Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what fiscal steps he is taking to improve women and girls lives and health in the Global South.

Advancing gender equality and women's and girls' rights are a core part of this Government's mission, including fulfilling every girl's right to 12 years of quality education, empowering women socially, economically, and politically, and ending violence against women and girls. This is also highlighted in the Integrated Review (IR) which was published earlier this year, the joint US-UK Statement following President Biden's visit to the UK and the G7 Leaders Communique.

We know that women and girls are amongst the hardest hit by the indirect impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why we donated an additional £10 million for the United Nations Population Fund's Covid-19 response and an additional £1 million (on top of our existing £21 million contribution), to the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women for the COVID-19 Crisis Response Window. These funds have supported small grassroots organisations on the frontlines and placed survivors at the heart of our response. The UK is also continuing its work to advance sexual reproductive health and rights, including access to modern family planning methods in the world's poorest countries. Between April 2015 and March 2020, with UK Aid funding we reached an average of 25.3 million women and girls with modern methods of family planning per year.