Tommy Sheppard – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tommy Sheppard on 2016-03-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much her Department plans to spend on emergency aid relief in Fiji in response to the recent cyclone in that country.

Mr Desmond Swayne

The UK is assisting Fiji in response to Tropical Cyclone Winston. We are contributing technical support to strengthen United Nations Children’s Fund capacity with water, sanitation and hygiene coordination and are ready to consider further requests for humanitarian experts should it be required. DFID has also offered to provide support to the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Co-ordinations team and will remain in contact with Agencies in the region.

The UK is also funding MapAction, a UK-based NGO. Two of their volunteers have now deployed to Fiji to provide GIS and Mapping capability. The UK also makes core contributions to the UN Agencies, the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department and the Red Cross, all of whom are contributing to the response. Stephen O’Brien, Head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has recently announced US $8 million for Fiji from the Central Emergency Response Fund, to which the UK is biggest contributor, having donated in excess of $855m in the last 10 years.