Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Department for International Development (DfID) currently tracks how many jobs for women in developing countries (1) have been, and (2) they estimate will be, created through DfID-funded projects and programmes; whether they plan to set any targets in this regard; and if not, why not.

DFID historically has tracked and continues to track the impact of its programmes on women’s employment using indicators within each programme’s own monitoring and measurement system. For example a skills development programme in Pakistan is planning to train between 165,000-300,000 women to enhance their income/employment prospects.

The department does not plan to set any targets related to job creation for the whole organisation because the data and collection methods are not consistent enough between countries to be able to verify and report in the aggregate. DFID is working with international institutions to improve jobs data quality for the long term.