Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government has taken since signing the Amsterdam Declaration in 2015 to eliminate deforestation from agricultural commodity chains.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
The Government’s 25-Year Environment Action Plan outlines our ambition to reduce deforestation caused by the UK’s imports of agricultural commodities and has established an industry-led Task Force to advise Government on how to achieve that goal.
Internationally, the UK has been an active member the Amsterdam Declarations Partnership, providing funding to support analysis and coordination. Through our bilateral programme, we have developed the Investments in Forests and Sustainable Land Use programme, which runs from 2015-2023, with current committed funding of £113 million from DFID and BEIS. It was designed to accelerate progress on delivery of the Amsterdam Declaration commitments, and operates in Southeast Asia, East Africa, West and Central Africa (with DFID support), and in Latin America (with BEIS assistance). The programme is pioneering new approaches which both promote economic growth and livelihoods and protect forests. It currently has a portfolio of public-private partnerships that aim to bring up to 1.4 million hectares of land under sustainable management and mobilise up to £350m of private investment.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent discussions she has had with her counterparts in (a) India and (c) Africa on UK waste exports to those countries; and what assessment her Department has made of the health and environmental effects of the methods used to dispose of or process such waste.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
I have had no recent discussions with counterparts in India or Africa on UK waste exports to those countries and my Department has made no assessment of the health and environmental effects of the methods used to dispose of or process such waste.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is responsible for international engagement on waste exports.
The Department for International Development is supporting better management of waste produced domestically within India and some African countries. This is through our £13 million programme on Tackling Waste and Plastic Pollution, through the UK’s £250 million of support to the current replenishment of the Global Environment Facility, and through support to other multilaterals assisting countries with waste management, such as the World Bank’s National Ganga River Basin Project in India.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she has taken to ensure the sharing of expertise on nutrition with Governments in her Department’s priority countries.
Answered by Alistair Burt
DFID has been enabling governments that are part of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement to access technical expertise in nutrition since 2012 through the Maximising Quality for Scaling Up Nutrition and the Technical Assistance for Nutrition programmes. As part of this, tools and guidance have been developed for use by government as they design, implement and monitor multi-sector nutrition policies.
Both programmes have also supported learning and exchange between governments that are facing similar challenges. More recently, DFID’s support has enabled sharing of good practice on addressing malnutrition in fragile and conflict-affected countries such as Yemen, Somalia and South Sudan, strengthening national data systems and improving budget analysis.