Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what support his Department is providing to countries in the Middle East and North Africa to (a) counter plagues of locusts and to (b) support populations affected by them.

DFID provides approximately £17 million per annum in core funding to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), a strategic objective of which is to “increase the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crises” such as locusts. In 2018, UK core funding to the FAO supported the Desert Locust Information System, which provides an early warning information system for countries including in the Middle East and North Africa.

DFID also funds a range of programmes that work to improve the monitoring of and response to pests more generally. These include the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux International (CABI) Plantwise and Action on Invasives programmes, the development and testing of biopesticides by the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, and new work under development with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to strengthen pest and disease surveillance, forecasting and the coordination and capacity of plant health organisations.