Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will ensure continued UK leadership, investment, and evidence-based programming across the former Department for International Development's Strategic Vision’s five foundation areas of (a) violence against women and girls, (b) sexual and reproductive health and rights, (c) girls’ education, (d) women’s economic empowerment and (e) women’s political empowerment.

The UK is widely known as a world leader on gender equality. We fought successfully for a dedicated gender equality goal in the SDGs and targets on gender equality across the other goals. We continue to deliver results at scale. For example, between 2015 and 2020, we enabled 8.1 million girls gain access to a decent education, and in 2019-20 alone we supported 25.4 million women to access modern methods of family planning, helping to save thousands of lives.

The FCDO will build on this strong track record, bringing together our diplomacy and development expertise to be a progressive force for women and girls.

As part of the launch of the new Department, we will refresh and build on existing strategies, as well as develop new approaches, but we do not see the core ambitions of the Strategic Vision for Gender Equality changing. The challenges of advancing girls' education, sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR), women's political empowerment, women's economic empowerment and ending violence against women and girls (VAWG) are as acute now, if not more so, as when we published the strategy in 2018.