Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Overseas Aid
(asked on 15th June 2020) - View Source
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will publish the criteria his Department plans to use for prioritising Official Development Assistance spending in the event of a decrease in GNI.
Answered by
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
To tackle the triple challenge of climate change, biodiversity and poverty alleviation, Defra ensures it takes evidence-based spending decisions and maintains high standards of programme delivery. Defra will remain focused on these three priorities in the event of an Official Development Assistance budget reduction.
The UK has a legal commitment to spend 0.7% of its gross national income (GNI) each year on Official Development Assistance (ODA). Since this commitment is linked to the size of the economy, the level of ODA spend is likely to decrease this year. HM Treasury allocates ODA budgets to departments and will agree any changes to these.
The Government reviews the ODA funding it allocates to projects on a regular basis in order to ensure delivery of its commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on ODA. In the short term, we have paused some new decisions while we agree our future work in close cooperation with other aid spending Departments.