Source · Select Committees · International Development Committee
Recommendation 7
7
Deferred
Paragraph: 33
Current border restrictions in Gaza render famine prevention impossible.
Conclusion
Current border restrictions will make it impossible to avert a famine. The state of desperation in Gaza has been emphasised to this Committee. Food is not getting through in anything close to the amounts needed. Lack of certainty of supply is driving desperate behaviour in the population and gives opportunity for organised crime to step in.
Government Response Summary
The government's response discusses the effectiveness and role of its MAP Hub in atrocity prevention within the FCDO, completely ignoring the recommendation about border restrictions and the looming famine in Gaza.
Paragraph Reference:
33
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
27. The UK Government is grateful to the Committee for the insightful recommendations it made in its previous report, From Srebrenica to a safer tomorrow: Preventing future mass atrocities around the world. The Mass Atrocity Prevention (MAP) Hub is taking forward many of those recommendations. For example, the Hub works with international and civil society partners to share best practice and identify coordination opportunities, has assessed the needs of FCDO staff to enhance the atrocity prevention training offer, and has integrated atrocity risk analysis into global horizon scanning and early warning capabilities. We continually seek feedback to identify ways to improve how the Hub works across HMG. 28. We do not agree that the Hub does not have the required resource and leadership to fulfil its role. The Hub was established as a centralised support function to provide geographic teams with expert advice, datasets, and policy resources to raise understanding of atrocity risks and avenues to address them. Geographic teams rightly lead on making and implementing country-specific policies. We judge this partnership approach is the best way to ensure policy coherence between atrocity prevention and context-specific expertise. Since the outbreak of the conflict in Gaza, the MAP Hub has proactively supported relevant FCDO teams working on the conflict to understand, monitor and address atrocity risks. Lessons learned from atrocity prevention efforts in other contexts have also contributed to this advice. Conclusion/