Overseas Aid

(asked on 19th April 2021) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will publish the Official Development Assistance his Department disbursed where gender equality was the main objective of that assistance for the financial years (a) 2015, (b) 2016, (c) 2017, (d) 2018, (e) 2019 and (f) 2020.


Answered by
Wendy Morton Portrait
Wendy Morton
This question was answered on 27th April 2021

FCDO's ODA spend, including that on gender equality activities and past spend, is made publicly available through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) statistics portal. All ODA spend is screened against the OECD gender equality policy marker. This is a measurement of the proportion of aid that supports gender equality and women's empowerment. An activity can be marked as 'principal' if gender equality is the main objective of the programme, or as a 'significant' if gender equality is an important and deliberate objective, but not the principal reason for undertaking the programme.

The latest figures available (2019) show that approximately 68 per cent of the former Department for International Development (DFID) and the former Foreign & Commonwealth Office's (FCO) total bilateral spend was marked principal or significant. This equates to £5.2 billion. Figures for previous years are also available on the OECD statistics portal. The 2020 figures have not yet been released. Advancing gender equality and women's and girls' rights are a core part of this Government's mission and we remain steadfast in our commitment to this agenda. The UK's Gender Equality Act 2014, legally requires all overseas development funding to meaningfully consider the impact of how it will contribute to reducing gender inequality.

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