Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the (a) effectiveness, (b) potential and (c) adequacy of relations between the UK and East Africa.

East Africa and the UK have strong people-to-people ties, vital trading relations, critical security partnerships, and British institutions such as the BBC are hugely popular. We have a significant Official Development Assistance (ODA) portfolio - in October 2024, Lord Collins visited Ethiopia, where he announced £16m in funding to support the Demobilisation and Reintegration Programme, and Seychelles, to sign an ambitious economic security partnership on illicit finance. As penholder on Somalia at the UN Security Council, we delivered a mandate for the new African Union Stabilisation and Support Mission. With sufficient stability, East Africa has potential for greater commercial cooperation with UK and the new Africa approach will set out a distinctive UK offer which addresses shared interests and strengthens partnerships.