Covid-19: International Response

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

In many countries with weak governance or ongoing conflicts, covid-19 is raising social tensions and posing a challenge to peace processes and respect for human rights, so we are working alongside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Promotion of human rights is a core part of DFID’s strategy, and that never changes. DFID is taking steps to ensure that both our immediate response to covid and our long-term recovery efforts do not exacerbate conflict, but instead help to build peace and improve governance.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

The closing of borders in many African countries not only means that it is very difficult to get humanitarian aid to refugee camps, where people are living in conditions of overcrowding and poor sanitation; it also means that tens of thousands of migrants are trapped at the borders, sometimes having been abandoned there by people smugglers, or stuck in transit camps. What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that people in those conditions are being helped and are avoiding the risk of coronavirus?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The challenge of supporting those refugee camps and getting the relevant supplies in to them has been one that has challenged many as those borders closed in the immediate start of the crisis. We are supporting this through a number of international organisations, notably the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN agencies that still have the best access and safety routes in, to ensure that we do as much as we can to support those communities.