Overseas Aid

House of Lords written question – answered at on 24 September 2012.

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Photo of Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne Liberal Democrat

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.

Photo of Baroness Northover Baroness Northover Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip), Lords Spokesperson (Department for International Development)

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.

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