Zimbabwe (Hansard, 19 December 2002)

§ John Barrett
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps are being taken to encourage school attendance in Zimbabwe. [88478]

§ Clare Short
There are programmes in Zimbabwe which aim to provide all primary school children with supplementary food. But there is a lack of funds to implement these programmes fully. Direct bilateral programmes, including DFID's supplementary feeding programme, are now providing over one million school children with a supplementary meal a day. Monitoring indicates that where feeding is being conducted, this has been successful in reducing drop-out rates.

§ John Barrett
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the answer of 10 July,Official Report, columns 957–8W, on HIV/AIDS, how money has been (a) allocated and (b) spent for HIV/AIDS-related programmes, broken down by country. [72433]

§ Clare Short
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Mr. Marsden) 23 July 2002,Official Report, columns 894–5W.

§ John Barrett
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on the impact which the decision of the Zimbabwean Government to ban the milling of GM maize has had on food relief efforts in the country. [88477]

§ Clare Short
Last week, the Government of Zimbabwe rescinded its decision to ban the importation of GM maize for milling in-country. Milling of GM food already in the country has resumed, agreement has been reached on the import of 17,500MT of GM grain which will also be milled in country. The National Food mill at Bulawayo has continued to mill, and the Gweru plant will also be brought on stream, bringing the authorised milling capacity in Zimbabwe to about 16,000MT/month .

§ John Barrett
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what impact the break in food aid in the first two weeks of December has had in(a) Zimbabwe and (b) Zambia. [88479]

§ Clare Short
It is now unlikely that there will be breaks in the food pipelines to either country during December, although the situation remains fragile. For Zimbabwe, against a target distribution of 50,000MT of maize for 4.5 million beneficiaries in 44 districts, the realistic distribution figure may be as low as 20,000MT.912W In order to allow for this shortage, WFP has introduced two ration scales: (i) 5Kg of maize will be distributed to families in districts that have been receiving food aid on a regular basis; and (ii) 10Kg of maize will be distributed to families in areas that have not received food aid thus far. All families will receive 1Kg of CSB and 1Kg of pulses. For Zambia, DFID has helped strengthen the WFP pipeline with a unique agreement between the Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ) and WFP. This involves distributing 23,000MT of GRZ purchased maize through the WFP pipeline with transportation costs being met by DFID. This will ensure a full maize pipeline for Zambia during December.