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Eritrea

9. Sue Doughty: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what discussions she has had with the UN co-ordinator for Eritrea regarding food shortages. [104783]

Clare Short: Eritrea has requested food aid for 60 per cent. of its population. Many donors fear this is larger than need and could damage agricultural production. We have provided £3.35 million towards the appeal and are monitoring the situation closely.

Aid Policy

10. Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the Government's health priorities are within their development aid policies. [104784]

Clare Short: Our paper "Better Health for Poor People" sets out our strategy.

DFID's four main priorities are:

(i) Addressing the priority health problems of poor people by improving access to care, services and products. This includes reproductive and maternal health and support for the prevention of communicable diseases, particularly TB and malaria.


(ii) Investing in strong, efficient and effective health systems.


(iii) Promoting a more effective global response to HIV/AIDS.


(iv) Creating the social, political and physical environments to improve health and increasing access to clean water and sanitation.

Afghanistan

11. Paddy Tipping: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of aid operations in Afghanistan. [104785]

Clare Short: The Afghanistan Transitional Administration has just hosted the first Afghanistan Development Forum in Kabul, to present its budget to donors for the next three years. The collective assessment of the Administration and donors there was that tremendous progress has been made since the fall of the Taliban in November 2001 but that great challenges remain. 2003 will be a critical year for Afghanistan—improving security beyond Kabul, extending the writ of

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the central Administration, increasing domestic revenue collection, agreeing a new constitution, preparing for elections, stimulating private sector growth, creating sustainable livelihoods and providing essential services for people, reintegrating more returning refugees and disarming, demobilising and reintegrating militias. To achieve this, Afghanistan will require very effective international support. Donors and the Administration agreed at the Development Forum that this meant that donors must focus their aid on the priorities set out by the Administration in their budget. This assistance should be channelled through a blend of the most effective instruments, reflecting the limited absorptive capacity of each of them: direct funding of the Government through multi-donor trust funds, funding of UN programmes, and direct funding of NGOs and private sector contractors.

Zimbabwe

14. Ann Winterton: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what overseas aid projects she is supporting in Zimbabwe in the forthcoming financial year. [104788]

Clare Short: DFID's current feeding programmes for Zimbabwe extend until June 2003. It is already evident that the crisis in food production will persist for a third year, as the structural causes of agricultural decline have not been addressed. Detailed assessments and the plans of the Zimbabwe government are awaited; from there we will develop specific programmes. We expect to maintain support for humanitarian needs for a further year along similar lines to our activities during the last year, working with the UN and non-governmental agencies.

DFID's on-going £26 million programme of support to help address HIV/AIDS and to increase access to health care for vulnerable people in Zimbabwe also continues until 2005.

Millennium Development Goals

Roger Casale: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps she is taking to use the international finance facility to meet the millennium development goals. [104789]

Clare Short: The Chancellor and I have launched proposals for an international finance facility, designed specifically to help meet the internationally agreed millennium development goals. We are working with international partners, the business community and civil society to develop this proposal and to build support.

Bangladesh

Ms Oona King: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development for what reasons aid to Bangladesh decreased between 2000–01 and 2001–02; and whether it will be increased to the 2000–01 level in 2003–04. [104643]

Clare Short: Total DFID expenditure in Bangladesh in 2001–02 was reported as £62 million. However an additional £10 million which was spent in that year will be included in the figures for 2002–03 due to changes in DFID's end of year accounting procedures.

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Statistics on DFID's programmes are based on our internal accounting and management information systems. In accordance with government policy, DFID has moved to Resource Accounting and the figures for 2001–02 were the first to be produced from the new system. For 2001–02 onwards, all payments are counted in the year in which they are made whereas in previous years, during a limited period of time, payments relating to the previous year were attributed to the earlier year. The figures for 2001–02 are therefore "light" by the amount of these prior year payments.

It is estimated that total expenditure on development assistance in 2001–02 was understated by around £140 million. This is a global aggregate which cannot be broken down by country, but includes the £10 million mentioned above for Bangladesh. Hence some individual country expenditure may appear to have dropped in that year. It is anticipated that the figures for Bangladesh will return to their earlier level of over £70 million in 2002–03, increasing to around £80 million for the next three years.

Departmental Catering Services

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the cost was of (a) the in-house canteen and (b) other catering services provided by the Department in 2002. [104255]

Clare Short: The information is as follows:

(a) The cost of the in-house canteens for the period January-December 2002 for DFID are as follows:

Abercrombie House: £30,122


Palace Street: £72,349

(b) The cost of additional refreshments and other services provided by the caterers and which are not covered by the respective contracts:

Abercrombie House: £13,080


Palace Street: £141,000

Departmental Creche Facilities

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what crèche facilities are provided by her Department; and at what cost. [104291]

Clare Short: My Department does not provide crèche facilities. We do provide holiday playschemes for staff in our offices in London and East Kilbride. The costs of the holiday playschemes are as follows:

East Kilbride

£10 annual registration fee for first child and £5 for each additional family member plus £9 per child per day, paid wholly by the parents.

London

£30 per child per day (as at December 2002) of which the parent and DFID pay £15 each.

£26 per child per day (for the remainder of 2002) of which the parent and DFID pay £13 each.

For 2002, the cost to DFID for subsidising DFID parents' use of the Whitehall Holiday Playscheme was £2,256.

Departmental Events

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will list the

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(a) conferences, (b) seminars, (c) workshops, (d) exhibitions and (e) press conferences which have been sponsored by her Department and which took place on non-departmental premises in the last 12 months, broken down by title, purpose, date and cost. [104286]

Clare Short: This information is not held centrally and it would incur a disproportionate cost to provide it.

EU Development Assistance

James Purnell: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps she is taking to increase the effectiveness of the targeting at poverty reduction of EU development assistance. [104573]

Clare Short: In 2003–04 I expect my Department to spend over £1 billion on EC development assistance, which, with some exceptions, under performs both in effectiveness and targeting on poverty reduction. The Commission spent only 43 per cent. of its official development assistance in 2001 in low-income countries and although an improvement from 38 per cent. in the previous year. The Government's aim is to ensure the Commission seeks to spend 70 per cent. of the development budget in low-income countries by 2006.

We have been working since 1997 to improve the effectiveness and poverty focus of EC development assistance. We welcome the positive steps that were taken by the Commission to reform the management of external assistance and are pressing the EC to continue and deepen the reforms. Prioritisation needs radical overhaul. Allocation decisions too often reflect the political consensus by the Council of Ministers and European Parliament to maintain spending at historical levels in middle-income regions, which reflect domestic or foreign policy considerations. We want to see the pledge, explicit in the EC's Development Policy Statement of November 2000, to focus on poverty reduction reflected in annual decisions over resource transfers.

We will continue to push for basing allocations on developmental needs of the poorest countries through all the channels available to us including the annual budget negotiations, the revision of the Asia and Latin America Regulation, the mid-term review of MEDA and the country strategy paper process which determines individual allocations. We have had some initial success eg in 2002 securing additional Euro100 million from the EC's External Actions Budget for Asia and a commitment of Euro1 billion for the rehabilitation of Afghanistan.

In the longer term the discussions of the Convention debate on the Future of Europe and forthcoming debates on the EU budget ceilings for the period 2007–13 offer opportunities to reinforce the poverty efforts of the EC's external actions. I believe the EC should focus efforts on where they will be effective and can add value in their impact on economic growth and poverty reduction. Otherwise the EC should cut back its activities.

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