform the prisoner payments system to become more needs-based, transparent and affordable. DFID officials most recently raised this at a 21 March 2019 meeting with PA Minister for Finance and Planning Shukri Bishari. The UK Government deplores any act of violence or incitement to violence, and our partnership with the PA includes a commitment from the Palestinian leadership to adhere to the principle of non-violence and to tackle language and avoid actions that could incite violence or hatred. We continue to urge the PA to uphold this principle. UK aid to support a stable PA which can act as an effective partner for peace with Israel is essential to UK efforts to prepare the ground for a two-state solution.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department plans to take to ensure best ethical practice by the NGOs it supports.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
It is imperative that DFID’s partners show the moral leadership, systems and culture that are needed to protect vulnerable people. At the Safeguarding Summit, the Secretary of State announced new, enhanced and specific safeguarding Due Diligence standards for all organisations that DFID works with. This will include a review of the ethical practice of the NGOs that DFID partner, by assessing codes of conduct, how organisations identify and respond to incidents, and how risk management places safeguarding and beneficiaries at its core. These are being piloted from this week and will be rolled out shortly. New funds to organisations will not be approved unless they pass the new standards and they will be integrated into ongoing programme management.
Four working groups, that include civil society and independent experts, have also been established and are meeting this week to refine and test ideas further. They will take forward a number of areas, including how the aid sector can shift its organisational culture to tackle power imbalances and gender inequality. The groups will report back with concrete actions in time for the international Safeguarding Conference that the UK will host this autumn.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to strengthen its oversight of the NGOs it supports.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
In response to the letter from the Secretary of State, all UK charities that directly receive UK aid have provided her with a clear statement of assurance on their organisations’ safeguarding environment and policies, organisational culture, transparency and their handling of allegations and incidents. These assurances are a first step towards improving DFID’s oversight of its partners and raising safeguarding standard across the international development sector.
This oversight will be further strengthened through DFID’s new, enhanced and specific safeguarding standards, announced by the Secretary of State at the Safeguarding Summit. These new measures will build on the rigorous monitoring procedures which are currently applied throughout the lifetime of all DFID programmes. They will be integrated into DFID’s Due Diligence Assessments, Supply Partner Code of Conduct and ongoing programme management and compliance checking processes.