Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 17 December 2018 to Question 201152, when the Government last funded Marie Stopes International to provide abortion services in Kenya.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The Department for International Development has not funded Marie Stopes International to provide abortion services in Kenya.
Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, in which countries the Government has funded abortion services in the last 12 months.
Answered by Alistair Burt
DFID has a range of bilateral and multi-country programmes supporting a package of women’s reproductive and maternal health information and services. It is not possible to provide a break down by safe abortion or post-abortion care alone. DFID supports provision of safe abortion services as allowed by local laws and where access to abortion is highly restricted, we can help make the consequences of unsafe abortion more widely understood and can consider supporting policy reform.
Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 9 October 2018 to Question 173969, whether her Department holds data on (a) how much funding it has provided for abortion services and (b) how many abortion procedures were carried out using that funding for each project that her Department has funded since 1997.
Answered by Alistair Burt
All DFID programming on sexual and reproductive health and rights, including the ‘Delivering Sustainable and Equitable Increases in Family Planning in Kenya’ programme, take an integrated approach in order to meet a wide range of women’s reproductive health needs. For example, providing a woman with holistic care for gender-based violence, HIV, counselling, post-abortion care and information on family planning. Because these services are integrated, it is not possible to disaggregate figures solely relating to safe abortion procedures.
The aim of DFID’s work on sexual and reproductive health and rights is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions, increase the use of voluntary family planning, and give women control over their own bodies and lives.
Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to her Answers of 10 December 2018 to Question 199384 on Developing Countries: Abortion and of 21 December 2017 to Question 119743 on Marie Stopes International, for what reason those answers differ on the monitoring of figures; and what steps she is taking to ensure (a) transparency, (b) accountability and (c) trust in that policy area.
Answered by Alistair Burt
DFID takes an integrated approach to our programming on sexual and reproductive health and rights in order to meet a wide range of women’s reproductive health needs. Because these services are integrated it is not possible to disaggregate figures solely relating to safe abortion procedures.
The aim of DFID’s work on sexual and reproductive health and rights is to save the lives of women, reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions, increase the use of voluntary family planning, and give women control over their own bodies and lives. DFID has robust monitoring and evaluation procedures to ensure UK taxpayers’ money is achieving the results we expect of it across all policy areas. Precise monitoring arrangements vary by project; however progress is always reviewed by DFID on an annual basis and these are publicly available. All of our reviews demonstrate confidence in the quality of Marie Stopes International’s services in developing countries.
Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will include in her Department's robust monitoring of the use of public money by Marie Stopes International and to provide oversight of that organisation's activities according to local law a request for its estimate of the number of abortions carried out in each country where it operates.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The aim of DFID’s work on sexual and reproductive health and rights is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions, increase the use of voluntary family planning, and give women control over their own bodies and lives. Marie Stopes International (MSI) are a valued partner in our comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights work.
DFID has robust monitoring and evaluation procedures to ensure UK taxpayers’ money is achieving the results we expect of it across all policy areas. Precise monitoring arrangements vary by project; and progress is always reviewed by DFID on an annual basis. All of our reviews demonstrate confidence in the quality of MSI’s services in developing countries.
DFID funds cannot be used to fund any illegal activities. We treat allegations of any improper use of funds extremely seriously. The process for reporting allegations is on our website: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-international-development
Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the implications for her Department's policy that UK aid cannot be used to fund illegal services of the halting by the Nigerien authorities of Marie Stopes International abortion procedures.
Answered by Alistair Burt
Marie Stopes International are a valued partner in our comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights work.
We have seen no evidence of any illegal activity in Niger on their part and no formal allegations have been made to us. DFID funds cannot be used to fund any illegal activities. We treat allegations of any improper use of funds extremely seriously. The process for reporting allegations is on our website. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-international-development
Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, with reference to the finding that her Department's global results claim on saving maternal lives was unable to be confirmed on page i, paragraph 1 of the Executive Summary of the Independent Commission for Aid Impacts report of October 2018, Assessing DFID’s results in improving Maternal Health: An impact review, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of that finding.
Answered by Alistair Burt
We welcome the Independent Commission for Aid Impact’s impact review on DFID’s results in improving maternal health. The recommendations will feed into DFID’s strategic planning.
Despite the helpful points that the report highlights, we stand by our estimates for the overall number of maternal lives we saved. We used an internationally respected modelling tool – the Lives Saved Tool. We were forced to make some assumptions, however, and therefore used the tool conservatively, excluding some results from large programmes where we could not be sure of accuracy. This was our best way to account for UK Aid to the taxpayer.
Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether the Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) initiative, upon which her Department is represented on the Reference Group, is working with the She Decides campaign either informally or formally; and whether her Department has allocated funding to (a) the She Decides campaign and (b) joint projects between the She Decides campaign and the FP2020 initiative.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) secretariat has not worked with the She Decides campaign. The UK has not allocated any funding to the She Decides campaign.
DFID works with many partners who support women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. A Minister attended the She Decides launch event, and we were delighted that She Decides held a spotlight event during the Family Planning Summit in London in 2017.
Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, with reference to the finding that her Department's recent emphasis on family planning had generated significant shortterm results, but at the expense of a more balanced approach to building up health systems on page 24, paragraph 4.20 of the Independent Commission for Aid Impacts report of October 2018, Assessing DFID’s results in improving Maternal Health: An impact review, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of that finding.
Answered by Alistair Burt
We welcome the Independent Commission for Aid Impact’s impact review on DFID’s results in improving maternal health. The recommendations will feed into DFID’s strategic planning.
Increasing our family planning portfolio from 2013 was an important move – this was a neglected area with an enormous potential impact, not only for women’s lives but also to societies and economies. Our spending on maternal health was not, however, reduced during this time.
Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, with reference to the finding that her Department overestimated the number of maternal lives its programmes had saved during the 2011 to 2015 by 23,000 lives on page 25, paragraph 4.26 of the Independent Commission for Aid Impacts report of October 2018, Assessing DFID’s results in improving Maternal Health: An impact review, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of that finding.
Answered by Alistair Burt
We welcome the Independent Commission for Aid Impact’s impact review on assessing DFID’s results in improving maternal health. The recommendations will feed into DFID’s strategic planning.
The report is right that we revised our estimate down as our information changed. Models continually incorporate better data as it becomes available. The maternal lives saved figure reduced when better data from Bangladesh and Ethiopia became available. Additionally, results from a large multi-country programme were excluded to avoid any potential for over-estimation.
A full update is available in this report: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/update-on-results-achieved-by-the-dfid-between-2011-and-2015