§ Lord Juddasked Her Majesty's Government:
What arrangements they have put in place to ensure that all their international development policies and programmes contribute positively to sustainable development; and what performance indicators and targets they have established in this regard. [HL1222]
§ Baroness AmosSustainable development is one of the International Development Targets (IDTs) which the Government have made the centre of their development policy. DfID has recently published a documentAchieving Sustainability: Poverty Elimination and the Environment as a strategy paper on how DfID and the international community should achieve the IDT on sustainable development by 2015.
DfID is helping formulate guidance on the principles of sustainable development planning, together with other donors and a number of developing countries, through the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD. A draft is due to be considered by the DAC High Level Ministerial meeting on 25/26 April and fed into the preparatory process for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Jo'burg, 2002). DfID is also supporting a number of developing country partners, for example Uganda and South Africa, in applying the principles for sustainable development planning.
DfID's Public Service Agreement for 2001–04 is based on achieving the IDTs. Objective II is to promote sustainable development through co-ordinated UK and international action, including by gaining international agreement on the integration of social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainable development into poverty reduction programmes. The new Service Delivery Agreement says how we intend to deliver this objective: by developing, and securing wide international agreement to, guidance on the principles of strategic planning for sustainable development by end–2001; 176WA and successfully integrating these principles into government, multilateral and DfID policies and programmes in 10 key DfID partner countries by early 2004, including agreed approaches to water resources management and capacity building for environmental management.
Copies of the Public Service Agreement and Service Delivery Agreement are in the Library of the House.