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.
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 is taking to ensure nutritional support is considered by all teams and divisions within her Department.
Answered by Alistair Burt
'Saving lives, investing in future generations and building prosperity – the UK’s Global Nutrition Position Paper’, which was published in October 2017, committed DFID to strengthen the breadth and quality of its nutrition-sensitive, multi-sector investments.
Since the Paper was published, DFID has for example developed a strategic approach to integrating nutrition into relevant areas of its economic development work. This includes supporting private sector investment within different parts of the food system in order to make safe nutritious foods more affordable and accessible to poor people, in particular women, adolescent girls and children under five.
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 at the United Nations on the inclusion of provisions on protection for internally displaced people in UN compacts on refugees and migration.
Answered by Alistair Burt
Given the UN Compacts are focused specifically on refugees and migration, there may be limited scope to ensure the specific needs of internally displaced people are addressed within these particular frameworks. However, there should be common lessons to apply in terms of the importance of a longer term development response to displacement and we are considering other opportunities to raise the profile of the issue and galvanise international efforts in 2018. For example, the UK is supportive of the idea of a UN High Level Panel on internally displaced people to assess the effectiveness of the current response to internal displacement and galvanise further political and operational action. We are discussing this closely with other interested States and UN agencies.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if the Government will commit to increasing the proportion of overseas development aid spent on waste management to at least 3 per cent in line with the recommendations of Global Waste Management Outlook.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
The UK is already providing international development support to multilateral funds that are tackling the problem of plastic pollution and waste management, including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Global Environment Facility.
DFID also carries out broader work on waste management and urban planning in developing countries – this work helps support a reduction in the amount of plastics entering the marine environment.
In line with the 25 Year Environment Plan, the Government is considering what more can be done to tackle waste effectively, including plastics waste. The issue will also be on the agenda for this year’s Commonwealth Summit being held here in the UK. There are no plans to set a spending target on waste management, but the International Development Secretary is engaging other Government Departments, to seek out new and innovative ways for DFID to work with them to solve critical global challenges, including plastic pollution and environmental protection.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment her Department has made of the potential effect of increasing the proportion of overseas development aid spent on waste management to at least three percent on (a) public health, (b) environmental pollution, (c) reducing the amount of plastic entering the marine environment and (d) meeting her Department’s Leave No One Behind agenda.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
The UK is already providing international development support to multilateral funds that are tackling the problem of plastic pollution and waste management, including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Global Environment Facility.
DFID also carries out broader work on waste management and urban planning in developing countries – this work helps support a reduction in the amount of plastics entering the marine environment.
In line with the 25 Year Environment Plan, the Government is considering what more can be done to tackle waste effectively, including plastics waste. The issue will also be on the agenda for this year’s Commonwealth Summit being held here in the UK. There are no plans to set a spending target on waste management, but the International Development Secretary is engaging other Government Departments, to seek out new and innovative ways for DFID to work with them to solve critical global challenges, including plastic pollution and environmental protection.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 8 January 2018 to Question 120567, what steps she plans to take to increase, and extend the impact of, the support her Department is providing for improving waste collection services and ending open dumping and burning in developing countries.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
The UK is already providing international development support to multilateral funds that are tackling the problem of plastic pollution and waste management, including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Global Environment Facility.
DFID also carries out broader work on waste management and urban planning in developing countries – this work helps support a reduction in the amount of plastics entering the marine environment.
In line with the 25 Year Environment Plan, the Government is considering what more can be done to tackle waste effectively, including plastics waste. The issue will also be on the agenda for this year’s Commonwealth Summit being held here in the UK. There are no plans to set a spending target on waste management, but the International Development Secretary is engaging other Government Departments, to seek out new and innovative ways for DFID to work with them to solve critical global challenges, including plastic pollution and environmental protection.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what support her Department provides to developing countries to assist them in (a) producing waste management strategies, (b) tackling pollution and (c) reducing health risks associated with (i) toxic waste and (ii) other pollutants.
Answered by Rory Stewart
UK support to these issues is primarily through the Global Environment Facility, to which the UK is contributing £210 million for the period 2014-2018. The GEF has allocated $554 million of support to developing countries for waste management, to tackle pollution and to reduce toxic waste in this period.
DFID is also providing some other limited assistance, including £7.6 million to the World Bank Pollution Management and Environmental Health programme, which assesses the health risks of pollution in developing countries and provides assistance to manage that pollution, and £8 million to the Global Alliance on Clean Cooking to reduce indoor air pollution.
DFID is currently working with other parts of government to consider how to extend the impact of our work in this area.
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 her Department is taking to ensure that all UK-supported schools have access to water and sanitation.
Answered by Alistair Burt
Our education programmes encourage the adoption of integrated school improvement plans, which include clean water and sanitation as essential elements to prevent disease, promote hygienic practice and enable access to education.
Girls may be particularly disadvantaged when adequate WASH facilities are not available; in addition in some circumstances the availability of water can boost incentives for regular school attendance. The Girls' Education Challenge include activities to improve access to water and sanitation, such as building toilets, providing sanitary towels and working with the local government to reinforce sanitary guidelines. Each project identifies the key barriers to girls attending school and learning - in the very challenging contexts in which projects operate this often includes access to clean water. Projects generally work with communities to ensure WASH facilities are in place and well-maintained, robust monitoring system ensure that plans are implemented and represent good value for money.
In Sierra Leone, we have supported 839 primary schools to receive the water and toilet facilities they need during the post-Ebola recover phase. We intend to provide an additional 190 schools with water points and toilets; as a result an additional 40,000 children will have access to safe water and sanitation.
We finance the UNICEF implemented programme to Accelerate Sanitation and Water for All in 9 Neglected Off-Track Countries, which has reached 1221 schools and created an improved learning environment for an estimated 750,000 school children. A 2nd phase of this programme is anticipated to reach 1000 more schools, where the need is most acute.