§ Mr. Matthew TaylorTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development what procedures are used by her Department to assess the economic efficiency and environmental and social impact of Stabex projects. [40343]
§ Clare ShortThe UK does not in general consider STABEX an effective instrument for development co-operation. We are concerned that it is not focused on the poorest countries, it does not encourage diversification and, because of implementation delays, it has been ineffective in its objective of mitigating the impact of fluctuations in export earnings.
A recipient country's proposal for using its STABEX allocation is circulated by the Commission to all Member States for comments. My Department looks at these proposals in the same way as other Commission proposals, to see whether cross-cutting issues such as environmental and social impact, gender considerations and poverty focus have been taken into account and we feed any views back to the Commission.