To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent steps the Government have taken to improve the safety of British aid workers overseas. (211054)

Department for International Development staff posted abroad receive security briefing and training. While they are in country, office and home accommodation and local travel are security risk-assessed and appropriate security safeguards adopted.

Consultants and contractors employed by DFID are responsible for their own security and safety arrangements. However, DFID will seek to ensure that they are appropriately briefed on security matters.

Consultants and contractors and other British aid staff working independently of DFID, such as NGOs, will have access to Foreign and Commonwealth Office consular services as well as the advice offered on travel to countries as listed on the FCO website.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent steps the Government have taken to improve the distribution of aid. (211055)

Over the past year, the Department for International Development has improved the distribution of its bilateral aid by putting in place a formal two-stage process to support allocation decisions. The first stage uses a model to guide allocations to low-income countries based on need and their ability to use the aid effectively. The second stage takes the allocations proposed by the model and considers how other country-level considerations, such as the likelihood of countries’ getting into conflict or their progress in reaching the millennium development goals, may affect their allocations.

In addition, DFID is committed to improving distribution of aid through the multilateral system by strengthening the evidence base for multilateral effectiveness. DFID produces multilateral development effectiveness summaries which measure multilateral organisations according to their country level and global results, how they manage resources and partnerships with others, and how they build for the future. DFID is also working with other donors through the multilateral organisations performance assessment network (MOPAN) to develop a method of measuring the effectiveness of multilateral aid for use by the joint donor group.

Further information on aid allocation and distribution is available in chapters 5 and 10 of the DFID annual report 2008, copies of which are in the Library of the House.