Health: Ebola

Debate between Lord Bruce of Bennachie and Baroness Verma

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and the APPG for the useful and timely report, which draws attention to the importance of communities’ role in ownership and in delivering in crises. We agree that engaging with communities in the delivery of public health systems is essential. To provide stronger, people-centred health services that reflect their needs, we are looking at lessons learned from the crisis, and very much looking at the recommendations of the noble Lord’s report.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, will the Government acknowledge that, prior to the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone, they were planning to cut support for health systems in that country? As the Minister said, they subsequently spent nearly £500 million tackling the crisis. Does she accept that if we are to have health systems fit for the future, we must maintain long-term commitments? Can we be satisfied that the Government have reviewed their policy, given the cutbacks that have been applied in sub-Saharan Africa in order to support the Syrian refugee crisis?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, we are currently undergoing bilateral and multilateral reviews. We will learn from that process where our future funding will go. To take the noble Lord’s point about concentrating on fragile countries, a number of the countries to which the noble Lord referred will be among the 50% that we are targeting in our support for conflict-ridden and fragile states.

Bilateral Aid Review

Debate between Lord Bruce of Bennachie and Baroness Verma

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Lord raises some really important questions. That is why we are looking at all our programmes and the programmes we do with the multilaterals to make sure that ultimately, we capacity-build in those countries where the need is greatest. While we are undertaking these reviews, it would not be prudent of me to comment further.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, in the light of the current unrest in Burundi, do the Government think it was right to close the UK’s bilateral programme in the last bilateral review? In the light of the Government’s commitment to spend 50% of DfID’s budget on fragile states and the intervention of the African Union as a peacekeeping force, is it not time that the Government reopened our bilateral programme in Burundi?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, of course we are extremely concerned about the ongoing political unrest in Burundi and its humanitarian consequences. The UK is the second largest bilateral donor to the regional appeal, after the USA. We are monitoring the situation closely, and we may consider additional funding for the region. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, we are reviewing everything we are doing to see whether we are best placed as we currently are or whether we need to increase or decrease in certain places.