Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what diplomatic steps the Government is taking to help (a) bring greater global attention to the hunger crisis in Somalia and the Horn of Africa and (b) leverage funding for a frontline response in those countries.

In Financial Year 2022/23, the UK will be providing approximately £156 million to East Africa. To avert loss of life in Somalia and elsewhere in the region, the international community must prioritise a collective response to the worsening crisis. Recently the UK played a critical role in convening the UN Horn of Africa Drought Roundtable, which took place in Geneva. This included working with states in the region and the UN to ensure appropriate participation. It helped to bring much needed focus on the drought and it mobilised roughly USD $400 million in new funding.

The UK is using our political and diplomatic influence to bring other stakeholders to the table. Minister Ford, my predecessor as Minister for Africa, recently wrote to David Malpass, the World Bank's President, and to Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), to highlight the gravity of needs across the region and to request that the World Bank and UN step up their engagement on these issues. Both have since announced further action in the region, with the World Bank publicising $5.1 billion in new funding and projects, while OCHA has confirmed a scale up of efforts in both Somalia and Ethiopia.