Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what discussions she has had with (a) the UK financial services sector and (b) multilateral financial institutions on the (i) development and (ii) issue of catastrophe bonds as a tool for mitigating catastrophic risk for developing countries.
Answered by Alistair Burt
DFID has had strong engagement with the UK financial services sector on the disaster risk financing agenda, for example through the Insurance Development Forum (IDF). The Centre for Global Disaster Protection, recently set up by DFID, has run an Innovation Lab in partnership with the UK financial services sector, which explored the use of innovative risk transfer instruments, including catastrophe bonds, to support building back disaster affected infrastructure to be more resilient.
DFID works closely in partnership with the World Bank on the disaster risk financing agenda – and the World Bank has worked with catastrophe bonds in Mexico, and underpinned the new Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility with a bond. Catastrophe bonds serve as one of a suite of financial tools the World Bank offers to support developing countries mitigate catastrophic risk from disasters.
Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what discussions her Department has had with representatives of the African Union, EU and UN on responding to the famine in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Answered by Rory Stewart
I visited Kasai Central, in the DRC, in November 2017 to see for myself the impact of the conflict and resulting food insecurity. I met with representatives from the AU and UN agencies during my visit and discussed the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the DRC, and how the international community should respond. My officials are working closely with the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to ensure strong leadership and urgency in responding to the crisis.
Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether her Department is providing additional funds to protect children from famine in the Kasaï region, Democratic Republic of Congo.
Answered by Rory Stewart
I visited the Kasai Central, in the DRC, in November 2017 to see for myself the impact of the conflict and resulting food insecurity. 294,000 children are at risk of dying from malnutrition. UK bilateral aid is already supporting 25,800 children with lifesaving assistance. We recently announced the new allocation of £175 million for humanitarian support over the next five years (2017-2022) for DRC. This will support a further 220,000 children nationally under the age of 5 with vital nutrition.
Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much funding her Department provided for activities to combat malaria in (a) 2014-15 and (b) 2015-16.
Answered by Alistair Burt
DFID tackles malaria through bilateral programmes in countries, research, multilateral funding to the Global Fund and the World Health Organisation, and through activities such as strengthening health systems in endemic countries.
The Malaria Framework for Results estimated UK spend at £428 million for 2014/15. This was the final year of the Framework and no estimate of comparable spend was produced for 2015/16. All direct bilateral malaria spend and relevant multilateral contributions are available in Statistics on International Development . DFID is currently the second largest global funder of the effort against malaria and expects to remain a leading global donor in the future.
Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department has taken to ensure that the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative provides for products that are affordable for patients.
Answered by Alistair Burt
DFID supports DNDi because its operational model puts the needs of patients at the heart of what it does and builds in equitable and affordable access to the end product from the outset. DNDi includes these approaches in its contractual relationships with industrial partners and by delinking the cost of the final product from the costs of research and development.
Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
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 funding to support the electoral process is effectively disbursed to help stabilise the political climate in the Democratic Republic of Congo; and whether she will take steps to increase funding for civic education and the training of independent electoral observers.
Answered by Rory Stewart
Since 2015, DFID has supported the current electoral process in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This involved support to increasing democratic representation of women and youth, raising people’s awareness through civic/electoral education, protecting human rights defenders and broadening the Catholic Church’s electoral observation activities. Since February 2017, we have increased our support to civic education and the training of additional independent electoral observers. In addition, we announced that funding would be made available to update the national electoral roll, if all parties were prepared to hold free, fair and timely elections. That offer remains on the table.