§ Mr. Guy Barnettasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what allocation is currently made to the renewable natural resources sector of the bilateral aid programme; what proportion this is of the total bilateral aid programme; if he will give comparable figures for the previous five financial years; and if he will make a statement about future policy for this sector of the aid programme.
§ Mr. Neil MartenThere is no specific allocation of bilateral aid to the renewable natural resources sector. The proportion of aid devoted to projects in individual sectors depends of the number and quality of proposals in each sector put to us by developing countries. From a recent analysis covering selected years, we estimate that bilateral aid expenditure on renewable natural resources was:
£ million 1975 1977 1979 1980 Renewable natural resources sector 44 72 94 82 Total bilateral aid 305 388 639 604 Per cent. renewable natural resources 14.4 18.6 14.7 13.6