Government Overseas Aid Commitment: Private Investment
Debate between Luke Graham and Penny Mordaunt(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I and my staff—both my political staff and my DFID staff—did not brief that. What I can say is that if we can lift people out of poverty, which we need the private sector to do, as they are the ones who can create jobs and close that enormous funding gap on the global goals, I hope that in future years we will be able to spend less money on these things, because there will not be the need. But that lies many years ahead. There will always be a need for humanitarian aid, but we have made huge progress over the past few decades in lifting people out of poverty, and I want us to finish the job in Africa.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
I welcome the comments from the Secretary of State on her commitment to the 0.7% target. Will she reassure the House that it remains a mission of this House and this Government to tackle the global challenges of climate change, humanitarian crises and economic development?
Penny Mordaunt
I absolutely can. That is why I am saying to the House, to the City and to our fellow donor nations that we have to start levering in others to help us with this agenda. If we really want to develop the global goals—we have been talking about the billions to trillions agenda for a very long time—we need to start delivering on it. Today, I have set out how we will start to do that.