Sub-Saharan Africa: Diplomatic Relationships

Lord Grayling Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary’s priorities for this are around growth, security, government and climate. These are things that we are working hard on through our engagement not just with sub-Saharan Africa but in Asia, Latin America and elsewhere. The noble Earl is absolutely right that every penny we spend on official development assistance must be the very best value for money that we can secure—yes, because of fairness to the UK taxpayer, but also because a bad programme funded by ODA means that a good programme somewhere else does not get to take place. The Foreign Secretary is very keen that we make sure that happens. He is reviewing our spend and the effectiveness of programmes, and he is right to do that.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of the African Wildlife Foundation. I ask the Minister to look carefully at how we spend our aid money. So much of it goes through international or regional bodies and, often, when the money gets to practical solutions on the ground, the UK is not visible as a donor. That weakens our soft power, so can the Minister look at the different ways in which we spend aid money to make sure that our soft power really is visible on the ground?