Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the effect of her Department's expenditure in the Central African Republic on that country's economic prospects.
Answered by Grant Shapps - Secretary of State for Defence
DFID officials have conducted quarterly visits to the Central African Republic throughout 2014 and 2015 to assess the impact of our programmes. Annual Reviews of progress are available on DFID’s Development Tracker at http://devtracker.dfid.gov.uk/projects/GB-1-204426/documents.
DFID is committed to supporting economic recovery initiatives in CAR. The conflict that has affected CAR since 2013 has had a severe impact on agriculture, which represents almost 60% of the country’s economy. The UK has provided £27million since 2013 to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Common Humanitarian Fund and NGOs to provide urgent humanitarian aid as well as agricultural inputs and technical training to CAR farmers, and to facilitate cattle vaccination campaigns to support traditional herders. In 2015, UK funding will support the livelihoods of more than 170,000 people in CAR.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the economic effects of the conflict in Yemen; and what steps she is taking to help people affected by that conflict.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecast that Yemen’s economy will contract by 2.2% in 2015 and that Yemen’s debt has risen to over 50% of GDP. According to the World Food Programme (WFP), average wheat flour prices in July are 34% higher than their pre-crisis levels, whilst diesel prices are up 427% over the same period.
DFID has allocated £55 million to support humanitarian response in Yemen which will provide emergency shelter, healthcare, water and food assistance, as well as supporting UN work to co-ordinate the humanitarian response.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what information her Department holds on how many people have been displaced by the coalition bombing of Saada province in Yemen.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
We do not hold information on how many people have been displaced by coalition bombing of Sa’ada province. As of the 6 July, the UN estimates that there are just over 23,000 people displaced in Sa’ada Governorate and nearly 1.3 million people have been displaced within Yemen overall since the crisis began in March.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she is taking to ensure that donors' funds provided to UN and other non-governmental humanitarian agencies for use in Yemen will be delivered impartially to civilians in that country based on established humanitarian principles without political interference.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
All agencies supported by the UK are humanitarian organisations which have robust systems in place, to ensure that UK aid follows humanitarian principles and reaches those in need.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much her Department has allocated to the UN humanitarian appeal for Yemen; and what information her Department holds on how much aid has been allocated by other countries.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
DFID has allocated £55 million for humanitarian response in Yemen which is providing emergency shelter, healthcare, water and food assistance, as well as supporting UN work to co-ordinate the humanitarian response. Of that, DFID has allocated almost £40 million towards the UN 2015 Humanitarian Appeal.
Full details of all pledges to the UN Appeal can be found on the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) Financial Tracking Service website (https://fts.unocha.org/pageloader.aspx?page=emerg-emergencyDetails&appealID=1087).
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment her Department has made of how many people are at risk of death arising from the current conflict in Yemen; and what steps she is taking to protect such people.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
As a result of the crisis, the UN estimate that 21 million Yemenis (more than 80% of the population) are in need of humanitarian assistance. Of those, over 6 million people are facing severe shortages of food and 1.6 million women and children are suffering from acute malnutrition.
DFID has allocated £55 million to support humanitarian response in Yemen which will provide emergency shelter, healthcare, water and food assistance, as well as supporting UN work to co-ordinate the humanitarian response.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to support women's rights and help victims of sexual and gender-based violence in the Central African Republic.
Answered by Grant Shapps - Secretary of State for Defence
DFID is committed to addressing the needs of vulnerable women and girls in CAR and has supported several agencies to provide comprehensive care as well as protection packages since the onset of the crisis in 2013. The overall UK response has included agencies who are able to provide specialised services to victims of gender-based violence. This includes in 2015 our programmes totalling £13.2million with the International Committee of the Red-Cross (ICRC), the Common Humanitarian Fund and three NGO consortia which provide: psycho-social care to survivors; activities to reduce the risk of gender-based violence; and access to healthcare.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the efficacy of the research and development pipeline for diagnostics, drugs and vaccines for poverty-related and other neglected diseases.
Answered by Grant Shapps - Secretary of State for Defence
Historically there has been a lack of investment in the development of diagnostics, drugs and vaccines for poverty-related and other neglected diseases. In the last 15 years increasing investments in research have resulted in over 200 products at various stages of development. A large part of this increase has been due to the establishment of a number of public-private product development partnerships (PDPs) developing a range of technologies for a number of different diseases.
PDPs aim is to accelerate the development of new products and to date they have developed over twenty new products. It has been estimated that there is around a 10% return on investment per annum from medical research. There is insufficient funding available to support the development of all the promising products currently in PDP portfolios and DFID works in partnership with others to encourage greater investment.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what information her Department holds on how many houses have been built in Gaza to replace those destroyed during Operation Protective Edge; and what proportion that number is of the number destroyed.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
According to the UN, over 60,000 houses were partially or completely destroyed during the Gaza crisis last summer. Over 88,000 beneficiaries have now been able to buy some or all materials for reconstruction through the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism to carry out house repairs. The UK provided £0.5m to support the Materials Monitoring Unit (MMU) which oversees and monitors the import, storage, supply and use of construction materials into Gaza.
Asked by: Andrew Smith (Labour - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what arrangements are in place to prevent companies involved in violations of international humanitarian law in the occupied Palestinian territories from benefitting from contracts funded by her Department for humanitarian relief in Gaza.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
The UK does not directly fund contracts for humanitarian relief. The UK was one of the biggest donors to the crisis last summer, providing more than £17 million in immediate humanitarian assistance for those caught up in the conflict and pledging a further £20 million in early recovery assistance, of which we have disbursed over 80%. This funding includes £0.5 million to the Materials Monitoring Unit (MMU) which oversees and monitors the import, storage, supply and use of construction materials into Gaza under the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM).