§ Mrs. HumbleTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development when she plans to publish her Department's 2002 departmental report. [52868]
§ Clare ShortDFID's departmental report for 2002 is being published today. It provides an overview of my Department's achievements during the past year. It shows how we are placing poverty reduction strategies at the heart of the development process and supporting developing countries in their efforts to address poverty. It also describes how we have responded to challenges such as events in Afghanistan.
During the past year important steps have been made to improve the effectiveness of the international system. Developing countries seized the opportunities presented at Doha to secure favourable commitments on issues such as agriculture and building developing countries' capacity to negotiate on trade issues. The recent UN conference on Financing for Development led to commitments by the European Union and the United States which will increase development assistance by $12 billion a year by 2006.
The report also shows the progress made against the targets in our 1998 and 2000 public service agreements which cover 1999–2000 to 2001–02 and 2001–02 to 2003–04 respectively, and our plans for allocating resources during 2002–03 to 2003–04.