Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps his Department is taking to ensure its programmes on girls’ education integrate nutrition objectives.

The UK Government is a global leader on girls’ education. Helping poor countries provide 12 years of good quality education, particularly for girls, is a top priority for this Government.

We know that in order for children to learn, they need the right nutrients. When children get all the basic nutrients they need in the first 1,000 days of life, they do better in school and earn more as adults.

DFID’s 2018 education policy commits us to delivering early education and nutrition interventions together where possible. We are pursuing this by building the evidence base through the new ‘Thrive’ early childhood development research programme and through investments in early education in Rwanda and our funding to the Global Partnership for Education.

DFID also funds the Girls’ Education Challenge, the largest global fund dedicated to girls’ education. It is supporting up to 1.5 million girls across 17 countries, and a number of these projects are also delivering joint education and nutrition interventions. For example, the Making Ghanaian Girls Great, Girls’ Education Challenge project in Ghana is supporting marginalised girls with nutrition training on locally available food to ensure they have balanced diets.

The UK Government is a global leader on nutrition; we have reached 60.3 million people with nutrition services in 25 countries since 2015.