Overseas Aid

Mark Simmonds
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the timescale is for conducting country governance analysis for all recipients of UK development assistance; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Thomas
DFID introduced a new governance assessment tool, the Country Governance Analysis (CGA), in February 2007. It will help ensure that our aid strategy and programming better reflect governance context and trends. The CGA is mandatory for all countries where DFID is preparing 3-5 year Country Assistance Plans. Between 17 and 21 countries are likely to prepare CGAs in 2007. The rest will be done in 2008-09. To date, none have reached the final approval stage but several are near to finalisation, including Sierra Leone, Malawi, Mozambique and Ghana. CGAs are undertaken with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.