Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether her Department has made an assessment of (a) the adequacy of its expenditure on and (b) the value for money of its work on violence against women and girls.

As part of the recent ICAI report on DFID’S efforts to eliminate violence against women and girls (VAWG), and building on a DFID mapping exercise from 2014, ICAI identified 127 VAWG programmes – up from 64 in 2012. The value of these programmes came to £184 million in 2015. The value for money question is specifically addressed in our pioneering violence against women and girls research and innovation programme called ‘What Works to Prevent Violence’, and we will be incorporating findings into programme development as they emerge.