Matthew Pennycook – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Matthew Pennycook on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism in enabling the construction and reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

Through the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM) over 95,000 people have now been able to buy materials to repair homes that were damaged during the conflict. However, we are concerned that none of the homes destroyed have been rebuilt yet. We therefore welcome the June 2015 agreement between the Israeli and the Palestinian authorities on the Residential Stream of the GRM to support the reconstruction of homes that were completely destroyed. DFID is providing £700,000 to the Materials Monitoring Unit which monitors the import, storage, supply and use of construction materials into Gaza under the GRM. The UK is also calling on all donors to disburse pledges made at the October 2014 Cairo Gaza Reconstruction Conference without delay.