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Written Question
Sierra Leone: Power Stations
Thursday 18th June 2020

Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Labour - Coventry South)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what losses have been incurred by CDC and Globeleq on the CECA SL Heavy Fuel Oil power plant in Sierra Leone.

Answered by James Duddridge

The CECA SL energy project in Sierra Leone was not progressed past the preparatory stage. As a result, CDC made no investment and has not incurred any investment losses on the project. Globeleq did incur project development costs, which were written off in 2018.


Written Question
G7: Health Services
Tuesday 9th June 2020

Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Labour - Coventry South)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether her Department has identified strengthening health systems as one of its objectives for the UK's G7 presidency in 2021.

Answered by Wendy Morton

The Department for International Development is working with other government departments to define the objectives for the UK’s G7 Presidency in 2021. These objectives will be shared in due course. Investing in strengthening health systems is a priority for the Department’s work on global health and at the core of our existing global health programmes, our response to COVID-19, and our focus on ending the preventable deaths of mothers, newborns and children.


Written Question
Vaccination: Children
Tuesday 9th June 2020

Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Labour - Coventry South)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she is taking to ensure that the most marginalised and under-served children are prioritised in future global vaccination initiatives.

Answered by Wendy Morton

The UK is proud to have raised $8.8 billion for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance at the Global Vaccine Summit on 4 June. This funding, which includes the UK’s world-leading £1.65 billion pledge, will support Gavi’s strategy to leave no one behind with immunisation over the next five years.

The UK’s central priority for Gavi is equity. Gavi immunises nearly half of the world’s children, and since 2000, has increased basic immunisation coverage levels in Gavi-supported countries from 59% to 80%. Despite increases in overall immunisation coverage levels, health systems in the poorest countries are still not reaching almost one in five children with a full course of basic vaccines.

These remaining pockets of under-immunised children are often the hardest to reach. The UK is working closely with Gavi to ensure that we remove barriers to immunisation for the most marginalised children. Gavi is working closely with its Alliance Partners, WHO and UNICEF, to adopt new strategies in-country to address gender, poverty, fragility and intra-country barriers to immunisation.


Written Question
Overseas Aid: Malnutrition
Tuesday 9th June 2020

Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Labour - Coventry South)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will make it her policy to pledge £800 million a year from 2021 to 2025 for tackling malnutrition at the Nutrition for Growth Summit in Tokyo, December 2020.

Answered by Wendy Morton

The UK remains committed to preventing and treating malnutrition as part of our pledge to end the preventable deaths of mothers, newborns and children. Addressing malnutrition is also important as developing countries experience the impacts of COVID-19. We will provide an update on our nutrition commitments after 2020 in due course.


Written Question
Diseases: Children
Tuesday 9th June 2020

Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Labour - Coventry South)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of progress on her Department's development objectives in relation to building resilience against common diseases to tackle preventable child deaths.

Answered by Wendy Morton

The direct and indirect impacts of COVID-19 will affect countries’ health systems and threaten past progress in tackling the common diseases that contribute to the preventable deaths of children. In October 2019, the UK Government committed to work with others to end preventable deaths of mothers, newborns and children by 2030. This will help countries mitigate the indirect impacts of COVID-19 and support their recovery and future preparedness. This includes maintaining essential health services through our bilateral country programmes and multilateral investments and working to strengthen health systems in the poorest countries.

The UK hosted the Global Vaccine Summit on 4 June and raised $8.8 billion for GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance’s, next five years (2021-2025) of work, which includes the UK’s pledge of £1.65 billion. Using these vital funds, GAVI will immunise a further 300 million children and save up to 8 million lives against vaccine preventable diseases.


Written Question
CDC: ARM Cement
Wednesday 11th March 2020

Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Labour - Coventry South)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much CDC Group have invested in ARM Cement; how much of that investment has been lost or written down; and on what dates the losses and write-downs were recognised.

Answered by James Duddridge

In 2016 CDC made a $144 million equity investment into ARM Cement, a publicly listed cement business with operations in Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. ARM Cement was an investment with high development impact potential. The aim was to support the growth of a regional manufacturer and by so doing reduce the cost and increase the availability of cement across the East African region, creating jobs and spurring infrastructure development.

Due to a number of factors, CDC’s investment in ARM was ultimately not successful and the CDC investment has been written off. Write-downs were accounted for in 2016 (December); 2017 (March, June, September, December) and 2018 (June).


Written Question
CDC: ARM Cement
Monday 9th March 2020

Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Labour - Coventry South)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, who the ARM Cement creditors are who were partially or wholly repaid following CDC Group’s initial investment in the company; and what CDC Group’s (a) previous and (b) current business or investment relationships are with each of those creditors.

Answered by James Duddridge

Financial creditors of ARM Cement Limited who were partially or wholly repaid following CDC Group’s investment were: Citibank N.A.; I&M Bank Ltd; Bank of Africa Kenya Ltd; Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank; Development Bank of South Africa; Guaranty Trust Bank Kenya Ltd; Aureos Capital; Chase Bank Ltd; Barclays Bank of Kenya; CfC Stanbic Bank Ltd; Victoria Commercial Bank; Africa Finance Corporation.

Information on CDC’s current investment relationships with the above investees, where applicable, are available on its website https://www.cdcgroup.com/en/our-investments/


Written Question
UK-Africa Investment Summit
Monday 3rd February 2020

Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Labour - Coventry South)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether representatives of (a) Shell International, (b) BP and (c) other oil and gas companies were invited to the UK-Africa Investment Summit.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

More than 1,700 people attended the UK-Africa Investment Summit on 20 January 2020. This included Leaders and Ministers from African Governments, CEOs and senior representatives from African and British businesses, institutional investors, international organisations, financial institutions and civil society. Businesses from a wide range of sectors were invited, including the oil and gas sector.