Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if she will take steps to provide further support and flexible funding to local NGOs in East Africa whose recipients have been affected by drought in that region.

The UK is a major humanitarian donor to countries in East Africa. We will provide at least £156 million in emergency humanitarian assistance to the Horn of Africa in financial year 2022/2023. to help support communities affected by conflict, drought, flooding and other pressures. We will continue to work with NGOs. In Ethiopia in 2021 the UK provided US$18 million to the UN's Ethiopia Humanitarian Fund (EHF). The EHF mechanism supported a range of international and Ethiopian NGOs, disbursing US$23 million to the latter. Similarly, the UK-funded 'Building Resilient Communities in Somalia' programme has supported a number of Somali NGOs alongside international civil society organisations.