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 the training of healthcare professionals in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Our bilateral health programme, "Access to Healthcare in the DRC", 2019-2021, provides training to a range of health workers, from lab technicians to administrative personnel and birth attendants. In the first six months of this programme, over 180,000 births were attended by a skilled health worker. I [James Duddridge MP] visited the programme in November 2020. UK funding has also supported training to healthcare workers to identify, respond and treat Ebola cases during the Eastern DRC outbreak as well as, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, training on infection prevention and control measures.

Through our previous health programme, "Access to Primary Healthcare" - 2013-2019, we trained over 170 midwives, 1700 nurses on health and nutrition, more than 1200 health workers on the treatment of severe acute malnutrition and approximately 1300 workers on essential and emergency obstetric and neonatal care.