Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to tackle economic drivers of conflict in the world.

The UK is working closely with international financial institutions (IFIs) to better understand economic drivers of conflict, including enhancing the use of analytics to anticipate potential conflict, and ensuring timely, effective and conflict sensitive interventions.

The World Bank and other IFIs, working as effectively as possible with other actors such as the United Nations, the private sector, civil society and governments, bring valuable expertise and investment to address key drivers of fragility and conflict, improving employment and livelihoods, natural resource management, access to essential services and governance. This is why the UK put our critical influence and Board position at the World Bank to improve their focus and strategy on fragile and conflict-affected states, which enables stronger delivery at scale in these countries.