§ Mrs. SpelmanTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development whether her Department employs independent auditors to audit the effectiveness of her aid spending in countries in sub-Saharan Africa; and if she will list the countries. [47329]
§ Hilary BennMy Department employs an Internal Audit function which is organisationally independent from the rest of DFID and is staffed by professionally qualified internal auditors. Internal Audit Department's remit includes reviews of DFID's operations and funding in sub-Saharan Africa. Reviews of effectiveness of aid funding are also carried out by DFID's Evaluation Department and by the National Audit Office.
The following is a list of sub-Saharan Africa countries in which development funds were used in 2000–01: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
§ Mrs. SpelmanTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development whether she employs616W independent organisations to measure the level of corruption in Government to Government aid programmes granted to countries in sub-Saharan Africa. [47330]
§ Hilary BennNo. The Department has strong programme management systems, supported by Internal Audit and National Audit Office scrutiny, to verify that funds are used for the purposes intended and to prevent or detect misuse or corruption in our programmes.
We fund independent organisations to conduct national corruption perception surveys in African countries which are used to inform governments' anticorruption strategies.
§ Mrs. SpelmanTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development in which country in sub-Saharan Africa she estimates her Department's aid policy to have been(a) most and (b) least effective; and for what reasons. [47334]
§ Hilary BennDFID's aim is the elimination of poverty. The UN Millennium Development Goals are the main yardsticks against which we measure progress towards this aim. At country level progress towards development goals is principally the responsibility of African governments, in partnership with the donor community. The international community is working with developing countries, including in sub-Saharan Africa, to promote country-led and participatory Poverty Reduction Strategy processes. These processes are intended to develop national policy strategies, agree priorities, and help to develop an institutional framework in which governments can be held to account by their own citizens. The role of donors is to provide financial and technical support to enhance governments' capacity to develop and implement these strategies.
Aid effectiveness has improved in recent years, partly as a result of increasing international agreement on how aid can be most effective in reducing poverty and building capacity in the poorest countries. The evidence shows that aid is effective particularly in those countries with good policy environments and where there are large numbers of poor people, and in such situations has been effective in promoting economic development and poverty reduction. In Uganda aid has supported growth (averaging around 7 per cent. over the past decade) with extreme poverty reduced by over 20 per cent. since 1992, to 35 per cent. of the population. In Tanzania, where GDP growth has more than doubled between 1988 and 2001, HIPC benefits, World Bank and donor aid have helped finance primary education, with net enrolment in primary schools increased from 57 per cent. in 1999 to 65 per cent. in 2001.
DFID's performance against its global objectives, set out in the DFID Public Service Agreement and Service Delivery Agreement, is published in the Departmental Report. DFID assesses its work in each country through an established system of annual performance reviews. However, given our broad approach to development, and the diverse nature of our partnerships, there are considerable technical difficulties in attempting to 617W quantify the impact of particular levels and types of assistance provided by a particular donor on the overall progress towards development in a particular country.
DFID will publish a Development Effectiveness Report this summer. It will discuss how DFID"s strategic, long-term poverty-focused approach can be evaluated, recognising the problems of attributing impact to particular interventions in a context of a broad partnership which is working towards our shared goals of the Millennium Development Goals.