Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support educational programmes in Uganda.
Answered by James Duddridge
To help address the disruption caused to education provision by COVID-19, UK programming will this year reach approximately 300,000 children to maintain access and learning through radio lessons, community led literacy and numeracy classes, bursaries, teacher support, and support to children with disabilities. A further 100,000 children in refugee hosting districts will be supported with home learning, accelerated education programmes, and reducing barriers for girls through menstrual hygiene management.
The UK is also one of the leading funders of the Global Partnership for Education and World Bank, which provide further support including to reform policy and financing and improve education systems.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he is taking to provide covid-19 vaccines to Uganda through the COVAX programme.
Answered by James Duddridge
The UK is committed to rapid, equitable access to safe and effective vaccines. We are supporting the COVAX Facility as the best mechanism to deliver this and have committed £548 million to its Advance Market Commitment to support its work, making the UK one of its largest donors. To date, Uganda has received 1,139,200 vaccines through the COVAX scheme, with further deliveries expected in the coming months.
Our G7 Presidency in June championed equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics, confirming that the UK will share 100 million doses within the next year. 30 million of these will be shared by the end of 2021, with 5 million by the end of September.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the UK's contribution to the COVAX programme.
Answered by Wendy Morton - Shadow Minister (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK is committed to supporting global access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines and has played a leading role in driving international support for the COVAX Facility as an effective multilateral mechanism to deliver this. The UK was one of the earliest and largest donors to COVAX, committing £548 million to COVAX's Advance Market Commitment which, through match funding, leveraged $1 billion from other donors in 2020. Our early funding has been key to helping COVAX secure deals with manufacturers to supply up to 1.8 billion doses of safe and effective vaccines for up to 92 low- and middle-income countries by early 2022. The Prime Minister also announced at the G7 that the UK will donate 100 million doses within the next year, 80% of which will go to COVAX to further support countries in need.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions the British High Commission in Kenya has had with the Kenyan Government since February 2020 on the non-payment of pensions to people living in the UK.
Answered by James Duddridge
This matter is the responsibility of the Kenyan authorities. However, the British High Commission in Nairobi has written to the Kenyan Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and the Head of the Department for Pensions in the Kenyan National Treasury seeking an explanation for non-payment of pensions to former Kenyan civil servants and the lack of increase in line with inflation. Officials from the British High Commission in Nairobi will continue to push Kenyan Treasury officials directly on this issue as and when the COVID-19 situation in Kenya allows.