§ Mr. KeyTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development what plans her Department has for an integrated regional policy in the Great Lakes area; whether her Department will make a regional statement of intent to work on such a policy; and if she will make a statement. [103093]
§ Clare ShortMy Department is actively engaged, in close collaboration with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in promoting an end to the conflict in the Great Lakes region and in preparing for regional post-conflict reconstruction and development. We are at present reviewing our strategies for post-conflict engagement in Rwanda, the DRC and Burundi in the light of recent regional developments. These documents will be made publicly available. Last week DFID hosted a roundtable discussion with a range of UK NGOs and academics to help define our approach to meeting development challenges in the DRC.
Each of these country strategies aims to set out the regional perspective of our policies and demonstrate our objectives for the region as a whole: the ending of conflict and the laying of the foundations for sustained development across the whole Great Lakes region with a consequent significant reduction in poverty