Speeches by Dodds.

“That is specifically focused on fragile contexts and trying to develop the resilience within those contexts. As the Committee knows, unfortunately we have seen the number of fragile and conflict-affected states increasing over time. As a Department, we have specific programmes that already operate in different contexts…”

“That is a really important point. There are philanthropic organisations that have different forms of expertise on this agenda. I had a really useful discussion with Bill Gates around this. Clearly, he and his foundation have been doing quite a lot of work around climate resilience, animal husbandry, vaccination and so …”

“It means we are working towards setting a target for integration. In terms of whether we would set aside a specific figure of ODA for that purpose for the future, we will not be doing that. We will not be through the spending review by that point, but we are determined to make progress across all of our programmes on t…”

“It is not a situation where ensuring that there is integration should reduce a specific focus on nutrition. I am pleased that the UK co-founded the child nutrition fund. That is specifically focused on measures around nutrition and nutrition-specific supplies. We may come back to that later, but clearly in many context…”

“With respect, I do not think that there is an assumption necessarily, so maybe I misunderstood the question. In every Department, there is an assumption that there needs to be a really thorough review of budgets and indeed zero-based budgeting where possible, so that there can be that really thorough analysis about whe…”

“I just spelled it out to you. I can repeat it again if you like. We have been really clear that we want to see a successful replenishment of Gavi, as with the Global Fund. We have been working with Gavi on this. We continue to have those discussions. I am aware that, ultimately, Gavi delivers good value for money for t…”

“Yes, of course. We are really determined that there must be successful replenishments, whether we are talking about Gavi or indeed the Global Fund. There are a number of replenishments that are coming up. When we are talking about multi-year commitments, of course we have to consider the context with the spending revie…”

“That work has been really important. I would also mention the Pirbright lab. I believe that there is an Edinburgh-based initiative called GALVmed as well that has worked on livestock vaccines. This is clearly absolutely fundamental work that also contributes to other Government goals. I was just thinking while you were…”

“It will be as soon as I can. I am sorry that I do not have a precise timescale, but I know that the Committee is really interested in this.”

“I do not know whether previous government commitments around recruitment in this area have been fulfilled. I know that, more broadly around capability and capacity, when I came into role as Minister I worked with officials to ensure that we had a programme to increase our capability and capacity. That has included a re…”

“Generally there is sharing of knowledge, but there is always more that can be done. When I was in Indonesia, I visited a forestry management programme that involved elements that were based in-country and from centrally managed programmes too. I felt that it was a really good example of bringing together the broader ex…”

“Yesterday I set out a number of measures that we are seeking to take in relation to debt. I called on particularly the private sector to work with the UK on the take-up of majority voting provisions and other changes that we want to see. We want other countries to be much more transparent in their lending as well, as t…”

“It is a very good question. The review of development that has been undertaken by Minouche Shafik that we talked about previously in the Committee focused specifically on capability and capacity within the Department. There is a food and agriculture professional cadre of 45 technical experts working specifically on the…”

“As I said previously, I am really happy to have a session with the Committee to talk about the review and go through the core lessons from it. It would be great to work with you all on this, so I agreed to that at the last session.”

“That will be important and of course there is going to be an external report on our commitments made at the nutrition for growth summit as well. My view is that the more accountability we have around this the better, so that we can seek to ensure that UK interventions on this are delivering and we are seeing that integ…”

“It is a report to the Foreign Secretary, as with all of the different reviews. Quite a lot of it is technical and focused specifically on those development capability and capacity issues, which I know the Committee is really concerned about, but it goes into a huge amount of detail on them. I know, however, that you, l…”

“We have been determined to make sure that we have coherence around our approach to nutrition. Certainly since I came in, over the last six months, that has been really important for the Department. That started off with our commitment in Rio. I am really pleased that I have Jen and Chris here because they were working …”

“Thanks so much for raising this. It is really worrying to see quite how far off we are from SDG2. Three-quarters of a billion people are going hungry. That is one in five people living in Africa at the moment. We are clearly far off. We have to work with other countries on this. Of course, we have some key moments comi…”

“That has been a big part of the kind of reform that we have been pushing as a new Government. We find too often with climate finance that the funds may actually be there but they are very inaccessible for needs. Where we see a greater focus on making these funds more readily available and tailored to the needs of count…”

“I think that we agreed that we would have a discussion about it and that we would share the core findings of it with you, so we are seeking to take that forward.”