Covid-19: Overseas Development Assistance

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

Baroness Boycott. No? Lord Collins of Highbury.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

A key element of nutrition-sensitive spending is universal health coverage, which is vital to building resilience to such pandemics. It is likely that the Nutrition for Growth summit will be delayed. Can the Minister assure the House that, if this year’s summit is delayed, she will ensure either that the Government pledge early, or will ensure a continuation of nutrition finance at current levels for another year to avoid a cliff edge in such financing at the start of 2022?

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Lord is right to highlight that global commitments on nutrition financing are indeed ending this year, and I agree with him that this continued investment is needed to prevent and treat malnutrition, particularly as countries face worsening levels of malnutrition in the face of Covid-19. We are looking carefully at the options for the UK commitment now that both the Olympic pledging event and the main Nutrition for Growth summit have been postponed, and we will provide an update on our plans when we are able to. Yesterday, the World Food Programme reported that Covid-19 could push 265 million people into acute hunger by the end of this year, so maintaining our commitment to nutrition is more important than ever.