Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 3 March 2023 to Question 153719 on Global Disinformation Index, whether that Global Disinformation Index funding is spent solely on activities outside the Commonwealth.

Between 2020 and 2021, FCDO funded Global Disinformation Index (GDI) activity covering media markets in South Africa, Australia, Canada, Kenya and India, in addition to markets outside the Commonwealth. As with all GDI work of this kind, GDI operated in a transparent way, for example by informing media companies in advance that they would be included in surveys.

Sadly we have seen many examples over recent years of hostile state and non-state actors exploiting online and traditional media based across a wide range of countries for malign purposes. The work of organisations like GDI is critical in identifying and countering this malign use of the information space.