Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent steps he has taken to help tackle (a) income inequality and (b) youth unemployment in Malawi.

The UK Government supports Malawi in tackling low economic growth, which involves tackling reducing income inequality and youth unemployment. Our new Malawi Trade and Investment Programme will launch this year and aims to stimulate a step change in Malawi's growth by promoting higher value and export sectors, cutting time and costs of trade and logistics, raising international and domestic investment in new exports, and creating jobs. On income inequality, our Building Resilience and Adapting to Climate Change programme is contributing to a reduction in extreme poverty and ending the recurrent cycle of hunger and humanitarian assistance in Malawi.