Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the effect of her Department's expenditure in the Central African Republic on that country's economic prospects.

DFID officials have conducted quarterly visits to the Central African Republic throughout 2014 and 2015 to assess the impact of our programmes. Annual Reviews of progress are available on DFID’s Development Tracker at http://devtracker.dfid.gov.uk/projects/GB-1-204426/documents.

DFID is committed to supporting economic recovery initiatives in CAR. The conflict that has affected CAR since 2013 has had a severe impact on agriculture, which represents almost 60% of the country’s economy. The UK has provided £27million since 2013 to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Common Humanitarian Fund and NGOs to provide urgent humanitarian aid as well as agricultural inputs and technical training to CAR farmers, and to facilitate cattle vaccination campaigns to support traditional herders. In 2015, UK funding will support the livelihoods of more than 170,000 people in CAR.