Speeches

Richard Burden – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2015-11-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what conditions are placed on her Department’s funding for the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition; and whether such funding is (a) regularly reviewed and (b) preceded by local consultation in those countries that receive such funding.

Grant Shapps

In 2012, the UK made a £600m pledge to the New Alliance, consisting of projects in 6 founding member countries, which aim at improving incomes from agricultural production, and the food security and nutrition of smallholder farmers and the extreme poor. The objective of the pledge was to be more transparent about aid to agriculture and food security, in alignment with principles of aid effectiveness and the overall goal of the New Alliance. The £600m also included funding to the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP, managed by the World Bank) and other international agriculture research and policy initiatives.

Like every programme funded by DFID, projects pledged under the New Alliance are subject to annual reviews that are posted on the DFID Development Tracker website. At national level, governments lead an annual review of the progress of commitments, in consultation with development and private sector actors, which findings are made public on the New Alliance website.