House of Lords written question – answered at on 24 September 2012.
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much funding they have provided in each of the last 10 years, and how much they plan to spend in each year to 2015, for promoting (1) human rights, and (2) democracy, overseas; and which departments disburse this funding.
The UK Government support human rights and democracy through the work of two departments. DfID is the main funding provider. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) also provides financial assistance to promote human rights and democracy, as well as playing a key diplomatic role in promoting the UK's values on human rights and democracy. DfID has provided a total of nearly £738 million on support to human rights and democracy in the period from 2000-01 to 2010-11, bilaterally and through multilateral organisations, although we believe this figure to be a low estimation of DfID's full expenditure on democracy and human rights. The FCO currently spends a minimum of £10 million per year on human rights and democracy.
Table 1 below shows the break-down of DfID's bilateral and multilateral spend per year. Table 2 shows DfID's bilateral spend per year on (1) human rights and (2) democracy. It would incur disproportionate costs to identify the break-down of DfID's multilateral spend on human rights and democracy over the past 10 years.
DfID does not have sufficient information available to give a fair projection of DfID expenditure on human rights and democracy until 2015. The FCO's expenditure on human rights and democracy is currently assessed on an annual basis and next year's allocation has not yet been announced.
Table 1: DfID's bilateral and multilateral spend per year on human rights and democracy.
Spend(£000s) | 2000/01 | 2001/02 | 2002/03 | 2003/04 | 2004/05 | 2005/06 |
DfID Bilateral | 14,920 | 14,960 | 16,143 | 21,707 | 21,521 | 23,967 |
DfID Multilateral | - | - | - | - | - | - |
Spend(£000s) | 2006/07 | 2007/08 | 2008/09 | 2009/10 | 2010/11 |
DfID Bilateral | 20,196 | 33,988 | 42,048 | 27,622 | 44,567 |
DfID Multilateral | 99,420 | 104,571 | 104,319 | 74,366 | 73,502 |
Table 2. DfID's bilateral spend per year on human rights and democracy (elections).
Spend(£000s) | 2000/01 | 2001/02 | 2002/03 | 2003/04 | 2004/05 | 2005/06 |
Human Rights | 9,771 | 10,470 | 11,802 | 8,558 | 7,884 | 7,249 |
Democracy (Elections) | 5,150 | 4,490 | 4,341 | 13,149 | 13,637 | 16,718 |
Spend(£000s) | 2006/07 | 2007/08 | 2008/09 | 2009/10 | 2010/11 |
Human Rights | 6,405 | 12,308 | 11,591 | 9,084 | 10,688 |
Democracy (Elections) | 13,791 | 21,680 | 30,456 | 18,539 | 33,880 |
This can be found at: www.dfid.gov.uk/About-us/How-we-measure-progress/Aid-Statistics/Statistics-on-International-Development-201l/SID-2011-Additional-tables/ and www.fco.gov.uk/en/publications-and-documents/publications1/annual-reports/human-rights-report.
Yes0 people think so
No0 people think not
Would you like to ask a question like this yourself? Use our Freedom of Information site.