Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she is taking to ensure all projects funded by her Department are (a) monitored and (b) directed at people in developing countries in the most need.

British taxpayers expect all ODA to be high quality and well-targeted. So since 2010, DFID has made value for money and transparency of UK official development assistance (ODA) a top priority. In the last 5 years, DFID has worked hard to make its systems and processes more rigorous to make sure that aid projects reach intended beneficiaries and deliver results, including introducing greater ministerial oversight and new spending controls. Business cases and delivery plans are used for all DFID projects setting out the rationale for the projects and how they will be implemented. Formal project reviews are required annually and at completion against a performance monitoring framework. These reviews assess and record that funds have been used for their intended purposes and what results have been delivered. DFID has also reduced the number of bilateral country programmes since 2010. Finally, DFID has introduced greater transparency and scrutiny of DFID’s work through setting up the aid watchdog, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, which scrutinises everything DFID does, alongside the work of the International Development Select Committee.