Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will take steps to ensure that HIV prevention is fully integrated into her Department's work on sexual and reproductive health and rights; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The UK continues to work with partners to ensure that HIV prevention services are fully integrated and embedded within our work on sexual reproductive health and rights, family planning, maternal and new born health and broader health and development priorities.
For example, DFID’s integrated Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights programme in Zimbabwe is designed to help reduce maternal mortality, HIV incidence and violence against women through the delivery of better integrated services. Through our focus on women and girl’s empowerment we are also supporting the generation of new evidence to improve outcomes for women and girls, including supporting the development of female initiated HIV prevention technologies, while strengthening health systems and tackling the broader drivers of the epidemic such as stigma, discrimination and gender inequality.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department has taken or plans to take to build the capacity of communities to (a) engage with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and (b) hold their governments to account for engagement on that issue.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The UK is the third largest donor of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, pledging up to £1 billion between 2014 and 2016, subject to a 10% donor share cap. This is improving the lives of millions of people, saving approximately 580,000 lives by preventing 8.4m new malaria, HIV and TB infections.
The Global Fund encourages active participation of communities at all levels, from grant design, implementation and oversight at country level through country coordination mechanisms, to the Global Fund Board.
DFID is a founding supporter and pledged up to £9m to the Robert Carr Civil Society Networks Fund. We are also amongst the top five funders of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) which was created in 1996 to respond to the growing HIV/AIDS crisis. Both of these are critical in building the capacity of networks of inadequately served communities to engage with the Global Fund and hold governments to account.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she is taking to implement all of Sustainable Development Goal 5 to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls; and what steps she is taking to meet target 5.2 to eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
The UK worked hard to secure a comprehensive standalone goal on gender equality and women and girls’ empowerment in the Global Goals, and to integrate gender equality throughout the remaining goals. The new Global Goals will help us to influence others, achieve even more, and are critical to achieving transformational change to the lives of girls and women across the globe. The UK has put women and girls at the heart of our international development and humanitarian work. The UK is committed to helping 6.5 million more girls to go to school over the next 5 years. This programme of work will include tackling the difficult issues that keep girls out of school like FGM and child marriage.
The UK led efforts across the globe to ensure that a target to end violence against women and girls (VAWG) formed part of the Global Goals. We are now focused on seeing this target implemented. This includes stepping up DFID action to build the evidence base for what works to prevent violence, which will help to convince others that effective action is possible. It also means DFID working with international partners to ensure financial and technical resources are mobilised to tackle VAWG, and working with national and local partners in developing countries to transform social norms to tackle the discriminatory attitudes and behaviours that are the root causes of VAWG.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
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 (a) 1.5, (b) 2, (c) 4 and (d) 6 degrees of global warming on (i) countries belonging to the Climate Vulnerable Forum and the Alliance of Small Island States and (ii) the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has produced detailed assessments of the effect of global warming. Its study on Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability contained in the 2014 Fifth Assessment Report (available here: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/) makes clear how the impacts of climate change are expected to slow down economic growth, erode food security and make poverty reduction more difficult. The report notes that higher levels of warming increase the chance of severe and pervasive impacts.
The poorest and most vulnerable will be hit first and hardest by climate change and the World Bank has estimated that without action to address climate change it could result in an additional 100 million people living in extreme poverty by 2030. The UK Government is committed to tackling poverty and climate change through its International Climate Fund, which the Prime Minister has announced will increase by 50% over the next five years.