Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask Her Majesty's Government when their officials working in Pakistan last visited the shanty towns on the periphery of Islamabad to report on the conditions in which the residents live; and whether they are collecting data on the percentage of people from Pakistan’s minorities living in such areas.

UK aid prioritises support for the poorest and most excluded people and communities in Pakistan. Thus, whilst we recognise that there are poor people living in Islamabad, UK aid is focussed in the provinces with the highest number of poor people and on strengthening capacity of those provinces to deliver basic services to their populations.

DFID strive to visit as many programme locations as possible to gather feedback from communities, including minority communities. DFID Pakistan also has projects that work directly with minorities and aims to tackle the drivers underpinning intolerance and discrimination, through promoting greater understanding between communities.

DFID Pakistan is striving to better disaggregate its results through a data disaggregation action plan which focuses on 4 key areas: sex, age, disability and geography. This will improve our understanding of those who benefit from our programmes. We do not currently have plans to collect data on religion as we recognise the risks associated with potentially revealing such sensitive information for religious minorities.