§ Baroness Williams of Crosbyasked Her Majesty's Government:
What proportion of the recently announced increase in United Kingdom foreign aid is accounted for by debt relief to poor countries (a) in money terms and (b) as a percentage of the total. [HL3964]
§ Lord GrocottIn 2001 bilateral debt relief accounted for 0.024 of the UK oda:GNI ratio of 0.32; forecasts suggest that in the years 2002–06 the equivalent figure will rise to an average of 0.036 due mainly to the increased impact of HIPC.
DfID also helps finance multilateral debt relief through contributions to trust funds administered by the World Bank; provisional figures show that this cost £23 million in 2001–02. This is less than 1 per cent of our spending in 2001–02. Also in 2001–02 we offered relief to Pakistan on £20 million of debt originally owed to the CDC but subsequently transferred to DfID; this will show up as a provision in our 2001–02 accounts, though the relief is conditional on performance over the next two years.