Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that its programmes in West Africa do not create perverse incentives which prioritise short-term outcomes rather than longer-term strengthening strategies.

DFID always considers the longer term development impact when developing our programmes. Operational Plans, setting out how DFID’s programmes will deliver results and measure progress up to 2015 for our country office programmes in West Africa (Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone), can be found on the website: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/operational-plans-2013 .

DFID does carry out humanitarian programmes to address short term needs but we also have longer term development programmes designed to build resilience. Full details of our programmes can be found on Development Tracker.