Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, in which countries outside the UK Government funding has been provided to Marie Stopes International for work on family planning and abortion provision in each of the last five years.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
Over the past 5 years, UK Government funding has provided central support to MSI’s developing country portfolio of 29 countries, and DFID specific programmes in Bangladesh, Kenya, Malawi, Pakistan and Sierra Leone.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much Government funding has been provided to Marie Stopes International for work in which countries outside the UK in each of the last five years.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
DFID provided direct funding to Marie Stopes International (MSI) to the value of £19.64 million in 2012; £19.05 million in 2013; £41.07 million in 2014; £38.80 million in 2015 and £44.45 million in 2016.
This funding was used to support DFID programmes in the following countries: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cambodia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Papa New Guinea, The Philippines, Timor-leste, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.
DFID support to these programmes enables women and girls to complete their education, take up better economic opportunities and have control over their own lives, therefore transforming lives, and creating more prosperous and stable societies.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what proportion of the Government funding provided to Marie Stopes International for work outside the UK in each of the last five years has been classified as overseas aid.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
DFID provided direct funding to Marie Stopes International (MSI) to the value of £19.64 million in 2012; £19.05 million in 2013; £41.07 million in 2014; £38.80 million in 2015 and £44.45 million in 2016. This funding is categorised as overseas development assistance.
DFID funding to these programmes enables women and girls to complete their education, take up better economic opportunities and have control over their own lives, therefore transforming lives, and creating more prosperous and stable societies
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much Government funding has been provided to Marie Stopes International in each of the last five years related to work (a) within and (b) outside the UK.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
DFID provided direct funding to Marie Stopes International (MSI) to the value of £19.64 million in 2012; £19.05 million in 2013; £41.07 million in 2014; £38.80 million in 2015 and £44.45 million in 2016.
MSI also receives funding for UK based work from Clinical Commissioning Groups in England but information is not collected at national level.
DFID support to these programmes enables women and girls to complete their education, take up better economic opportunities and have control over their own lives, therefore transforming lives, and creating more prosperous and stable societies.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much was paid from the public purse to Marie Stopes International in 2016; and how much of that total came from the international aid budget for expenditure overseas in 2016.
Answered by Rory Stewart
During January to December 2016, Marie Stopes International (MSI) directly received £44.45 million from DFID through several programmes including: Urban Health for poor mothers in Bangladesh, Reducing Maternal Death Kenya, Family Planning Services Malawi, Reproductive Health Services Pakistan and Improving Reproductive and Maternal and New born health Sierra Leone.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment her Department has made of the outcome of the Brussels conference for the Central African Republic on 17 November 2016.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
DFID welcomes the outcome of the Brussels donor conference for the Central African Republic which raised approximately $2 billion against an overall target of $3.1 billion over five years. This will fund a joint recovery and peacebuilding plan supported by the government, the EU, the UN and the World Bank. DFID remains concerned about the humanitarian situation. An estimated 50% of the population needs humanitarian assistance and the crisis is one of the least well-funded in the world. At the conference the UK’s Ambassador to the Central African Republic announced a three year package of humanitarian support totalling £60 million.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will take steps to ensure that staff in her Department receive religious literacy training.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
In implementing DFID’s ‘Faith Partnership Principles Paper’, DFID has produced material for staff on the role played by faiths in the local, national and global cultural contexts, arranged for faith literacy training and facilitated staff to attend the Foreign and Commonwealth Office faith literacy training courses.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what support her Department plans to provide to refugees from Burundi.
Answered by Nick Hurd
HMG is concerned by the ongoing political unrest in Burundi, and its humanitarian consequences. DFID has provided over £21 million since April 2015 to support Burundian refugees in Tanzania and Rwanda. We continue to monitor the situation and will consider further support if need arises.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
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 all children and young people affected by the Syrian conflict are in school and learning by the 2016-17 school year.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
At the Conference on Supporting Syria and the Region taking place on February 4th in London co-hosted by the UK, Norway, Germany, Kuwait and the UN, we want the international community to agree a new goal that all Syrian refugee children and affected host country children are in education – formal school or non-formal – by the end of 2016/17. Equally, for inside Syria, it is our aim to increase access to good quality schooling or other learning opportunities such as self-learning and non-formal education. In neighbouring countries we will also increase access to vocational or skills training and higher education for children and youth.
At the Conference our ambition is that international donors, governments from countries in the region hosting refugees, non-governmental organisations and the private sector come together to agree a set of reciprocal financial and policy commitments. The UK and co-hosts are working with donors and other partners to secure increased funding for education under the UN-led appeals for 2016 and longer term, multi-year education funding commitments to ensure sustainability. We are also working with refugee hosting governments in particular to agree the policy commitments necessary to turn increased funding into delivery on the ground.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what the Government's priorities are for the Syria Donor Conference in February 2016.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
The core priority of the “Supporting Syria and the Region (London 2016)” Conference is to raise significant new funding to meet the immediate and longer-term needs of all those affected by the crisis within Syria and to support neighbouring countries who have shown enormous generosity in hosting refugees. Both emergency 2016 funding and longer term funding in subsequent years are needed given the protracted nature of the conflict.
The Conference must also address the longer-term needs of those affected by the crisis through supporting the creation of jobs and providing education, offering those that have been forced to flee their homes greater hope for the future.
The Conference should maintain pressure on all parties to the conflict to protect civilians and respect International Humanitarian Law, highlighting the deliberate and systematic abuses that continue to perpetuate the humanitarian crisis. Looking ahead, it will need to ensure the international community is well prepared to support a coordinated stabilisation effort.