---

Democratic Republic of Congo (Development)

I accept that point. We need to have a series of ways in which we fund organisations to respond, but NGOs, as well as other aid agencies, need to co-ordinate much more effectively than they have done in the past, not only in the DRC but in a range of other development and humanitarian situations. Helping to establish pooled funds is one way to help to incentivise better co-ordination, but I take my hon. Friend's point that on occasion we need some of the more traditional funding routes to be available to NGOs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North said, there has never been a better chance to help the democratically elected Government and the people of the DRC to achieve the permanent end to conflict and the routes out of poverty to prosperity that all hon. Members want to see. As my hon. Friend made clear, the DRC matters, not only because its 60 million people deserve much better than they have had to date, but because that vast country, with nine neighbours, is of huge strategic importance: it is vital to the stability of central Africa. The DRC is also of international importance in the context of the fight against climate change. The Congo basin forest, which straddles 10 countries although the vast bulk sits within the DRC, is the second largest tropical rainforest in the world and is suffering deforestation at an alarming rate. Again, the international community needs to work with the Governments in all 10 countries, but particularly the DRC, to begin to slow down that deforestation. In that context, the Congo basin forest fund, for which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has set aside £50 million and which we will launch shortly with the support of COMIFAC—the Commission for the Forests of Central Africa—countries and, we hope, with other donors, is potentially of huge importance to helping to achieve that objective.