Democratic Republic of Congo: Abduction

(asked on 4th March 2022) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what support she is providing to the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to (a) enable judicial and security services to use mobile telecoms data to track kidnappers and enforce laws against kidnapping for ransom and (b) create effective regulatory relationships with mobile telecoms providers to help prevent their services from being used to facilitate kidnapping for ransom.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 14th March 2022

The UK does not provide any specific support to the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo with regard to mobile telecoms. Our current bilateral assistance to DRC is £56.3 million, comprising £30.4 million for humanitarian activities, £17.4 million for health and education; £4.8 million for economic development; and £3.7 million for governance and stabilisation. The UK also supports the work carried out by the UN Peacekeeping Mission MONUSCO, who through supporting stability across the country also help reduce the scope for criminal acts such a kidnapping. In 2021/22, the UK will contribute approximately £45 million and three military staff officers to MONUSCO.

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