To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development, how much (a) the EU and (b) the UK spent on capacity building in (i) 2001–02 and (ii) 2002–03; and how much is budgeted for 2003–04. [124377]

Capacity building continues to form a major part of our Technical Co-operation programme in the form of personnel, training, research and associated costs. Our Technical Co-operation expenditure for 2001–02 was £616 million and for 2002–03 was £741 million. We expect expenditure levels in 2003–04 to remain similar to those of last year.DFID does not have data on EU capacity building; this could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.