Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what activities have been undertaken by Ministers of her Department to promote breastfeeding during World Breastfeeding Week 2016.
Answered by Rory Stewart
DFID supports breastfeeding. Interventions to improve early infant feeding can save newborn lives in less developed settings, and early initiation of breastfeeding has been shown to have a major additional impact in reducing neonatal deaths.
DFID Ministers did not undertake activities to mark World Breastfeeding Day specifically. Our country offices regularly work with local partners to promote breastfeeding and other public health interventions.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to implement the actions identified for it in the Government's Ending Violence against Women and Girls Strategy 2016-2020, published in March 2016; and when a member of staff from her Department last attended a Violence against Women and Girls Stakeholder Meeting chaired by the Home Office.
Answered by Rory Stewart
DFID has made significant progress in scaling up efforts to address violence against women and girls, nearly doubling our programming, from 64 programmes in 2012 to 127 in 2016, and working with partners across all sectors. Our £36 million programme to end Child, Early and Forced Marriage is helping thousands of girls escape losing any choice or control over their future. We have committed £8 million to support AmplifyChange, an initiative to support civil society activists to end child marriage and address a broader range of gender issues. In 2015 we provided £2.25 million of support to the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women and Girls which provides grants to organisations across the world to tackle gender-based violence.
ICAI published its review of DFID’s efforts to eliminate violence against women and girls on Tuesday 17 May 2016. This review gave DFID’s performance a ‘Green’ rating, the highest achievable. The UK and DFID’s new Secretary of State will continue to lead the global effort to improve the lives of women and girls.
The last Home Office chaired Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Stakeholder Meeting took place on July 11 2016. No officials from other departments were invited to this meeting. However, one of the action points arising from this meeting was to invite other departments in future. An official from DFID’s VAWG Team will attend the next meeting.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what facilities are available for (a) lactating mothers and (b) the changing of babies in her Department.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
DFID has 2 HQ buildings in the UK, 22 Whitehall and Abercrombie House, East Kilbride. Both offices have a nursing mothers room and are equipped with baby changing facilities and fridges to allow the storage of baby milk.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if her Department plans to support the development of land registries in developing countries.
Answered by Grant Shapps
The Department for International Development (DFID) targets improvements in overall land governance to support economic development and poverty reduction. DFID funded programmes over the last 5 years have helped to secure the land and property rights of 5.8 million people in developing countries. Our programmes range from supporting the development of land registries and issuance of land titles (for example in Rwanda and Ethiopia) to addressing land-related conflict (for example in Sudan) and supporting community legal empowerment (as in Kenya or Mozambique). We have recently launched a new global programme, Land-Enhancing Governance for Economic Development (LEGEND), which is providing expert advice to our country offices to help design and implement programmes to deliver additional results in this area.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much her Department spent on (a) legal advice and (b) consultants in 2014; which organisations were paid from that expenditure for those services; and how much each such organisation received for each such service.
Answered by Grant Shapps
British taxpayers expect all ODA to be high quality and well-targeted. So since 2010, DFID has made value for money and transparency of UK official development assistance (ODA) a top priority. In the last 5 years, DFID has worked hard to make its systems and processes more rigorous to make sure that aid projects reach intended beneficiaries and deliver results, including introducing greater ministerial oversight and new spending controls. Business cases and delivery plans are used for all DFID projects setting out the rationale for the projects and how they will be implemented. Formal project reviews are required annually and at completion against a performance monitoring framework. These reviews assess and record that funds have been used for their intended purposes and what results have been delivered. DFID has also reduced the number of bilateral country programmes since 2010. Finally, DFID has introduced greater transparency and scrutiny of DFID’s work through setting up the aid watchdog, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, which scrutinises everything DFID does, alongside the work of the International Development Select Committee.
In line with the UK Government commitments to increase transparency, DFID publishes details of spend transactions over £500 on a monthly basis. This includes expenditure at supplier level and amount for Legal and Consultancy services. This information can be accessed via the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/monthly-spend-over-500-in-the-department-for-international-development.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, which periodicals and newspapers her Department subscribes to; what quantity of each periodical is so obtained; and what the cost of such subscriptions was in 2014.
Answered by Grant Shapps
DFID communications division’s total spend on newspapers and periodicals in the 2014/15 financial year was £4,466. Following a savings drive in November 2014 DFID’s communications division no longer subscribes to print periodicals, saving around £1,400 a year.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much her Department spent on projects relating to (a) the provision of clean water, (b) sewage, (c) women's sanitary projects and (d) other essential hygiene projects in 2014.
Answered by Grant Shapps
In Financial Year 2013 to 2014 DFID spent £93.3million on providing clean water and £34.8million on sanitation projects. In that year DFID also spent £39.8million on health education which includes promotion of improved hygiene practices. The source for these figures is the publication Statistics on International Development 2013 2014. The tables in that publication are not able to provide a figure for spending on women’s sanitary projects. However, we have a number of programmes globally. DFID is supporting a number of initiatives to address menstrual hygiene management. For example, in our education portfolio we support programmes that are improving the availability of disposable sanitary pads. DFID has also supported an extensive menstrual hygiene management research programme which resulted in a comprehensive manual and training pack.
This includes the CAMFED Secondary Education Programme in Zimbabwe that is helping to ensure 24,000 orphaned and vulnerable girls complete secondary school. Through the Girls’ Education Challenge programme, DFID is providing £10million to World Vision in Zimbabwe to implement the Improving Girls’ Access to Transformational Education programme which aims to support 95,000 rural girls. In the rural zone of Wolaita in Ethiopia, DFID is working with an NGO called ‘Link Community Development’ to provide sanitary pads and upgrade sanitation facilities for 56,683 marginalised girls.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she plans to take to produce reports showing how UK aid is (a) effective and (b) value for money on a country by country basis; and if she will make it her policy such that reports are produced by organisations independent of her Department.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
DFID has robust processes to make sure programmes are effective and offer value for money. These include a full value for money assessment in every project business case, which is then reviewed throughout the life of the project alongside robust performance frameworks. The Independent Commission on Aid Impact already provides independent scrutiny of UK aid to make sure it represents value for money. Independent evaluations of DFID programmes are also commissioned at the discretion of country teams and then published. There are no plans for additional country by country reporting.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much the UK gave in aid to Burma in (a) 2010, (b) 2011, (c) 2012 and (d) 2013; and how much aid it plans to give aid to Burma in 2014; and what pre-conditions have been applied to such aid donations for Burma receiving aid.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
The latest version of Statistics for International Development was published in October 2013 and contains the following UK Official Development Assistance outturn figures for Burma: 2010, £29 million; 2011, £39 million; 2012, £30 million. In June 2013 DFID published a revised Operational Plan for Burma, which contains projected figures for DFID spend in: 2012/13, £32 million; 2013/14, £56 million; 2014/15, £60 million. No UK aid goes directly to the Government of Burma, as programme or budget support.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how many UK aid agencies are currently operating in Rakine State, Burma.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
The UN managed Myanmar Information Management Unit (MIMU) lists international NGOs working in Rakhine State. MIMU’s information is available on the internet. The choice of where individual UK agencies operate is a matter for those agencies.