Bilateral Aid Review

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will publish the outcome of the Bilateral Aid Review.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for International Development (Baroness Verma) (Con)]

As my right honourable friend the International Development Secretary confirmed last week, the outcome of the bilateral aid review will be published shortly, together with DfID’s other aid reviews. This enables us to present a more complete picture of our future plans and publish more detailed priorities for each country programme.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, the confirmation by the Secretary of State that it would be in the early summer is indeed welcome, because the delay has been unfortunate. Can the Government confirm that these new bilateral plans will be targeted to seek the fullest possible implementation of the sustainable development goals agreed at the United Nations last September, and to building the institutional and government capacity in our partner countries to ensure that they can deliver on the goals themselves?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right—I will take his second point first—about ensuring that we build capacity and strengthen institutions in the developing world so that countries are able to make the programmes that we are working on in those countries work for them much more effectively and efficiently. On his first point, it is really important that we do not lose focus on the SDGs. That is the start of the process and I am pretty certain that, as we go forward, develop our programme plans and work with other multilaterals, others will also look closely at what we are doing and will, we hope, support our work to ensure that those goals are met and we end up leaving no one behind.