Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much and what proportion of her Department's overseas aid budget allocated to Commonwealth countries is used to protect and enhance rainforests in those countries.

DFID’s overall funding for forest conservation and management in all developing countries was £75m in FY15-16 and £69m in FY16-17, including bilateral programmes and relevant multilateral contributions.

Commonwealth countries that benefit from our bilateral programmes are Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Guyana. DFID’s bilateral forest programmes are focused on encouraging sustainable trade, based on legal and sustainable supplies of timber and agricultural commodities. These programmes work across borders to influence the international trade and capital flows which are driving deforestation in developing countries. These include both Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries, and it is not possible to disaggregate the spending completely.