To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the forthcoming White Paper on aid and development will address the causes of conflict in some countries. [HL1959]

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the forthcoming White Paper on aid and development will address the interdependence in economic, environmental and security matters of the United Kingdom and many developing countries. [HL1960]

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the forthcoming White Paper on aid and development will cover multilateralism. [HL1961]

To ask Her Majesty's Government how they ensure the effectiveness of their aid and development work in fragile and conflict-affected countries; and whether that issue will be covered in the forthcoming White Paper on aid and development. [HL1969]

The public consultation document for the forthcoming White Paper on international development sets out a range of issues that the Government are seeking to consider. These include; the causes of conflict, fragile states, multilateralism, and interdependence in economic, environmental and security matters.

This document is available on the Department for International Development's (DfID) website at http://consultation.dfid.gov.uk/

I refer my noble friend to the Answer given to HL PQ 1971 for information on how DfID ensures the effectiveness of its aid in fragile and conflict-affected countries.

To ask Her Majesty's Government how they assess the effectiveness of aid and development work undertaken on issues concerning fragile and conflict-affected countries. [HL1971]

The Department for International Development (DfID) currently assesses programme performance in fragile and conflict-affected countries in the same way as it does in other countries and recent reviews have shown that programme performance levels are roughly the same in these countries as in others.

DfID is, however, also currently working with other international partners at the OECD-Development Assistance Committee (DAC) to begin two new processes for monitoring performance in fragile and conflict-affected countries agreed at the Accra conference last year. The first is monitoring of the implementation of the OECD-DAC principles for good engagement in situations of fragility. This will allow us to ensure implementation of aid effectiveness principles in fragile and conflict-affected countries. Country partners taking part this year include Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We are also supporting the international dialogue on peacebuilding and statebuilding to develop peacebuilding and statebuilding objectives that will guide development assistance in fragile and conflict-affected countries and allow better performance assessment. We intend to finalise and publish a thematic evaluation of DfID's work in fragile states later this year.

The forthcoming White Paper on international development is likely to consider what additional measures can be taken to adapt aid to the priorities of fragile and conflict affected countries. The public consultation document, available at http://consultation.dfid.gov.uk/, is seeking views on new and better ways of delivering assistance in these countries.