Mrs. Gillan: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what percentage of British (a) bilateral and (b)multilateral aid was allocated to states in (i) Africa, (ii) Asia, (iii) Latin America and (iv) Europe in (1) 1996, (2) 1997, (3)1998 and (4) 1999; and what is her estimate of the equivalent figure in 2000. [112114]Clare Short: The information requested is given in the table for the Department for International Development expenditure only(other UK aid is excluded as we do not have the required details for the later years). Multilateral assistance cannot be readilybroken down by region but we conduct special exercises periodically to estimate the geographical distribution of our contributionsto multilateral institutions. The latest exercise was conducted in 1997.DFID programme expenditure_________________________________________________________________________________________________.Percentage going to 1996-97 1997-98 1998-99 1999-2000 2000-01 plans 1997 imputedestimated {1} multilateraloutturn {1} share {2}Africa 32 33 39 32 35 37America 6 9 9 6 6 10of which:Caribbean 4 6 6 -- -- 0Central 1 1 1 -- -- 5South 2 2 2 -- -- 4Asia 30 28 27 23 25 28Europe 13 11 7 6 6 24Other Bilateral 19 19 18 32 28 1Total 100 100 100 100 100 100_________________________________________________________________________________________________.{1} General allocations (eg humanitarian assistance, scholarship schemes) which cannot be assigned to regions in advance areincluded in `other bilateral'. {2} Includes contributions from other government Departments to multilateral institutions. Note:Columns may not sum to totals due to rounding.