Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what practical assistance his Department is providing to the Government of Afghanistan in tackling the covid-19 pandemic.

The UK is firmly committed to Afghanistan and we are supporting efforts to combat the pandemic in Afghanistan through our contributions to COVAX, the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) and through our humanitarian assistance. As one of the largest contributors to COVAX, UK support has helped to secure 468,000 initial doses of SII-AstraZeneca (COVISHIELD) vaccine. Through the ARTF the UK has also provided over £65 million to support the government's COVID-19 plan. In the year 2020-21, the UK allocated over £55 million to meet urgent humanitarian needs including those arising from COVID-19.