Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to provide financial support to (a) workers and (b) farmers in the Global South that supply goods to the UK and other countries affected by covid-19.

We are engaging with businesses in the UK and in developing countries to understand the challenges they face with respect to protecting incomes and livelihoods in their supply chains. As a leading shareholder and donor to the Multilateral Development Banks, we have been working them to ensure that they are providing much needed working capital to the small businesses and supply chains that workers and farmers depend on in developing countries. We are exploring how DFID’s private sector development finance programmes can respond and complement this support. For example, CDC, the UK’s development finance institution, continues to invest in businesses across Africa and South Asia to support jobs. The UK also currently supports social protection programmes to assist the most vulnerable in more than 25 countries. In response to COVID-19 we are providing expert advice to governments and international partners to assess how and where social protection could be best used to support an efficient, coordinated response.