Lord Boateng
Main Page: Lord Boateng (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Boateng's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(2 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
The FCDO base in Nigeria works frequently through religious organisations there, but also through civil society, on a wide range of issues, such as countering violence against women and girls, promoting media freedom and doing what we can to undermine the organisations behind some of the atrocities we have been talking about today. This is very much a focus of our work.
Lord Boateng (Lab)
My Lords, how are we measuring the impact of this £425 million spent on humanitarian assistance alone? Listening to noble Lords on all sides of the House this afternoon, and drawing on one’s own experience, it seems that very little benefit is accruing to the people of Nigeria.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
There is no doubt that Nigeria is a deeply troubled country, for all the reasons we have talked about today. It has also been a big recipient of ODA. However, it is possible to measure the impact of the investments we have made. Our assessment, which has already been cited, is that we have provided £140 million in bilateral ODA to Nigeria since 2021, and since 2015 we have supported more than 2 million Nigerians to improve their incomes and jobs sustainably. Since 2009, education has been reaching more than 8 million children in 11 states, and since 2012 more than 1.5 million additional girls have been accessing schooling in six states as a result of our funding. In fact, there are many other areas in which we have measurable success as a consequence of our support.