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449466

registered interest
date	01/02/2016
answering body	Department for International Development
answering dept id	20
answering dept short name	International Development
answering dept sort name	International Development
hansard heading	Syria: Malnutrition
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to tackle starvation and malnourishment in Syria.
tabling member constituency	Huddersfield
tabling member printed	Mr Barry Sheerman
uin	25045
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/02/2016 answer text <p>The &quot;Supporting Syria and the Region London 2016&quot; Conference was held on 4 February last week, and more than US$11 billion was pledged to support people in Syria and the region affected by the conflict, the largest amount raised in one day for a humanitarian crisis. Commitments made at the Conference will help to create 1.1 million jobs and provide education to an additional 1 million children. The UK remains at the forefront of the response to the crisis in Syria and the region. We have doubled our commitment and have now pledged a total of over £2.3 billion, our largest ever response to a single humanitarian crisis. The outcomes of the conference are reflected in the Co-hosts' statement available on the Conference website <a href="http://www.supportingsyria2016.com/" target="_blank">www.supportingsyria2016.com</a>.</p><p> </p><p>Inside Syria we continue to support the United Nations’ World Food Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, UNICEF and non-governmental organisations, to provide emergency food rations and nutrition interventions and to assist Syrians in growing their own food. Since the beginning of the crisis, UK support has, for instance, provided over 15 million food rations, access to clean water for over 1.6 million people and supported almost 500,000 people with agriculture and livelihoods interventions.</p><p> </p><p>There are 486,700 people living in besieged areas and around 4.6 million in hard-to-reach areas in Syria. Across Syria, Assad and other parties to the conflict are wilfully impeding humanitarian access on a daily basis. It is outrageous, unacceptable and illegal to use starvation as a weapon of war.</p><p> </p><p>On 11 January 2016, the UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent confirmed that aid convoys of humanitarian assistance had arrived in the besieged and hard-to-reach towns of Madaya, Foah and Kefraya. Further convoys have since arrived. DFID funding to UN agencies directly supported these convoys with food parcels, nutritional supplements, essential drugs and non-food items including winterisation kits. This is part of the UK’s ongoing support to the UN and international NGOs since the start of the conflict to deliver aid in hard to reach and besieged areas of Syria.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The most effective way to get food to people who are starving and stop these needless and horrific deaths is for Assad and all parties to the conflict to adhere to international humanitarian law. That is why the UK Government continues to call on the Assad regime and all parties to the conflict to allow immediate and unfettered access to all areas of Syria. On 4 February, the Supporting Syria and the Region Conference also brought leaders together to demand an end to these abuses and obstruction of humanitarian aid.</p> answering member constituency New Forest West answering member printed Mr Desmond Swayne question first answered 08/02/2016 14:13:57 answering member 55 label Biography information for Sir Desmond Swayne
tabling member	411 label Biography information for Mr Barry Sheerman

449467

registered interest
date	01/02/2016
answering body	Department for International Development
answering dept id	20
answering dept short name	International Development
answering dept sort name	International Development
hansard heading	Syria: Overseas Aid
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of aid disposed in Syria in protecting people from disease and starvation.
tabling member constituency	Huddersfield
tabling member printed	Mr Barry Sheerman
uin	25046
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/02/2016 answer text <p>UK support has reached hundreds of thousands of people in Syria, enabling vulnerable Syrians to survive. By the end of June 2015, UK support inside Syria had provided over 15.1 million food rations, access to clean water for over 1.6 million people, 2 million medical consultations and resulted in over 6.9 million instances when people benefited from sanitation and hygiene activities.</p><p> </p><p>We are concerned that the 2015 UN appeals for the Syria crisis were severely underfunded, meaning Syrian people did not receive the food, shelter and medical treatment they needed so desperately. The UK is playing its part. The &quot;Supporting Syria and the Region London 2016)&quot; Conference was held on 4 February last week, and more than US$11 billion was pledged to support people in Syria and the region affected by the conflict, the largest amount raised in one day for a humanitarian crisis. Commitments made at the Conference will help to create 1.1 million jobs and provide education to an additional 1 million children. The UK remains at the forefront of the response to the crisis in Syria and the region. We have doubled our commitment and have now pledged a total of over £2.3 billion, our largest ever response to a single humanitarian crisis.</p><p> </p><p>Across Syria, Assad and other parties to the conflict are wilfully impeding humanitarian access on a daily basis. It is outrageous, unacceptable and illegal to use starvation as a weapon of war.</p><p> </p><p>The UN, the Red Cross Movement and NGO partners are best placed to deliver aid to people who are starving. They have the mandate, expertise and capacity to assess needs and deliver an appropriate, timely response. We continue to press for them to be granted full access to all areas in need. We also lobbied hard for UN Security Council resolutions 2165, 2191 and 2258, enabling the UN to deliver aid across borders without the consent of the regime. As a result, 240 shipments of cross-border aid have been delivered by road to Syrians in need.</p><p> </p><p>The most effective way to get food and medical assistance to vulnerable Syrians is for Assad and all parties to the conflict to adhere to international humanitarian law. That is why the UK Government is calling on the Assad regime and all parties to the conflict to allow immediate and unfettered access to all areas of Syria.</p> answering member constituency New Forest West answering member printed Mr Desmond Swayne question first answered 08/02/2016 14:03:28 answering member 55 label Biography information for Sir Desmond Swayne
tabling member	411 label Biography information for Mr Barry Sheerman

449468

registered interest
date	01/02/2016
answering body	Department for International Development
answering dept id	20
answering dept short name	International Development
answering dept sort name	International Development
hansard heading	Syria: Education
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the effect of attacks on schools in Syria on children's education in that country.
tabling member constituency	Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath
tabling member printed	Roger Mullin
uin	25033
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/02/2016 answer text <p>We are deeply concerned about the impact of the conflict on Syrian children and young people. Children continue to be killed, injured and recruited by parties to the conflict. According to the UN, 35 schools were attacked in 2015 alone, with one quarter of all Syrian schools now closed, damaged or destroyed. Consequently 2.1 million children inside Syria are out of school. This will have profound implications for years to come if it is not urgently addressed.</p><p> </p><p>That is why the UK helped to launch and mobilise international support for the No Lost Generation Initiative (NLGI). As part of this support, we have allocated £115 million to provide protection, psychosocial support and education for children affected by the crisis in Syria and the region. As a result, more than 308,000 children have been reached with child protection initiatives inside Syria, mainly in the form of psychosocial consultations and child-friendly spaces. In addition, almost 228,000 children have received formal and informal education inside Syria, allowing them to catch up on lost learning time.</p><p> </p><p>The &quot;Supporting Syria and the Region London 2016&quot; Conference was held on 4 February last week, and more than US$11 billion was pledged to support people in Syria and the region affected by the conflict, the largest amount raised in one day for a humanitarian crisis. Commitments made at the Conference include education for an additional 1 million children.</p> answering member constituency New Forest West answering member printed Mr Desmond Swayne question first answered 08/02/2016 16:48:09 answering member 55 label Biography information for Sir Desmond Swayne
tabling member	4468 label Biography information for Roger Mullin

449470

registered interest
date	01/02/2016
answering body	Department for International Development
answering dept id	20
answering dept short name	International Development
answering dept sort name	International Development
hansard heading	Developing Countries: Education
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what proportion of the Government's humanitarian budget was allocated to education in emergency situations in each of the last three years.
tabling member constituency	Linlithgow and East Falkirk
tabling member printed	Martyn Day
uin	25176
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/02/2016 answer text <p>The amount of bilateral ODA spent on education programmes in fragile or conflict-affected states where humanitarian programming is also active for the last three years is: £143.9 million in 2012, £226.3 million in 2013 and £199.9 million in 2014. Between 2010 and 2015 DFID supported 11m children in school, of which 7.5m were in fragile or conflict-affected states. DFID has again pledged to support 11m girls and boys with a decent education between 2015 and 2020.</p><p> </p><p>DFID is supporting improvements to how the international community provides education in emergencies, including leadership to establish the ‘No Lost Generation’ Initiative to provide over 251,000 Syrian children with education inside Syria and in the region. At the Conference on Supporting Syria and the Region on 4<sup>th</sup> February we were instrumental in getting the international community to agree that all Syrian refugee children and affected host country children should be in education – formal school or non-formal – by the end of 2016/17.</p> answering member constituency Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner answering member printed Mr Nick Hurd question first answered 08/02/2016 16:48:37 answering member 1561 label Biography information for Mr Nick Hurd
tabling member	4488 label Biography information for Martyn Day

449471

registered interest
date	01/02/2016
answering body	Department for International Development
answering dept id	20
answering dept short name	International Development
answering dept sort name	International Development
hansard heading	Development Aid: Polio
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what programmes and projects her Department funds which aim to eradicate polio globally; and how much funding in each category of expenditure her Department provides to each of those programmes and projects.
tabling member constituency	Coventry North East
tabling member printed	Colleen Fletcher
uin	25188
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/02/2016 answer text <p>The UK is fully committed to polio eradication and has pledged £300 million to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative for 2013 to 2019. This funding is categorised as aid to international organisations. Of the £300 million, £270 million is directed to the World Health Organisation which hosts the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. £30 million is allocated to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to support its role in the global introduction of the Inactivated Polio Vaccine, a key step in the path to eradication.</p><p> </p><p>Polio eradication is poised to be one of the greatest public health success stories of all time and UK support has been critical in bringing us one step closer to the finish line, something people across the country can be immensely proud of.</p> answering member constituency Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner answering member printed Mr Nick Hurd question first answered 08/02/2016 16:49:09 answering member 1561 label Biography information for Mr Nick Hurd
tabling member	4378 label Biography information for Colleen Fletcher

449472

registered interest
date	01/02/2016
answering body	Department for International Development
answering dept id	20
answering dept short name	International Development
answering dept sort name	International Development
hansard heading	Syria: International Assistance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what outcomes her Department aims to achieve at the London Conference on Syria on 4 February 2016 to help provide support to Syria.
tabling member constituency	Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath
tabling member printed	Roger Mullin
uin	25097
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/02/2016 answer text <p>The &quot;Supporting Syria and the Region London 2016&quot; Conference was held on 4 February last week, and more than US$11 billion was pledged to support people in Syria and the region affected by the conflict, the largest amount raised in one day for a humanitarian crisis. Commitments made at the Conference will help to create 1.1 million jobs and provide education to an additional 1 million children. The UK remains at the forefront of the response to the crisis in Syria and the region. We have doubled our commitment and have now pledged a total of over £2.3 billion, our largest ever response to a single humanitarian crisis. The outcomes of the conference are reflected in the Co-hosts' statement available on the Conference website <a href="http://www.supportingsyria2016.com/" target="_blank">www.supportingsyria2016.com</a>.</p> answering member constituency New Forest West answering member printed Mr Desmond Swayne question first answered 08/02/2016 14:15:10 answering member 55 label Biography information for Sir Desmond Swayne
tabling member	4468 label Biography information for Roger Mullin

449473

registered interest
date	01/02/2016
answering body	Department for International Development
answering dept id	20
answering dept short name	International Development
answering dept sort name	International Development
hansard heading	Developing Countries: Politics and Government
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether her Department is taking part in cross-departmental work to promote stability and good governance in fragile and conflict affected states.
tabling member constituency	Coventry North East
tabling member printed	Colleen Fletcher
uin	25086
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/02/2016 answer text <p>Yes. DFID plays a key role in delivering the UK’s national security objective to build stability overseas, including in fragile states and regions. Our approach is set out in the Government’s National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review, which is publicly available at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-security-strategy-and-strategic-defence-and-security-review-2015" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-security-strategy-and-strategic-defence-and-security-review-2015</a></p> answering member constituency New Forest West answering member printed Mr Desmond Swayne question first answered 04/02/2016 14:13:41 answering member 55 label Biography information for Sir Desmond Swayne
tabling member	4378 label Biography information for Colleen Fletcher

449475

registered interest
date	01/02/2016
answering body	Department for International Development
answering dept id	20
answering dept short name	International Development
answering dept sort name	International Development
hansard heading	Development Aid: Education
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will take steps to prepare to contribute from the public purse to the new education funding platform to be launched at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May 2016.
tabling member constituency	Linlithgow and East Falkirk
tabling member printed	Martyn Day
uin	25235
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/02/2016 answer text <p>The UK has bold ambitions for the World Humanitarian Summit, which comes at a critical time given the number of people experiencing crisis. We are working with a range of partners, including the UN, government, NGOs and the private sector, to ensure it delivers transformative change to crisis response including education.</p><p> </p><p>In the run up to the Summit, the UK has been playing a leading role in agreeing principles and global action on education in emergencies and protracted crisis situations, including at the Conference on Supporting Syria and the Region. We are co-funding the design of the new education funding platform and will take a decision whether to support this once the design has been fully appraised.</p> answering member constituency New Forest West answering member printed Mr Desmond Swayne question first answered 08/02/2016 16:49:30 answering member 55 label Biography information for Sir Desmond Swayne
tabling member	4488 label Biography information for Martyn Day

449019

registered interest
date	29/01/2016
answering body	Department for International Development
answering dept id	20
answering dept short name	International Development
answering dept sort name	International Development
hansard heading	Malawi: Internet
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether her Department has programmes to facilitate access to the internet in Malawi.
tabling member constituency	Rutherglen and Hamilton West
tabling member printed	Margaret Ferrier
uin	24892
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 05/02/2016 answer text <p>DFID’s Digital Strategy aims to ensure that digital processes pervade all of DFID’s work, from communications to policy making and programmes. We want to ensure the poorest and most marginalised people in developing countries benefit from the added value digital can bring, including by giving citizens access to information and services quickly and affordably.</p><p>DFID does not currently directly support programmes to facilitate access to the internet in Malawi. DFID is currently developing programme plans for 2016-21 and is exploring how to support an increased uptake of Information and Communications Technology in Malawi. This will include consideration of whether and how DFID can support an increased uptake of internet-based services as well as an increase in awareness of the potential of internet and digital marketing tools for businesses.</p> answering member constituency Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner answering member printed Mr Nick Hurd question first answered 05/02/2016 11:33:09 answering member 1561 label Biography information for Mr Nick Hurd
tabling member	4386 label Biography information for Margaret Ferrier

448678

registered interest
date	28/01/2016
answering body	Department for International Development
answering dept id	20
answering dept short name	International Development
answering dept sort name	International Development
hansard heading	Syria: Overseas Aid
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what discussions she has had with the UN on its aid agencies requiring permission from the Syrian regime in order to deliver aid within that country.
tabling member constituency	Leeds North West
tabling member printed	Greg Mulholland
uin	24656
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/02/2016 answer text <p>The &quot;Supporting Syria and the Region London 2016&quot; Conference was held on 4 February last week, and more than US$11 billion was pledged to support people in Syria and the region affected by the conflict, the largest amount raised in one day for a humanitarian crisis. Commitments made at the Conference will help to create 1.1 million jobs and provide education to an additional 1 million children. The UK remains at the forefront of the response to the crisis in Syria and the region. We have doubled our commitment and have now pledged a total of over £2.3 billion, our largest ever response to a single humanitarian crisis. The outcomes of the conference are reflected in the Co-hosts' statement available on the Conference website <a href="http://www.supportingsyria2016.com/" target="_blank">www.supportingsyria2016.com</a>.</p><p> </p><p>The Department for International Development continues to hold regular conversations with the UN and International non-governmental organisations (INGOs) on the issue of humanitarian access inside Syria. We have provided support to the UN and INGOs since the start of the conflict to deliver aid in hard to reach and besieged areas of Syria. Our funding model inside Syria is designed to give maximum flexibility to UN agencies to respond quickly when pockets of humanitarian access open up.</p><p> </p><p>However, in the past year, only 10% of all requests submitted by the UN to the regime to access besieged and hard to reach areas have been approved and delivered. That is why the UK lobbied hard for UN Security Council resolutions 2165, 2191 and 2258, enabling the UN to deliver aid across borders without the consent of the regime. As a result, 240 shipments of cross-border aid have been delivered by road to Syrians in need.</p><p> </p><p>Attempting to deliver humanitarian assistance without the consent of the parties to the conflict is extremely challenging. There is a risk that shipments of humanitarian assistance would be physically stopped and confiscated, humanitarian staff placed in danger and that convoys could come under attack. Likewise, delivering assistance without consent may risk undermining ongoing negotiations on humanitarian access to the 4.6 million people in hard to reach areas across Syria.</p><p> </p><p>Consequently, the most effective way to get food to people who are starving and stop these needless and horrific deaths is for Assad and all parties to the conflict to adhere to international humanitarian law. We continue to call on all parties to allow immediate and unfettered access to all areas of Syria. On 4 February, the Supporting Syria and the Region Conference also brought leaders together to demand an end to these abuses and obstruction of humanitarian aid.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency New Forest West answering member printed Mr Desmond Swayne question first answered 08/02/2016 16:49:54 answering member 55 label Biography information for Sir Desmond Swayne
tabling member	1540 label Biography information for Greg Mulholland