§ Mr. DafisTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy to advocate an initiative for Africa encompassing debt reductions, improved terms of trade and increased overseas aid.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydAfrica is already a priority for the United Kingdom aid programme; 40 per cent. of our bilateral aid goes to African countries.
In 1990, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister launched the Trinidad terms debt initiative. As a result, seven countries in Africa have benefited from substantial reductions in their official debt. The Trinidad terms currently reduce eligible payments due to governments by as much as 50 per cent. None the less, we continue to press for even greater relief to be made available to poorest countries. All new United Kingdom aid to low-income African countries is on grant terms.
We believe developing countries must be allowed to trade freely. The GATT Uruguay round is the key to this. We are pressing the European Commission to continue discussions with the USA and to work for the earliest possible resolution of outstanding difficulties on the round.
§ Mr. DafisTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what help is currently offered by the Overseas Development Administration to establish and support food reserves in African countries to help prevent future food shortages.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydFood reserves set up in developing countries with international food aid can be expensive to establish and maintain and difficult to protect. For this reason, we give priority to meeting food shortages with food aid, by obtaining food quickly either by purchases from donor countries or surplus-holding countries in the region; or by reallocation of food aid consignments on the high seas.
Some African countries do have food stocks generated by surpluses from their own harvests. In these cases, we will continue to provide help on crop storage at village, district and national level.