Commonwealth Education Fund

Mr. Francois
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much Government funding the Commonwealth Education Fund received in each year since its foundation.

Mr. Thomas
The UK Government committed £23.4 million to the Commonwealth Education Fund, when it was launched in 2002. This funding supports three components: the Strategic Fund; Comic Relief Fund and Schools Linking Programme.

The Schools Linking Programme has received an allocation of £2 million covering the period between 2002-03 to 2005-06.

The following table shows yearly expenditure on the Strategic and Comic Relief Funds.

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|                   |Strategic Fund|Comic Relief Fund|
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|2002               |1,084         |—                |
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|2003               |1,833         |1,666            |
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|2004               |1,555         |1,845            |
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|2005               |2,429         |1,731            |
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|2006               |3,053         |1,495            |
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|2007-2008 allocated|2,646         |2,062            |
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|Total              |12,000        |8,799            |
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