Select committee: International Development Committee
Recommendation 18
Seventh Report - Progress on tackling the sexual exploitation and abuse of aid beneficiaries
Published 14 Jan 2021
Paragraph 72
Addressed to Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
International Development Committee Sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector: next steps All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
It is important that aid organisations promote diversity and inclusion, including recruiting greater numbers of women and minority ethnic staff to senior leadership Progress on tackling the sexual exploitation and abuse of aid beneficiaries 51 roles, to challenge and overcome discriminatory attitudes and cultures that permit sexual exploitation and abuse to perpetuate as occurred during the 2018–20 Ebola response in the DRC.
From: International Development Committee, Seventh Report - Progress on tackling the sexual exploitation and abuse of aid beneficiaries (HC 605), paragraph 72, 14 January 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 6 April 2021.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the Committee's report and states that, unless otherwise stated, it agrees with each of the 30 recommendations, partially agreeing with some and disagreeing with others.
- On the recommended full audit of whistleblowing practices, the government says it does "not agree", citing resource and time costs, and prefers assessing partners before funding and ongoing monitoring.
- On making aid work a regulated activity requiring Enhanced DBS checks, it disagrees with the recommendation "as written", but has set up a working group to explore the issues faced in checking criminal histories.
- On reporting NDA numbers, it partially agrees: it agrees NDAs must not be misused but does not think counting them is effective, and is "actively exploring" adding clearer language to funding templates and due diligence.
- On annual reporting, it "certainly intend[s]" to replicate DFID's safeguarding section in the FCDO's annual report, though the structure is "still to be finalised". On the UN trust fund for victims, it says it has "recently agreed to do this".