§ Mr. CoxTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development what funding has been given by her Department to develop political and human rights parliamentary discussion groups in Commonwealth countries in each of the last three years. [84745]
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§ Clare ShortWe support the strengthening of parliamentary institutions in order to develop political and human rights. In 1997–98 we allocated £280,000 to the Commonwealth Secretariat to develop the awareness of parliamentarians in political and human rights. In 1998–99 so far, we have provided £600,000 in South Africa and £312,000 in Uganda in support of open accountable government and improvement in parliamentary administration.
We are not able to identify what portion of these grants was spent specifically on discussion groups.