Developing Nations: Technical and Vocational Education

Lord Loomba Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My noble friend is absolutely right, but the starting point needs to be good education. My noble friend is right: we must increase female entrepreneurs’ ability to flourish. I have just come back from Zambia, where I saw programmes on the ground where cash transfer schemes have worked and a little money or a little intervention goes a long way in ensuring that women have economic empowerment.

[Lord Loomba (LD)]

My Lords, despite all the cuts announced recently, it is encouraging that the Government are continuing 0.7% in financial aid to developing countries. How much of that aid is being used or earmarked for increased women’s employability through technical and vocational education and training?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Lord asks a really important question. However, we have made sure that women and girls remain at the heart of each DfID programme in each country in which we are working, so we have not disaggregated that amount. I can assure the noble Lord that, with the agreement of the new SDGs, we continue to place girls and women at the heart of those programmes. We are really pleased that we got the stand-alone women SDG within the agreed SDG goals this September. However, there is a lot of work to be done and we are encouraging our partners to step up to the mark, just as the UK is doing.