HC Deb 13 March 1995 vol 256 cc366-7W
Mr. Denham

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy, in relation to negotiations on the 11th replenishment of the International Development Association to propose that the accountability of IDA to both donor Governments and projected beneficiaries is improved, and that the 1993–94 reforms on information disclosure must be fully implemented.

Mr. Baldry

We will work with other donors during the negotiations on the 11th replenishment of IDA on the issues of strengthening IDA's accountability and implementation of its information disclosure policy.

Mr. Denham

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy, in the negotiations on the 11th replenishment of IDA, to propose that(a) the objective of poverty reduction is fully incorporated into IDA loans, (b) social impact assessments are completed for all IDA projects, assessing social outcomes of loans as well as predicted adverse social impacts and (c) the proportion of IDA lending allocated to programmes of targeted intervention should be increased to at least 50 per cent.

Mr. Baldry

Poverty reduction is IDA's central objective, and we are ready to support measures which will enhance IDA's effectiveness in helping borrowers to implement this objective, including expanded use of social impact assessments to improve the quality of IDA's lending. We are not persuaded, however, that global targets are an efficient way of achieving this. The composition of IDA's lending as made clear in the IDA-10 donors' report, should reflect the needs of individual countries.

Mr. Denham

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy, in relation to negotiations on the 11th replenishment of IDA, to propose that(a) stringent procedures for evaluating the World bank's compliance with replenishment conditions should be agreed and (b) annual evaluations of IDA should be undertaken.

Mr. Baldry

Donors already require IDA management to report annually on progress made in implementing policy agreed under particular replenishments.

Mr. Denham

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy to agree to the 11th replenishment of IDA only if he believes that the funds will be used in line with the objectives set out in his overseas development programme.

Mr. Baldry

IDA's priority objectives of poverty reduction, sound economic management and environmentally sustainable development closely match those of the UK aid programme.

Mr. Denham

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy, in relation to the negotiations for the 11th IDA replenishment, that there should be no use of IDA funds to pay off the multilateral debt of recipient countries.

Mr. Baldry

We and other donors support continuation of IDA's fifth dimension facility, which is financed through reflows on past IDA loans and allocates additional resources to eligible IDA recipients which are on-track with their reform programmes, in proportion to interest payments due on their International Bank for Reconstruction and Development debt. We are also ready, in the context of the 11th replenishment negotiations, to consider whether there are other ways IDA might assist those few countries which have an unsustainable burden of multilateral debt, building on the suggestions made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the annual meetings of the IMF and World bank in Madrid last October.