To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the effect of UK overseas development aid on the level of Government corruption in natural resource exporting countries which receive that aid; and if he will make a statement. (281687)

The Department for International Development (DFID) assesses the risk and impact of corruption as part of its country planning process through Fiduciary Risk Assessments and the mandatory Country Governance Analysis (CGA). Recent CGA's have shown positive trends on corruption in a number of natural resource exporting countries where DFID provides support.

For example at the international level, the UK has led on the development of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which requires participating companies in the extractives sector to publish what they pay and governments to publish what they receive in revenues. 28 countries are implementing the EITI and 11 countries have so far produced one or more EITI reports. This represents important progress in the transparency and anti-corruption agendas in natural resource exporting countries. Further information on the EITI can be found on the DFID website:

http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Global-Issues/Working-to-make-Global-Aid-more-effective/International-Aid-Transparency-Initiative/

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the effect of Government corruption on the effectiveness of UK overseas development aid to developing countries; (281688)

The Department for International Development (DFID) undertakes Fiduciary Risk Assessments (FRAs) in all countries to which DFID is providing, or considering providing, financial aid. These include an explicit assessment of the risk of corruption, the strength of Government financial management systems and the potential effect of the on all Government expenditure including UK aid.

All FRAs are subject to an external independent scrutiny and are updated through annual statements of progress.