Recommendation 10

HM Government Accepted

Since the IDC inquiry, as part of the Famine Prevention ‘Call to Action’, FCDO has pledged further UK aid, bringing the total additional funding pledged since September to £180 million. This funding is focused on tackling food insecurity and helping other critical life-saving sectors, providing aid to more than 7 million vulnerable people including populations in Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, the Central African Republic, the Sahel and Sudan. The Special Envoy Nick Dyer continues to be active in raising additional funds for the most severe crisis and engaging in diplomatic lobbying to unlock humanitarian access constraints. Since the IDC hearing in late November, the Special Envoy has visited north east Nigeria to meet communities at risk of famine; Saudi Arabia to meet Government counterparts and engage particularly on the Yemen crisis; supported the co-launch of the Global Humanitarian Needs Overview in London with Mark Lowcock, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator; and external events and engagement in New York and Geneva. Over the next couple of months, the Special Envoy will be focusing on driving Call to Action objectives of raising additional funds for the most severe crisis, and humanitarian diplomacy on protection and access constraints which cause food insecurity and famine, through a number of platforms. These platforms include the Foreign and Development Track of the UK’s G7 Presidency, where food insecurity and famine prevention are key themes. Our UNSC Presidency included a focus on accountability for access violations which cause hunger and we continue to use our permanent seat in the UNSC and elected position in the UN Human Rights Council to drive this agenda. Food insecurity will also be part of the UK’s COP26 Presidency. The Foreign Secretary’s ‘Call to Action’ on Famine Prevention deploys FCDO’s diplomatic and humanitarian expertise together to address the most acute food insecurity crises where there is significant famine risk as a result of the current perfect storm of conflict, covid-19 and climate change. This complements existing work by FCDO on chronic food insecurity and livelihoods aimed at responding to longer-term, underlying causes. In addition to the Famine Prevention Call to Action, the Department remains committed to supporting resilience and early action through existing development programmes in the most fragile, vulnerable and food insecure geographies. We have led the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) to commit all available funding to an immediate food security response to covid-19 secondary effects. GAFSP supports the poorest and most affected countries. In Yemen, despite the extraordinarily challenging environment, the GAFSP-supported project has reached more than 106,000 rural Eighth Special Report of Session 2019–21 15 households with support including inputs and livestock to help resume crop and livestock production. The project has resulted in increased production, incomes and self-reliance, improved access to services and strengthened social cohesion in targeted communities. We agree with the IDC’s recommendations that cash transfers can help different groups to respond effectively to the secondary impacts of covid-19 according to their individual needs. Cash transfers have a strong evidence base supporting their use as a more cost-effective intervention and the UK has a long-standing focus on cash within our humanitarian policy. Cash can link humanitarian assistance to national social protection systems, bringing humanitarian cash into more harmonised, coordinated, predictable and efficient approaches to protracted crises, and is an important way we can support people in addressing impacts of covid-19. The UK committed at the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 to “more than double its use of cash-based approaches in crisis situations from current levels.” In financial year 19/20, over £338 million of UK funding was spent on cash and voucher assistance in humanitarian crisis, and over £250 million on emergency cash grants to affected people alone. global health. The Department is undertaking an internal review in response to the spending review announcement. We will update as soon as is feasible on the implications of this for any new commitment to nutrition.