Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps the Government took to tackle HIV and AIDS worldwide in the (a) late 1990s and (b) early 2000s; and how much funding was allocated to that work during that time period.

The Department for International Development (DFID)'s departmental report in 2000 (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/67962/deptreport2000.pdf) summarised UK efforts to tackle HIV and AIDS worldwide in 1999. This included multilateral support to agencies such as UNAIDS and bilateral sexual and reproductive health programmes in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, China and India. During 1999, DFID also announced £14 million for global AIDS vaccine research.

In 2001, DFID published a new Strategy on HIV/AIDS, and this was refreshed in 2004. In 2003, DFID established a new HIV/AIDS Policy Team and published a Call for Action on HIV/AIDS as part of intensified efforts to tackle the pandemic. A National Audit Office review of DFID's response to HIV/AIDS in 2004 (https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2004/06/0304664es.pdf) identified "DFID's broad-based approach, its flexibility of response in-country, and its role in supporting research as strengths", the review also included an analysis of spend UK aid spend on HIV and AIDS.