Oral question asked in the House of Commons, by John Battle (Labour). It was answered on Wednesday, 3 March 2010 on behalf of the Department for International Development.

Zimbabwe

Question: The International Development Committee recently managed to visit Zimbabwe, where it met some women who had reclaimed land that had been destroyed. Those women are growing things on that land again, under a new system of collective agriculture. Can DFID's pioneering work in introducing new methods of agriculture at a local level be used elsewhere in Africa to demonstrate again that the Department is a top practitioner in tackling poverty?

Answer: I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments about our work on agriculture in Zimbabwe. There is a still a considerable amount that we need to ensure happens in Zimbabwe, but we certainly hope that the lessons that have contributed to the successes that he, like other members of the Select Committee, saw at first hand will be replicated in other country programmes with which we are obviously working.

Secondary information