HL Deb 28 October 1999 vol 606 c36WA
Lord Moynihan

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Following the publication of the UNICEF survey into child and maternal mortality in Iraq, what action they intend to take to encourage additional international funding for humanitarian efforts in line with UNICEF'S proposals. [HL4230]

Baroness Amos

The UNICEF study showed that child mortality had fallen in Northern Iraq where Saddam Hussein's regime does not manage the oil-for-food programme but has risen in Bagdad controlled Iraq where it does.

We are taking the lead in pressing for more revenues to be made available to the oil-for-food programme and for these revenues to be used to meet the most urgent needs of the vulnerable, especially children, and we will consider sympathetically requests from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to help fund the humanitarian efforts highlighted in this survey.

However, opportunities for increasing international funding are constrained by the Government of Iraq's refusal to co-operate in allowing non-governmental organisations to work freely in Iraq.