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Overseas Aid

Volume 480: debated on Monday 6 October 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what programmes his Department is providing with the UN Development Programme to create stable states; how much has been allocated to these programmes in 2008-09; what the administrative costs associated with these programmes will be in 2008-09; and what mechanisms his Department has to evaluate the effectiveness of its bilateral aid aimed at facilitating stability in fragile states. (220387)

The Department for International Development (DFID) supports UNDP with core funding (£190 million in 2004-07), as well as supporting specific initiatives, such as the UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR), and our country programme work. For example, this year DFID gave £200,000 to a UNDP trust fund that supported Kofi Annan’s role in helping resolve the post-election crisis in Kenya. It is not yet possible to provide figures for financial year 2008-09 or an administration cost breakdown. UNDP’s administration costs vary according to the programme and context, but the amount in many agreements is between 7 and 11 per cent.

DFID has procedures for routinely assessing aid programmes and has adapted the normal framework for its Country Programme Evaluations to take account of the specific requirements for aid effectiveness in fragile states, following the OECD-DAC Principles for Good International Engagement in fragile states.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what programmes were funded by the £13.5 million contributed by his Department to the Civil Society Challenge Fund; and what the administrative costs associated with each programme were. (220449)

A table listing the 163 programmes supported by £13.5 million from the Civil Society Challenge Fund (CSCF) during 2006-07 will be placed in the Library.

The Department for International Development (DFID) does not track administrative costs for each individual CSCF programme. During 2006-07, DFID's administrative cost for consultancy support to the CSCF as a whole was £227,518.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much has been allocated by his Department to joint funding schemes with the research councils in 2008-09; and how much his Department will spend on administration of such schemes in 2008-09. (220525)

The Department for International Development (DFID) has joint funding schemes with four Research Councils. We estimate that spend on these programmes this financial year will be as shown in the following table.

Programme

£ million

Medical Research Council

5.4

Joint Natural Environment Research Council/Economic and Social Research Council Eco Systems Programme

0.5

Economic and Social Research Council

3

Biology and Biological Sciences Research Council

1.7

The DFID cost of administering these schemes is estimated at 2 to 3 per cent.