§ Mr. RosindellTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development what level of assistance is being given by the Government to education projects regarding AIDS and HIV in Africa. [110708]
§ Hilary BennHIV/AIDS is one of the most important development challenges facing Africa. DFID is working with development partners to ensure that HIV is mainstreamed throughout education systems, plans and interventions in all African countries where we are providing education support.
We are also making progress by piloting targeted school-based HIV prevention programmes—the Nigeria Extended Life Planning Education Project is one such initiative.
DFID is also supporting innovative "edutainment" programmes in Southern Africa, using multiple media such as radio drama, pamphlets and cartoon books to communicate about HIV prevention.
It should be noted that most of our HIV/AIDS investments across all sectors have an education component to them. As our HIV/AIDS response becomes increasingly multi-sectoral and integrated into other development activities, it is increasingly difficult to quantify the level of investment in the education component per se. Furthermore, DFID is supporting a number of African countries through direct budget support for their own pro-poor policy priorities across the board. This again makes it difficult to quantify the exact level of assistance directed to HIV/AIDS activities. In addition, we provide support through our contributions to multilateral organisations.
That said, HIV/AIDS is recognised by DFID as one of the most significant development challenges facing Africa and it will remain one of the highest priorities for the Africa region as DFID's bilateral programme in Africa increases from £640 million to £1 billion by 2005–06.