Disaster and Emergencies Preparedness Programme

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Sheehan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Disaster and Emergencies Preparedness Programme.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, DfID has monitored and assessed the disasters and emergencies preparedness programme through annual reviews, which are publicly available, and an external evaluation was conducted. Based on this information, the core part of the programme will run its course and end in March 2018, as planned, and the innovation window will run its course and end in March 2019, again, as planned.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his response, but does he agree that the disasters and emergencies preparedness programme has shown that investing in preparing for humanitarian disasters is a lot more effective than responding in a hurry? I am glad that he has cleared up some of the confusion about when the programme will end. What might be replacing this very cost-effective programme?

[Lord Bates]

The noble Baroness is right: UNICEF and the World Food Programme have identified that every £1 spent in preparedness can save £2 in humanitarian assistance. It is absolutely right that we are spending approximately £175 million this year on resilience and prevention programmes. We looked at the specific DEPP programme she mentions. It was very complex in how it delivered. The overheads were quite high at about 25%. We have said that we would like to take a good look at it again to see whether we can deliver a more effective programme, but our commitment to preparedness and humanitarian intervention remains absolutely the same.