§ Mrs. ClwydTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proportion of United Kingdom bilateral aid was allocated to poverty alleviation, for the most recent three years available, using the same criteria used for the figures supplied by the Overseas Development Agency in the NAO report, "Bilateral Aid to India", fig. 2, page 10.
§ Mrs. ChalkerFigures for expenditure on poverty alleviation for the bilateral aid programme overall are not available. The figures for India supplied to the NAO by the Overseas Development Administration related to specific projects in the housing, welfare, education and renewable natural resources sectors which were regarded as being for direct poverty alleviation.
Poverty alleviaton is an important objective of the aid programme and is pursued indirectly through support for sustainable economic growth and by direct action. Projects and programmes supported with aid vary in the extent to which they contribute directly to poverty alleviation. It is not possible to collate meaningful statistics on expenditure that can be categorised as concerned with poverty alleviation and that which cannot.