Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent assessment she has made of progress towards meeting Millennium Development Goal 8 and towards the development of an open trading system and debt relief in low income countries.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expired in 2015 and were replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UK is committed to the SDGs and last year published a Voluntary National Review of progress to date.

COVID-19 poses real risks to eroding progress on the SDGs and there is a need to accelerate global action to reach the Goals by 2030. The UK, G20 and Paris Club, will suspend up to $12 billion of debt repayments from the poorest countries due this year under the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative. The UK has also committed up to £150 million to the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust, to fund the poorest countries’ debt repayments to the IMF.

The UK is also committed to supporting developing countries to integrate into the rules based international system so as to benefit from free and open trade. Our Trade Advocacy and Investment Fund supports low income countries to participate fully in WTO negotiations. More broadly, our Aid for Trade portfolio supports developing countries to benefit from WTO Agreements and open trade, including our major contribution to the Enhanced Integrated Framework.