HIV and AIDS

HC Deb 07 February 1991 vol 185 cc212-3W

Mr. Willian Powell

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much has been paid in each of the last five years to HIV and AIDS-relaled projects and to whom.

Mrs. Chalker

Our support to HIV and AIDS-related projects and programmes takes four main forms.

We have contributed £16.83 million to the World Health Organisation global programme on AIDS—GPA—since its inception in 1986 and we are the third largest donor. We have also provided £5.373 million in bilateral support to 15 national AIDS control programmes in Africa and the Caribbean, channelled through the World Health Organisation. We have also supported some 17 HIV and AIDS-related non-governmental projects through the Overseas Development Administration's joint funding scheme; the NGO projects involved are Action Aid, Care Britain, the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development, Christian Aid, Caritas, ECHO—equipment for charity hospitals overseas—and Oxfam.

In addition, since 1987–88 we have provided direct financial support for 10 research projects related to HIV and AIDS in developing countries; these are managed by United Kingdom-based academic and research institutions. The institutions involved are the Appropriate Health Resources and Technologies Action Group, the Imperial College of Science and Technology London, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Medical Research Council, the Programme for Appropriate Technologies in Health, the university of East Anglia, the university of Swansea and the university of Sussex.

The amounts spent are as follows:

You and the Directors of Oxfam and CAFOD have written a number of letters to me recently about famine in Africa and particularly our emergency relief operations in Ethiopia and Sudan. As your letters all raise similar points I will respond to you all in one letter. I am surprised by your reaction of the Government's response to the threat of renewed famine in the Horn of Africa. Because of many improvements to early-warning and delivery systems since 1984, Government and NGOs are all much better prepared than we were then to cope with this problem. National, international and British relief agencies working in Ethiopia and Sudan have established sound field-reporting systems. My regular meetings with the NGOs have been particularly helpful in the planning of our famine relief operations. As a result, the latest threat of famine has not taken us by surprise. Britain has taken a leading role in the famine relief effort. Our response has been swift and substantial. When the early warning signs first appeared last autumn, I announced immediate assistance. As soon as we received the FAO reports of serious crop failures in 1990 and impending food shortages in 1991, I announced further assistance. In the few weeks since my announcement on 19 December, Britain has committed £17.75 million in new emergency assistance for Ethiopia and Sudan. Over the last two years the total figure of £76 million —hardly the ungenerous response you have stated. It is certainly not the view in Addis, as was evident during my recent visit, that the British Government has forgotten the Horn of Africa. Britain will be providing more assistance in the remaining eleven months of 1991. As part of the £17.75 million new assistance I have just pledged 20,000 tonnes of new food aid for Sudan, some of which, I hope, will be channelled through British NGOs. The £2 million non-food aid element in the £8.75 million package for Ethiopia I announced on 29 January is also being allocated through your agencies. These new allocations will enable us to meet some of the NGO's outstanding requests particularly, for help with transport. In doing so we shall take account of changing needs in the countries themselves. For example, the opening of Massawa port offers the possibility of a more cost-effective relief route for food to Eritrea. If the capacity of the port is stepped up, we shall need to look carefully at the balance of our support for the three main Ethiopian relief channels; the Southern Line; cross-border assistance; and the Massawa route. But Britain alone cannot solve the Horn's problems. Nor can we hope to fund every request British NGOs put to us. It is inevitable that some requests will not be met in full. It is also the case that some requests were, in our judgement, not best suited to meet priority requirements on the ground. Other requests required more detailed work before they could be considered further. While we must make emergency assistance available swiftly, we must also ensure that it is used effectively. NGOs, through whom we channel so much of this assistance, share this responsibility. We are now considering urgently the allocation of the additional funds I have recently announced. My officials will continue to work closely with yours and take into account all the concerns you have raised with me. I leave for Mozambique and South Africa on Friday. I shall be pleased to meet with you and your colleagues on my return when I will be able to talk to you about the needs in Southern Africa as well as the Horn. I am copying this letter to Frank Judd and to Julian Filochowski. I am also sending a copy for information to Nick Hinton of Save the Children Fund and Julian Hopkins of CARE.