§ Lord Hylton asked Her Majesty's Government:
§ What success they have had in persuading the governments of middle-income developing countries to give higher priority to the needs of orphans and street children, including those at risk from drugs, prostitution, trafficking, and HIV/AIDS. [HL508]
§ Baroness AmosOrphans and vulnerable children are a high priority for DfID. We are particularly concerned with support for children who are affected by AIDS or infected with HIV in Africa, where the situation in the worst affected countries is reaching crisis level, but are also concerned to step up our work in Asia.
DFID has endorsed the UNICEF Strategic Framework for the Protection, Care and Support for Orphans and Vulnerable Children Living in a World with HIV and AIDS. This sets out comprehensive guidance for countries to use in developing national policies and programmes to respond to the needs of vulnerable children, including orphans, street children and those at risk from drugs, prostitution, trafficking and HIV and AIDS. It therefore provides a good basis for discussing policy with partner governments.
In 2004, we saw significant progress in a number of African middle-income countries in developing comprehensive, costed national action plans to address the needs of orphans and other vulnerable children. These are Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland, which are among the worst AIDS-affected countries in the world and the number of vulnerable children is growing alarmingly. DfID will be stepping up its support to these countries through multilateral channels and UNICEF in particular. DfID will also be providing support to Botswana to assist in developing and implementing its national action plan.
76WABrazil is giving high priority to meeting the needs of poor and vulnerable children in integrated programmes in all regions. These include measures to support access to education and health services.
DfID has had less success in Russia. Despite providing the majority of support to harm-reduction activities over the past five years, we have had relatively little success at the federal level in promoting a favourable policy environment for vulnerable young people at risk from drugs.