John Mann – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development
The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Mann on 2015-12-14.
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much UK aid is being provided in each region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mr Nick Hurd
The DRC is the largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa. Many of the provinces are bigger than other DFID focus countries and there is a huge difference between the mineral-rich plains of Katanga in the south and the tropical rainforests of Equateur in the north, between the conflict-affected east and the megacity of Kinshasa in the west.
Our current approach to working in provinces was shaped in 2012. At that time we decided to focus on six strategic partnership provinces – North Kivu, South Kivu, Kasai Occidental, Katanga, Equateur and Kinshasa. Of these, our greatest area of focus has been the conflict-affected east of the country, which receives one third of our budget and hosts our only sub-national office in Goma. DFID programme design also takes into account need, geographic and logistical constraints, conflict, political issues, and presence of other donors. Whilst we increasingly focussed on the six provinces, we deliberately preserved some flexibility. Some activities, for example addressing humanitarian crises, do not observe provincial borders.
The regional picture in the DRC became more complex in September 2015 as the country’s 11 provinces were divided into 26, in a process called decoupage. In response to this radical change in the country’s geography, DFID DRC is reappraising its provincial focus and calculating its contribution in each province. The new approach will be set out in DFID DRC’s refreshed country business plan in May 2016.
