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Written question asked by Peter Bedford (Conservative) on Monday, 3 February 2025, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 5 February 2025. It was answered by Catherine West (Labour) on Friday, 7 February 2025 on behalf of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.


Foreign Aid

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how his Department (a) tracks and (b) reports on the use of UK foreign aid funds in (a) Bangladesh and (b) other countries with known corruption risks; and what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that funds are not (i) diverted and (ii) misappropriated.

Answer

The official source of data on UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) spend (commonly referred to as foreign aid spend) is the Accredited Official Statistics publication "Statistics on International Development: Final UK Aid Spend" which includes a breakdown of bilateral ODA by benefitting country, including Bangladesh. The data is also reported to the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in line with our obligations as a DAC member.

The FCDO has a low appetite for fraud risks. This reflects our willingness to only accept the risks necessary for effective delivery, given our commitment to managing public money well. We take our responsibilities on counter-fraud seriously, and we expect our external partners to do the same.

To help ensure that our ODA funding reaches its intended recipients, the FCDO maintains high standards of programme delivery and risk management. This includes, but is not limited to, maintaining clear audit trails, investigating suspicions or credible allegations of fraud, bribery, and corruption, maintaining financial oversight of programmes, and carrying out formal reviews of programmes to ensure that UK funds are being used for the purposes intended. The FCDO ensures that our delivery partners have robust fraud policies in place, and our due diligence assessments cover their ability to manage downstream partners.


Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
28165
Session
2024-26
Subjects
Corruption Bangladesh Foreign aid
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk