Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how her Department is using international aid to increase the literacy rate amongst women in Nigeria.

The UK has a number of development programmes in Nigeria which will seek to increase the literacy rate amongst girls and women. The Girls’ Education Project aims to improve basic education for 1 million girls in Northern Nigeria where 7 out of 10 women cannot read at all. Another programme, Educating Nigerian Girls in New Enterprises, supports 18,000 young mothers and out-of-school-girls to increase their access to basic literacy and numeracy, including financial literacy.