Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove and Portslade)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the work of Robert Carr Civil Society Networks Fund.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The UK is proud to be a founding supporter of the Robert Carr Civil Society Networks Fund since 2012 and has pledged up to £9million to support the grassroots response for inadequately served groups affected by HIV.
DFID assesses the effectiveness of the Robert Carr Civil Society Networks Fund annually, as it does for all our programmes, and the reviews are available on the DFID Development Tracker at https://devtracker.dfid.gov.uk/.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove and Portslade)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what account her Department's bilateral and multilateral aid budgets take of the guidance from the UNAIDS-Lancet Commission on Defeating AIDS-Advancing Global Health published in June 2015.
Answered by Nick Hurd
We welcome the report of the UNAIDS-Lancet Commission. Its focus on prevention, sexual and reproductive health and rights and tailoring the HIV response to the public health needs of each country are in line with long standing UK policy.
We are currently undertaking a number of internal reviews to ensure we are in the right place to deliver our objectives and maximise our value for money and impact. Our future contributions to the Global Fund and country programmes are being considered as part of this. We will lay out further investment plans in the future.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove and Portslade)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much her Department spent on bilateral HIV programmes and activities in financial years 2010-11 and 2014-15; what the estimated expenditure on HIV bilateral spending is in 2015-16; and what the planned bilateral expenditure on HIV is in 2016-17.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The UK remains the 2nd largest international donor on HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. We provide support through a variety of bilateral channels including: projects and programmes at the country level; strengthening health systems in our partner countries to respond to the HIV epidemic; and funding research. We are also increasingly working through multilateral organisations such as the Global fund and UNITAID, given their greater reach and scale. We also work across a number of other areas, such as maternal and reproductive health, education and social protection which also has an impact on HIV outcomes.
Details of DFID expenditure can be found in Statistics on International Development GPEX tables, available on the web at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-international-development/about/statistics.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove and Portslade)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, following the report on Yemen of the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs published on 18 August 2015, what consideration she has given to providing additional humanitarian support to that country.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
On 27 September 2015, the UK committed an additional £20 million in new life-saving aid to Yemen. This followed the publication of the UN report and other assessments of need that demonstrated the deterioration of the humanitarian situation.
This new funding is to key partner agencies operating on the ground including the World Food Programme, UNICEF and NGOs via UN OCHA’s (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) Yemen Humanitarian Pooled Fund. DFID’s overall contribution of humanitarian assistance to Yemen for 2015-16 is now £75 million, making the UK the 4th largest donor to the international humanitarian response.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove and Portslade)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent discussions she has had with the UN's Humanitarian Coordinator on the situation in Yemen.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
My officials are in regular contact with the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen to discuss the latest humanitarian situation, as well as with the UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator, the UN Special Envoy on the Yemen crisis for the Emergency Relief Coordinator, heads of agencies and our partners on the ground.
The Secretary of State for International Development has frequent discussions with the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O’Brien on the situation in Yemen – the most recent call was on 28 October. On 28 September, the Secretary of State co-chaired an event with him and the Assistant Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to discuss the situation on Yemen with heads of UN agencies and international partners. Ministers have regular meetings with NGO partners to discuss their assessment of the situation. The Co-Chairs statement from the meeting can be found here: http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/co-chairs-statement-ministerial-yemen-meeting-monday-28-september-2015