Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the (a) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Democratic Republic of Congo: Humanitarian Response Plan 2023 and (b) UK–Democratic Republic of Congo development partnership on (i) development and (ii) the prevention of genocide in that country.

The UK is committed to supporting efforts to build stability and reduce violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs-led (OCHA) Humanitarian Response Plan is a critical tool for the coordination of the activities of the humanitarian community in their response to urgent humanitarian needs. The UK leads by example, delivering life-saving humanitarian assistance with our £21 million programme in eastern DRC as well as urging the international community to give more resources and lobbying the DRC Government to take responsibility to improve access. Three projects in eastern DRC received £1 million in funding from the Jo Cox Memorial Grant (JCMG) to identify and prevent identity-based violence. These projects were undertaken between July 2019 and July 2022. Workshops supported by the JCMG have helped to inform British Embassy Kinshasa's current atrocity prevention approach including monitoring and calling out hate speech and ethnically motivated attacks against Tutsi and Rwandaphone communities in DRC.