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Written Question
Developing Countries: Educational Exchanges
Wednesday 29th January 2020

Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether he has plans to allocate funding for a programme to replace Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning when that programme ends in 2021.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning is a high performing programme that equips young people with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to live and work in a global economy and to take action on global issues. To date the programme has trained over 25,000 teachers and school leaders, and reached over 6,000 schools.

Given the programme is less than halfway through implementation, DFID is focused on delivering current results. Future iterations of the programme will be considered alongside other priorities.


Written Question
Sustainable Development: Young People
Thursday 14th September 2017

Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to uphold the commitment it made at the 9th Commonwealth Youth Ministers meeting outlined in point 2 of the Final Communiqué to ensure that young people play a central role in achieving inclusive and sustainable development and in helping the global community to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Answered by Alistair Burt

DFID supports the principle of providing young people with a genuine say in shaping a positive future for their countries. This was illustrated most recently at the 2017 Family Planning summit, which had a Youth Panel that helped set the agenda.

We are also working directly with 5-18 year olds in the UK through our Development Education programme, investing in a new generation of Global Britain ambassadors, proud of the work the UK is doing to tackle global poverty, and better prepared to live and eventually work in a globalised economy. Through the government’s International Citizen Service programme DFID has enabled over 25,000 young volunteers from the UK and developing countries to work on projects tackling poverty in developing countries.


Written Question
Commonwealth: Young People
Thursday 14th September 2017

Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to uphold the commitment it made at the 9th Commonwealth Youth Ministers meeting outlined in point 4 of the Final Communiqué to take meaningful and concrete actions to empower and address the specific needs of marginalised young people in Commonwealth countries.

Answered by Alistair Burt

DFID’s recently published Economic Development strategy sets out our firm commitment to economic inclusion, and focus on the poorest and most marginalised young people who are routinely excluded and experience multiple barriers including social discrimination, unfair laws and violence. We will work to expand job opportunities for rising youth populations and will do more to help people with disabilities access productive employment by ensuring that people with disabilities are systematically included in economic development programmes and approaches.

We have led the way on reaching the most marginalised children including through flagship programmes such as the Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) which is supporting 1 million of the world’s most marginalised girls in a number of Commonwealth countries such as Sierra Leone, Ghana, Uganda and Kenya.


Written Question
Developing Countries: Young People
Thursday 14th September 2017

Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that young people in developing countries are able to access social services and work opportunities.

Answered by Alistair Burt

The UK is taking a range of steps, from supporting young people in poor and vulnerable households with basic needs, to promoting positive sexual and reproductive health, a cornerstone of adolescent well-being and inclusive economic development.

Education is key to improving young people’s lives and economic opportunities – especially for girls. Our priority is to ensure all boys and girls have access to a decent education and are learning. We focus on basic education, but where country context dictates, we complement this through support to upper secondary, technical and higher education.

Increasing skills among young people will not lead to increased employment unless there are jobs for them to enter - and there is too little productive work for young people in developing countries. Our economic development strategy, therefore, focuses on creating more and better jobs while supporting a skilled and healthy workforce, ensuring that young people both benefit from, and drive, inclusive growth.



Written Question
Sustainable Development: Children and Young People
Thursday 14th September 2017

Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that the Sustainable Development Goals and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda commitments towards children and youth by 2030 are achieved.

Answered by Alistair Burt

The UK remains firmly committed to delivering the Sustainable Development Goals both at home and abroad. The SDGs cannot be achieved without a strong focus on children and young people.

We are committed to supporting education in particular for the most marginalised. We have stepped up on education in emergencies through our funding of Education Cannot Wait and funded 380,000 teachers through our multilateral contributions. Through the Girls Education Challenge we are getting more girls with disabilities into school and learning. As a founding board member of the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children, we are mobilising the international community to better protect children.

We are also committed to driving youth employment; our new Economic Development strategy sets out our commitment to creating more jobs and we are supporting a range of programmes to build employability skills.


Written Question
Lesbos: Refugees
Wednesday 25th November 2015

Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what support is being provided to refugees currently on the island of Lesbos.

Answered by Desmond Swayne

The UK has so far provided around £4.5 million to partners working in Greece, many of which are active on Lesbos. This includes supporting the Red Cross for assistance and emergency first aid to refugees and migrants arriving on the beaches. We are also providing assistance to the IOM and UNHCR who are delivering essential coordination, reception and registration support, as well as direct physical assistance.


It is right that the vast majority of our support goes to the region, our support is helping to build long term stability and resilience to help refugees build a life in neighbouring countries and prevent them falling prey to people smugglers and traffickers. For this reason, the UK has been at the forefront of the response to the crisis in Syria and the region. The UK has pledged over £1.1 billion to date, our largest ever humanitarian response to a single crisis. We are the second largest bilateral donor after the US and have done more than any other European country.


Written Question
Ghana: Disability
Friday 11th September 2015

Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what support the UK is providing to disabled people in Ghana.

Answered by Grant Shapps - Secretary of State for Defence

The UK supports a range of schemes that support disabled people in Ghana, including:

  • An education programme providing scholarships for girls, including those living with disabilities and girls whose parents/guardians live with disabilities.
  • A national cash transfer programme (the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Programme), which also targets those with disabilities.
  • An entrepreneurship training/mentorship programme (Enhancing Growth in New Enterprises).
  • One of our larger civil society programmes, (Strengthening Transparency and Accountability Responsiveness) which supports initiatives that work with people with disabilities.We are also supporting improvements to the quality of mental health care through working with the relevant regulatory body (Mental Health Authority) and two large NGOs (BasicNeeds and Christian Health Association of Ghana) to increase access to better care. DFID in Ghana is also developing links with the UK International Citizen Service Volunteer programme which works with disabled groups in the North of Ghana.

DFID Ghana’s Operational Plan 2011-2016 (updated December 2014) sets out the UK’s current priorities for development assistance in Ghana, as agreed with the Ghanaian authorities. This can be accessed through https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dfid-ghana-operational-plan-2014.


Written Question
Mediterranean Sea: Refugees
Wednesday 8th July 2015

Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)

Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to address the root causes of attempted migration to Europe across the Mediterranean.

Answered by Justine Greening

Last week I announced a package of initiatives that will provide emergency aid as well as jobs and education to help to address the root causes of the migrant crisis. This includes support worth £217 million to help some 2.5 million refugees and vulnerable people in Africa, and an additional £100 million to help those who have been displaced as a result of the Syria crisis.