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World Trade Negotiations

15. Mr. Burns: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will make a statement on the progress of world trade negotiations, as they affect less developed countries. [151177]

Mr. Gareth Thomas: There have been intensive informal discussions since the Cancun ministerial meeting between Perez del Castillo, chair of the WTO Governing Council, and the various WTO delegations in Geneva, to try to resolve the outstanding issues left over from the Ministerial. However, del Castillo reported to the senior officials meeting on 15 December that these discussions had not achieved their objective.

Despite this, I am encouraged by the statements made by all WTO members that they remain committed to a resumption of talks and to the ambitions of the Doha Development Agenda. The expected increase in global welfare from a reduction of trade barriers will be shared by both developing and developed countries. It is in all our interest that we make progress with the trade negotiations and bring them to a successful conclusion.

Afghanistan

John Barrett: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development (1) what steps are being taken to ensure recent flooding in the Herat region of Afghanistan does not hamper future crop production; [150977]

(2) what assessment he has made of the impact which recent flooding has had on (a) basic transport and (b) educational infrastructure in the Herat region of Afghanistan; [150978]

(3) if he will make a statement on the humanitarian situation in the Herat region of Afghanistan, following recent flooding. [150975]

Mr. Gareth Thomas: A three-day persistent rain, which started on 16 January 2004, resulted in heavy flooding in Guzara district of Herat Province.

Although there were no human casualties, 500 families were affected, 250 houses were partially destroyed and over 850 hectares of cultivated land was left under water. However, there are as yet no confirmed reports of educational or basic transport infrastructure destruction.

A combined disaster management team including representatives from Government Ministries, UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs),

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has dispatched an assessment mission to the affected villages. Humanitarian assistance has now been supplied to the affected families by international aid agencies, which includes tents, blankets, jerry cans, kitchen utensils, and one-month food ration. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has pledged to provide seeds and will work on re-enforcement of the Guzara district canal, while the US led Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) has earmarked US $50,000 for rehabilitation efforts.

John Barrett: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what impact the closure of the Salang tunnel has had on humanitarian efforts in the northern regions of Afghanistan; and if he will make a statement. [150979]

Mr. Gareth Thomas: Heavy snowfalls on 15 and 16 January with high winds and avalanches forced a temporary closure of the Salang tunnel, the key route from Kabul to the country's northern provinces. However, this closure was fortunately short, and the Salang road and tunnel reopened to traffic on 18 January. Although all UN road missions were temporarily suspended during the closure period, there are no reports of any significant impact on humanitarian operations, as a result of this closure.

Bangladesh

Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what measures are in place to provide people living in the slums of Bangladesh with (a) clean water and (b) electricity. [150345]

Mr. Gareth Thomas: As elsewhere, slum dwellers in Bangladesh have few legal entitlements to essential services. As a consequence, they experience poor service provision, including water and electricity.

There are two distinct types of slum in Bangladesh, public and private:

(i) In public slums, some NGOs have taken the initiative to act as intermediaries between municipal water service providers and slum dwellers occupying public land. These NGOs become the customer of the water service provider and supply the slum dwellers through tap points. Those who use the tap points pay for the water they use. DFID is supporting such activities through a £17 million grant to WaterAid. Electricity is not usually affordable for slum dwellers, although it is not unusual for houses to be served by illegal connections; and

(ii) In private slums, the landlord makes arrangements for the provision of services such as water and electricity and charges slum dwellers for use of the service.

Central America

Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what measures are in place to aid the employees of garment factories in Central America who are exploited by their employers. [150346]

Mr. Gareth Thomas: There are two sets of measures in place to try to assist employees of garment factories in Central America. First, in a range of Central America countries governments have in place, national Competitiveness Programmes. In Nicaragua for example, this Programme is supported through the World Wide Response on Apparel Production (WRAP), and funded by the World Bank. It aims to put in place codes of conduct that include labour standards.

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Second, US retailers, the main purchasers of garments from the Central American garment or "maquilla" industry, are under pressure from northern consumers to conform to these codes and many are including monitoring of such codes as part of contractual agreements with wholesale garment producers, as well as spot checks in factories. In such cases lack of compliance is subject to sanctions by the retail purchasers.

During 2003 DFID Central America supported a national level workshop in Nicaragua to enable government, private sector and civil society to discuss national codes. This was the first time in Central America that institutions involved in the setting, operating and monitoring of codes had all met to debate this issue.

Ethiopia

John Barrett: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps are being taken by his Department to ensure that food aid in Ethiopia is purchased from local farmers. [150104]

Hilary Benn: During the crisis of 2002–03, DFID was largely unable to provide food aid from local purchase. This was because of the severity of the overall national food shortage. Ethiopia required 1.8 million metric tonnes of food assistance, and at the request of the Ethiopian Government, this was mostly imported.

This year will provide better opportunities for local purchase of grains as production is up by 46 per cent. DFID is also considering providing cash instead of food to people in need. This will reduce the negative impact of imported food aid on local markets and farmers and will increase the purchasing power of those affected by food shortage.

John Barrett: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will make a statement on the predicted harvest in Ethiopia and its impact on the numbers requiring food aid in that country. [150105]

Hilary Benn: The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) estimate national cereal and pulse production for the main harvest of 2003–04 in Ethiopia to be just over 13 million metric tonnes. This is a 46 per cent. increase on the 2002–03 harvest and an 11 per cent. increase on the last five year average.

Despite the good crop, about 7.2 million people will need food aid—almost half that of last year. This equals an overall food requirement of 980,000 metric tonnes compared with 1.8 million metric tonnes in 2002–03.

Information Technology

Mr. Allan: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what cost savings have been made in his Department since the introduction of the Information Technology Procurement Centre of Excellence; and how these were calculated. [151047]

Mr. Gareth Thomas: DFID are currently embedding the key COE functions in our programme for reviewing Business Processes and Corporate systems (which is called Catalyst). As cost benefits will not accrue until improvements start to take effect, it is too early to measure cost savings.

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Detailed information will be available in future once the Catalyst programme is fully in place and has had an opportunity to collect the necessary statistics.

Mr. Allan: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what audit mechanisms are in place to determine whether all Information Technology hardware and software products are being properly utilised in his Department. [151055]

Mr. Gareth Thomas: A series of audit mechanisms are in place within DFID to determine that all IT hardware and software products are being properly utilised. User guidance on Acceptable Use is in force and is published on the DFID Intranet (InSight).

The arrangements to track hardware assets are as follows:

1. Details of PC and printer hardware are maintained in the Desktop Inventory software package by Peregrine. Equipment is held both by type and by allocated serial number, and details are entered at the time of issue (or re-4 issue) of to whom equipment is issued and where it is located. Periodic stocktakes are undertaken to confirm and to update the information held in the inventory database, and anomalies are investigated.

2. Details of remote working laptop computers are held in a separate Microsoft Access database. This has been found to be more convenient from a support point of view since laptops tend to require rather more maintenance in service, and more configuration information can be held in this form of corporate record. Again, the equipment is recorded by a uniquely- allocated serial number, and is allocated to a named individual.

3. A separate issue and return record is maintained for pool laptops, under which authorised individuals may draw a laptop, and sign for it when taking it out. Issues are time dependant, with users being responsible for the safe return of the equipment—late returns are followed up.

The arrangements to record software products in use are as follows:

1. DFID employs a standard desktop system, which is distributed to all users. The latest version of this is locked down—this means that only the system supervisor can load application software onto the machine, and executable program files cannot be downloaded from the Internet.

2. The Information Systems Department will load other authorised software for specific individuals or departments who require it, but not until it has been fully tested to confirm that it does not interfere with any other software loaded on the machine or the network.

3. The Desktop Inventory product is used centrally to report on what software is loaded on DFID computers, and to check for the presence of files that contravene the central Acceptable Use Policy. Where suspicious files (eg .MP3, .jpg and .bmp files) are identified, these are either deleted or the reason for their presence is investigated by the Technical Security Manager.

Software licences are held and managed centrally, as a manual exercise at the moment. A Software Asset Management (SAM) system is currently under investigation to automate this process.

Operationally, user activity on the system, including file accesses, is logged, and the log files are subject to spot checks. User Internet activity is likewise logged and available for spot checks—this includes sites visited from remote working systems.

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