To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent assessment he has made of progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty and hunger by 2015; and if he will make a statement. (274933)

Global food price rises at the end of 2007 and throughout 2008 have hit the poorest people in developing countries the hardest. Higher food prices have triggered an increase in hunger worldwide—last year 75 million more people have been pushed into hunger—making the task of reaching the MDG 1 target more difficult. Furthermore in many developing countries recession is reducing people’s income, making it harder to buy food. While international prices for most food commodities have come down, they remain high, especially at country level, and over 900 million people cannot meet their food needs. However, hunger has been reduced in Eastern and South East Asia and these regions, along with Latin America and Caribbean, are expected to meet the target.

More information and analysis of progress towards meeting the MDG 1 Hunger target and what the UK is doing to achieve this target is available in the “DFID Hunger Factsheet”.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what percentage of his Department’s aid to (a) Africa, (b) Asia and (c) the Americas was allocated to (i) agricultural support, (ii) education and (iii) health care in each of the last three years for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement. (274934)

Details on the UK’s bilateral expenditure are contained in the DFID publication “Statistics on International Development”. This publication is available from in the Library and online at:

www.dfid.gov.uk

Relevant figures are produced in the following table.