Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent assessment she has made of the scale of food shortages affecting Venezuela.

The Foreign Secretary discussed the humanitarian crisis with Venezuela’s constitutional, interim President, Juan Guaidó, on 30 January. The UK Government is extremely concerned about the situation in Venezuela and continues to call for all actors to allow unhindered access for humanitarian assistance to meet the urgent needs of the Venezuelan people.

There is a lack of official data from the Maduro regime, but the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that approximately 4.1 million people are currently undernourished.

We remain in touch with partners in the region, including through British Embassies and DFID advisers deployed to the region. DFID continues to work closely with, and provide significant core funding to, the UN and Red Cross movement, while actively looking at how we may enhance our efforts to support the response to the Venezuela crisis.