§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) what proportion of British aid is directly focused on the alleviation of poverty;
(2) if he will publish in the next issue of "British Aid Statistics" a table showing the proportion of British aid directly focused on the alleviation of poverty.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydThe basic purpose of the aid programme is to reduce poverty in the poorest countries. We do this in a number of ways including supporting 589W sound policies that will encourage economic growth, ensuring that full account is taken of the impact of our projects and programmes on poor people and by projects which are specifically intended to help the poorest communities directly.
Direct poverty alleviation activities are funded through a number of channels including through our bilateral country programmes, and our support for nongovernmental organisations. The overall figure for those activities is not currently available, although work is underway on a system for collating this information. We hope to include it in future editions of "British Aid Statistics". But this direct assistance is only a part of our total contribution to poverty reduction through multilateral as well as bilateral channels.
§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proportion of aid for developing countries planned for 1993–94 and 1994–95 is already committed.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydThe financial management of the aid programme for developing countries over the survey period is exercised through spending allocations to individual programme managers for each of the three years ahead.
It is the responsibility of programme managers to live within their spending allocations and make commitments accordingly. The forecast rate of expenditure in future years against any commitment will be subject to change.
The latest position for 1993–94 will be reflected in the main estimates to be published in March.
§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what countries currently receive United Kingdom bilateral aid assistance in relation to the control of human population growth.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydWe are currently providing bilateral assistance to population programmes in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Zimbabwe; we are also providing assistance to a non-governmental organisation working in South Africa. We expect to begin financing population projects in Tanzania and Uganda in the near future. In addition we are supporting NGO population projects in 17 countries through the joint funding scheme. Our aim is to enable more women and men to choose when to have children and to help meet the considerable unmet demand for safe and effective family planning and reproductive health services in developing countries.