Developing Countries: Urban Areas
International Development

Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central, Labour)

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment she has made of her Department's expertise in urbanisation and urban development.

Alan Duncan (Minister of State, International Development; Rutland and Melton, Conservative)

DFID has built up internal expertise in urbanisation and urban development over the past decade. DFID has experience from India and other settings in urban development, experience which can be leveraged as we develop our urban programming going forward.

DFID's expertise on urban issues resides in a number of technical advisory groups, especially in infrastructure, climate and environment, livelihoods, private sector development, economics, governance, social development and humanitarian. An internal network of 60 DFID specialists working on urban issues was created in early 2012 to promote improved understanding of the challenges of urbanisation by drawing on the existing knowledge and expertise and to share experience across DFID's country programmes. Themes of current interest include poverty, health, migration, enterprise development, climate change adaptation and disaster resilience.