Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she is taking to work with CDC in delivering early stage investment funds in developing countries to better achieve development goals.
Answered by Baroness Featherstone
Investment Funds that invest in early-stage businesses can provide risk capital, create jobs and provide access to services such as healthcare, energy, housing, education and sanitation. In December 2012 my Rt Hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development announced the DFID Impact Fund, which is managed by CDC. Through the DFID Impact Fund CDC is investing up to £75 million of DFID's capital into Funds on a matched basis with other co-investors.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to strengthen vocational education in Nigeria.
Answered by Baroness Featherstone
DFID recognises the importance of vocational skills training for reducing poverty among young people in Nigeria, and is currently considering options on how best to support the sector to increase the economic opportunities available to marginalised groups of young men and women in six of the poorest states in Northern Nigeria.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to increase the role of the UK further education sector in strengthening vocational education in Nigeria.
Answered by Baroness Featherstone
DFID recognises the importance of vocational skills training for reducing poverty among young people in Nigeria, and is currently considering options on how best to support the sector to increase the economic opportunities available to marginalised groups of young men and women in six of the poorest states in Northern Nigeria.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent meetings she has had with representatives of the Nigerian diaspora in the UK on support for entrepreneurship in Nigeria.
Answered by Baroness Featherstone
I have not, as yet, had the pleasure of meeting representatives of the Nigerian diaspora in UK. My Department, however, is actively involved in helping improve the investment climate for entrepreneurs in Nigeria, including for Nigerians living abroad. An example of this was our recent support for a review of Nigeria's Investment Policy which was presented at President Goodluck Jonathan's Honorary International Investors' Council held in London last November and which was co-chaired by Baroness Chalker.
Asked by: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what education projects her Department is supporting in Nigeria.
Answered by Baroness Featherstone
DFID supports five education projects in Nigeria (Education Sector Support Programme, Girls' Education Programme, Teacher Development Programme, Developing Effective Private Education, and Education Data, Research and Evaluation through which an additional 800,000 children will access better quality schools by 2015.
DFID also supports two further projects through the global Girls' Education Challenge (Discovery Girls and Educating Nigerian Girls in New Enterprises), through which 48,000 marginalised girls will be supported to access better schools.