Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much funding his Department has allocated to organisations which tackle the use of child soldiers in conflict in each of the last five years.

The FCO has provided funding to both UN organisations and civil society groups, to tackle the use of child soldiers in armed conflict. This totals £1,864,000 since 2015.

This figure comprises funding to the UN Department of Peacekeeping to provide key child protection staff, totalling just over £1 million from 2016-19.

Between 2015 and 2019, we will have also given £620,000 to the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, making the UK the number one donor to this Office. We have lobbied others to increase their contributions.

We have also provided £75,000 in both financial years 2015/16 and 2016/17, as well as £85,000 in financial year 2017/18, to the NGO Children and Armed Conflict Watch List.