§ Mr. HannamTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what percentage of funds provided by the British Government for development in562W the third world is given to schemes which promote the interests and welfare of disabled people; and what percentage of the support (a) was categorised as (i) medical, (ii) employment, (iii) education and (iv) social improvement and (b) is allocated through (1) national Governments, (2) international statutory agencies and (3) voluntary organisations.
§ Mrs. ChalkerMuch of our aid directly and indirectly benefits disabled people along with other groups and it is not possible to quantify the proportion which assists disabled people specifically. Nor is it practicable to divide such aid into medical, employment, education and social categories, as these very often overlap in the same projects.
Under ODA's bilateral programme however there are a number of projects which can be identified as being designed to benefit disabled people specifically; for example, assistance to speech therapy for children and transport for the Disabled People's Association in Fiji was about £20,000 and in India we spent about £180,000 on helping to improve the physiotherapy services provided by local spastics societies and about £70,000 for the benefit of disabled children in slums.
In addition, the joint funding scheme, which helps to finance the work of United Kingdom voluntary organisations in developing countries, provided over £651,000 in financial year 1989–90 on projects designed specifically to benefit disabled people; that was approximately 4 per cent. of the scheme's total expenditure for the year. There are many other JFS projects which benefit disabled people without being specifically targeted on them, because they seek to meet needs of those identified as having special difficulties in life.
Several of the international agencies which we support, such as WHO, UNHCR and UNIDO undertake projects which promote the welfare of disabled people.