§ Lord Hyltonasked Her Majesty's Government:
When foreign aid grants are redirected from CARE to the Afghan Ministry of Education, they will ensure continuity of funding for the children in schools in Afghanistan sponsored by CARE under the Community Organised Primary Education Programme. [HL373]
§ The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Amos)Donors in Afghanistan are encouraged to provide funding for programmes that appear in the Afghan Government's National Development Budget (NDB). The Community Organised Primary Education Programme is listed as a programme for donor funding in the NDB. This shows that the Ministry of Education itself sees this programme as a priority. Donors can fund this programme either by providing funding to the Ministry of Education or by providing funding directly to the implementing agency, which in this case is CARE.
DfID provided a total of £550,000 to CARE for it's work in Afghanistan in financial years 2001–02 and 2002–03. In line with the Afghan Government request that donors concentrate on key areas of support, we are no longer providing funding to the education sector although we continue to provide funding to the Afghan Government budget, which includes teachers' salaries. A number of other donors are focusing on education. They include the US, Denmark and Sweden.