| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
20 Jan 2003 : Column 20W—continued
Bangladesh
Mr. Cox: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will list the projects the UK is developing with the Bangladeshi Government in that country. [89769]
Clare Short: DFID is preparing its new Country Assistance Plan for Bangladesh which will be published in April 2003 and will give a detailed description of our future intentions.
DFID is presently developing the following projects:
| Project | Amount (£ million) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Chars development programme | 50 | Major livelihood programme for vulnerable communities living on the unstable sand islands in the Jamuna river |
| Developing Business Services Market | 9 | To develop services to support private sector growth |
| Financial Management Reform Programme | 25 | Programme co-funded with the Dutch to improve public expenditure management accounting and planning |
| Health and Nutrition Sector Programme | 75 | Second phase of the health sector programme aimed at delivering essential health package to all poor people |
| Support to National Arsenic Programme | 5 | To help the Government devise a comprehensive programme to mitigate the effects of arsenic in drinking water |
| Disaster Management | 7 | A project co-funded with UNDP to improve Government systems for responding to disasters |
| Support to State Owned Enterprise (SoE) closure | 6 | To meet redundancy costs of closing down loss making jute mills |
| Primary Education Development Programme II | 70 | Introduction of a sectoral approach to improve the quality and access to primary education |
| Rural Electrification Board | 50 | To increase electrification in rural areas |
| Public Access to Justice Project | 4 | To introduce concept of community policing with Bangladesh Police Force |
| Roads and Highways Institutional Development | 12 | To continue support reforms in the planning and implementation of road sector |
| Trade Capacity building | To be determined | To support short and long term capacity for the Ministry of Commerce in international trade negotiations. Co-funded with EC |
Brazil
Mr. Key: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what percentage of her Department's contributions to poverty reduction in Brazil in the years (a) 2000, (b) 2001, and (c) 2002 was spent on water and sanitation projects; what assessment she has made of the privatisation of water and sewage treatment in Brazil; and if she will make a statement. [90414]
Clare Short: Around 4 per cent. of DFID's budget for Brazil was spent on water and sanitation projects in the financial years 1999–2000 and 2000–01. There was no expenditure in the financial year 2001–02 and none is planned for 2002–03. The EC programme in Brazil, to which DFID contributes 19 per cent. of the total, is not active in the sector.
DFID has made no assessment of the privatisation of water and sewage treatment in Brazil, as this is not a priority area for DFID support.
20 Jan 2003 : Column 21W
Mr. Key: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what her Department's aid budget to Brazil is this year; and how much of that will go to water and sanitation projects. [90415]
Clare Short: DFID's budget for bilateral development co-operation with Brazil for the financial year 2002–03 is £8.7 million. None of that budget will be spent on water and sanitation projects. The EC programme in Brazil, to which DFID contributes 19 per cent. of the total, has no plans in the sector.
The World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, of which DFID is a shareholder, currently have lending in the sector of over US$1 billion and US$2 billion respectively.
Mr. Key: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment her Department has made of water and sanitation provision in Brazil to (a) the rural population and (b) the urban population; and if she will make a statement. [90416]
Clare Short: None. In line with DFID's aim to focus our development effort in Brazil, we have agreed with the Government that the water and sewerage sector is not a priority area for DFID support.
Debt Relief
Mr. Connarty: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps her Department is taking to ensure that its additional debt relief beyond HIPC provides effective assistance in tackling poverty in indebted countries. [91679]
Clare Short: Before a country can qualify for debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, it must produce an interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) at Decision Point, setting out what action it will take to develop a full PRSP. To reach Completion Point, the full PRSP must be in place, and under implementation for at least one year. The PRSP sets out the policy action governments are taking to reduce poverty and provide a budgetary framework not only for spending the savings from debt relief but also for allocating all other aid and government revenues that they have the greatest impact on poverty reduction. We believe strongly in the value of the PRSP process, which is leading to improved economic management and social reform. The additional bilateral debt relief provided by the UK goes towards these poverty reduction programmes. The UK is also aligning its development assistance programmes with the PRSPs.
Democratic Republic of Congo
Mr. Key: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment she has made of the UN report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo; what assessment she has made of the British companies named in the report; and if she will make a statement. [90413]
Clare Short: The latest UN Panel Report has provided a valuable further assessment of the illegal exploitation of resources in the DRC, but we and other members of the Security Council have asked for
20 Jan 2003 : Column 22W
additional information on the specific claims made in the report. In particular we have asked for sight of the information corroborating the allegations made against British companies and nationals. Once this has been received we will take a view on what further action to pursue in relation to the allegations.
Departmental Expenditure (Newsprint)
Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the total expenditure of her Department was on newspapers, magazines and periodicals in 2002. [90523]
Clare Short: The Department no longer purchases newspapers, magazines and periodicals from a central budget, but full details of decentralised expenditure could be provided only at disproportionate cost. The central expenditure is shown in the table for the year 2002.
| £ | |
|---|---|
| Magazines and periodicals | 99,041.12 |
| Newspapers | 3,385.13 |
| Total cost | 102,426.25 |
Running Costs
Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the running costs of (a) the Department and (b) each of its sponsored agencies were in (i) 1997 and (ii) the most recent year for which figures are available. [90709]
Clare Short: Detailed information on administration costs for the Department for International Development, going back to 1998–99 and with projections to 2003–04, is set out in Table 6 of the 2002 departmental report (CM 5414). Data for years before 1998–99 are not available on the same basis. Final outturn figures for 2001–02 were published in DFID's Resource Accounts for 2001–02 (HC 48). Updated information, with plans to 2005–06, will be published in the 2003 departmental report in the spring.
Departmental Staff
Mr. Cousins: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the distribution of her Department's whole time equivalent staff was, including the staff in agencies and other bodies reporting to her, in each Government office region and nation of the UK (a) in 1996 and (b) at the most recent available period. [90475]
Clare Short: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him by my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Cabinet Office on 15 January (Official Report, column 609W).
Famine
Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what her estimate is of how many people are suffering from famine in (a) Zambia, (b) Malawi, (c) Zimbabwe and (d) other countries south of the Zambezi; and how much humanitarian aid was delivered to each country in 2002. [91257]
20 Jan 2003 : Column 23W
Clare Short: My estimate of how many people are suffering from famine is guided the by the Emergency Food Security Assessment Report prepared by the Southern Africa Development Community:
- Lesotho: 650,000 people (30 per cent. of the population) will require an estimated 36,000 tonnes of emergency cereal food assistance through to March 2003.
Malawi: 3,300,000 people (29 per cent. of the population) will require an estimated 237,000 tonnes of emergency cereal food assistance through to March 2003.
Mozambique: 590,000 people (3 per cent. of the population) will require an estimated 48,000 tonnes of emergency cereal food assistance through to March 2003.
Swaziland: 270,000 people (24 per cent. of the population) will require an estimated 20,000 tonnes of emergency cereal food assistance through to March 2003.
Zambia: 2,900,000 people (26 per cent. of the population) will require an estimated 224,000 tonnes of emergency cereal food assistance through to March 2003.
Zimbabwe: 6,700,000 people (49 per cent. of the population) will require an estimated 486,000 tonnes of emergency cereal food assistance through to March 2003.
| Donor | Contribution |
|---|---|
| USA1 | 175.2 |
| EU-EC-ECHO(2) | 112.7 |
| United Kingdom | 87.2 |
| Sweden(2) | 19.1 |
| Germany(2) | 13.3 |
| Netherlands(2) | 12.4 |
| Italy(2) | 8.8 |
| Norway | 8.4 |
| Japan | 7.9 |
| Finland(2) | 7.8 |
| Canada | 5.5 |
| Denmark(2) | 5.3 |
| Australia | 4.9 |
| Ireland(2) | 4.2 |
| Switzerland | 3.1 |
| France(2) | 1.9 |
| Belgium(2) | 1.5 |
| Spain(2) | 0.5 |
| Austria(2) | 0.2 |
| Luxemburg(2) | 0.2 |
(1) USAID Southern Africa Complex Food Security Crisis Situation Report 5 (FY 2003)
(2) As reported through ECHO 14 point fax system 1 January– 19 December 2002 (Euro/GBP exchange rate Financial Times 11 December 2002: 0.64008)
Source:
Data from Reliefweb/USAID/EC
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |