HC Deb 24 March 2004 vol 419 cc886-7W
Mr. Gardiner

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will increase resources made available for water management in Africa. [163374]

Hilary Benn

DFID's overall aim is to reduce global poverty and promote sustainable development, in particular through achieving the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Our goal in the water sector is to enable poor people to lead healthier and more productive lives by helping to increase and sustain their access to safe drinking water supply and appropriate sanitation.

The UK has worked hard to improve aid effectiveness by untying aid, focusing support on strategies drawn up by developing countries themselves, harmonising our assistance with other donors, and the use of new means of aid, such as direct budget support. More effective use of aid therefore, means moving away from donors allocating funding to selected sectors or to donor-led projects, and moving towards providing support that is consistent with national poverty reduction strategies. For this reason, DFID budgets according to regions and countries, and allows country programmes to determine priorities according to national plans.

DFID's strategy for water and sanitation is therefore aimed at seeking to ensure that water and sanitation issues are given the right level of priority within developing countries' plans although evidence suggests that this is not always the case. It is for this reason that DFID has recently published a Water Action Plan, which sets out how we intend to take this work forward. The Plan sets out what needs to be done at the national, regional and international level. The key elements are: making sure water and sanitation issues figure prominently in policy discussions with our main partner countries in their reform agendas; providing evidence of the links between improved water management, water supply and sanitation and achieving all the MDGs, and ensuring that we are making use of this evidence in our policy dialogue; improving the way the international system works, by focusing support on key international partnerships and networks, particularly those that can improve co- ordination in the water sector.

The next step will be to put the plan into operation.