Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assistance his Department provides towards helping the peace process in the Mano River region.

My Department plays a leading role in a cross-Government effort to strengthen governance, development, prosperity and security across the four countries of the Mano River Union: Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Her Majesty's Government also pays United Nations assessed contributions to peacekeeping missions in the region. The UK is also the largest bilateral donor in the post-Ebola recovery programme in Sierra Leone. As a result of UK support considerable progress has been achieved. Sierra Leone's armed forces now participate in peacekeeping deployments in other African countries. The UN peacekeeping missions in Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia have been successful. The mission in the former will close in June 2017 and the Security Council will decide on the latter's future this month.