Rebecca Long Bailey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rebecca Long Bailey on 2016-05-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what guarantees she has received that UK development aid for Ethiopia is not used for military or security purposes or the so-called villagisation dispersal programme; and what safeguards are in place to ensure that UK aid to Ethiopia is used only for agreed development purposes.

Mr Nick Hurd

All DFID aid in Ethiopia is administered through specific programmes, each with a strong set of controls, high standard monitoring and strong DFID oversight. Aid in Ethiopia is distributed through a number of channels. Where a programme is administered using government systems a standard fiduciary risk assessment evaluating the national public financial management system is mandatory. As with all aid spending, strong checks and balances and regular monitoring ensure that aid is used for the purposes intended.

UK aid in Ethiopia has contributed to the remarkable developmental gains the country has made over the past decade. The UK has helped reduce poverty and child mortality in Ethiopia by a quarter and put four more million children in primary school.