International Development: Aid Distribution

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the UK is a leading player in global health and nutrition forms a big part of that. We recently had debates on its importance. We continue to support the Government of Japan in organising the Tokyo summit and we will play a leading role in it.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister said to the Chamber last week that 90% of the world’s most extreme poor would be living in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. That is why the Government’s announcement in August 2018 that the UK would be the largest G7 investor in Africa by 2022 was such a significant target. Without any announcement, that target has been dropped and replaced by language, as the Minister said last week, about being “impactful” or, as in the report of the UK-Africa Investment Summit, an “investor of choice”. If global Britain is to mean anything, it must be that our word is our bond to the world’s most vulnerable. I ask the Minister a very simple question: why has this target been dropped?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, on climate, we have announced the doubling of our UK international climate finance to help developing countries turn the tide against climate change. We will host COP 26 in Glasgow. Much of that support will be going to African nations that will be badly affected. We held the UK-Africa Investment Summit a couple of weeks ago, which underlines the importance we give to our relationship with Africa, and we will continue to do so.