Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what his Department's spending was on Overseas Development Aid in (a) 2013-14, (b) 2014-15 and (c) the first 10 months of 2015-16; and what the recipient countries of that aid were.

In 2013-14 the Department spent £11.66 million on Official Development Assistance. In 2014-15 the Department spent £11.5 million on Official Development Assistance.

The Department’s Official Development Assistance in 2013-14 and 2014-15 is a proportion of the Department’s assessed contribution or subscription, to the World Health Organization (WHO). The subscription funds our contribution to all the functions of the WHO. The WHO provides the leadership and co-ordination role in global health for all its 194 member countries. As part of this role it provides technical support and assistance on the ground.

WHO is able to use the assessed contribution flexibly to fund its priorities as agreed by the United Kingdom and other member countries. We do not therefore have specific data of individual countries supported through our assessed contribution. However, more specific information on WHO funding flows to regions, individual countries and programmes can be found on WHO’s web portal at:

http://extranet.who.int/programmebudget/Biennium2014/Financing

The 2015 Official Development Assistance figures have not yet been finalised. The Department for International Development will release the 2015 figures in the National Statistics publication on 1 April 2016.