§ Baroness Galeasked Her Majesty's Government:
What assessment they have made of the relationship between the millennium development target to eliminate gender disparity in education and similar targets for halving the proportion of people without safe water or basic sanitation. [HL3491]
§ Baroness Amos:DfID's assessment of this relationship is twofold. First, access to basic facilities such as school toilets, safe drinking water, clean surroundings and information on hygiene all improve the quality of the school environment and influence 72WA better learning. This is important in terms of the overall goal of achieving universal education and eliminating gender disparity in education. Basic sanitation for girls in particular can lead to a lower dropout rate for girls, especially at puberty. For example, in Bangladesh, a school sanitation and hygiene education programme reported to increase girls' attendance rates by 11 per cent.
Secondly, the opportunity costs of parents sending girls to school are substantially reduced when households have ready access to safe drinking water and girls are no longer required to collect water from distant water pumps.
As part of its support for the peace process in Sudan, DfID has provided approximately £2 million to assist UNICEF's education programmes in the conflict-affected areas of the country, providing books and materials to over 2,000 primary schools and supporting the construction of water and sanitation facilities where these were priorities.