2010 disclosures

The promotion of microfinance has long been an important element of DFID’s wider strategy to increase access to formal financial services for the poor and to support the development of strong financial sectors that are able to contribute to growth and to poverty reduction.

More information is available in the document below.

• Full response

You can find information on Aid Instruments and detailed guidance on their use on the archived DFID website.

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• Aid instruments guidanceopens in a new window

DFID holds a variety of information on unfair labour, including child labour, and its associated consequences. Much of it can be found on the DFID website. You can also find a great deal of relevant information on the International Labour Organisation (ILO) website.  DFID works closely with ILO, which is the leading international body supporting programmes to tackle unfair labour, for example, on the ILO international programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). DFID also provides support to the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) which helps businesses promote decent work standards.

DFID has been sponsoring the Decent Work and Labour Standards Forum, who have in the past year carried out a study on Decent Work including country case studies in Bangladesh and Zambia.

The recent European Community Working Paper on combating child labour is available.

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• EC working paper on combating child labouropens in a new window

The UK Government recognises and supports the need to protect overseas workers from exploitation.  Countries need national laws to protect workers’ rights, allow unions to operate freely and prevent child labour, and we respect their right to set laws on this and ensure compliance with these laws in their own way.  We encourage UK businesses to act responsibly and to adhere to labour laws and standards, in the countries where they are operating.

We believe that the best way to make progress on these issues is for Governments to work with workers and employers’ groups to improve their ability to comply with and enforce labour laws.  The lead international organisation on labour issues is the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and it endorses this approach, which we know has had some success.  For example, the ILO's 2006 Global Report showed that the number of child labourers worldwide fell by 11% over the previous four years, while the number of children in hazardous work fell by 26%.

The Department for International Development (DFID) is providing almost £20 million over three years to the ILO to strengthen its work with partner countries, promoting decent work.  The ILO is developing “Decent Work Country Programmes” in over 80 countries, with over 30 already running, which are designed to help improve the lives of many millions of working people.  DFID is also providing funding to a new Decent Work and Labour Standards Forum, based in the UK but with international links, to increase knowledge, debate and cooperation on decent work.

Voluntary schemes are bringing real improvements in conditions for workers overseas.  For instance, in 2008, companies who are members of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), registered over 84,000 separate improvements to workers’ conditions that together touch the lives of over 8.6 million workers.  Progress in specific projects has included: in Bangladesh, increased wages and shorter working hours for people making garments for export: and in India, getting children out of hazardous work in stone quarries and getting them back into school.

We are continuing to push for more British companies to join the ETI and commit to improving working conditions.  For instance, Gareth Thomas, Minister of State at the Department for International Development, has called for B&Q, John Lewis Partnership and Top Shop to join this effort.

We also support providing incentives to countries to ensure decent working conditions.  For example we support the special trading deal (called GSP+) that the EU offers to developing countries that ratify and effectively implement twenty-seven international agreements including the eight ILO Core Conventions, which cover freedom from child labour, forced labour and discrimination at work and the right for unions to operate.   GSP+ allows the EU to investigate claims that rights are being abused and as a last resort withdraw the additional incentives provided.

The information you have requested is already in the public domain.  You can find information on the amount of financial aid sent by the UK government and the amounts pledged to help those affected by the tsunami in a National Audit Office report published in February 2007.

Information on the amount of aid provided to countries affected by the tsunami in financial years 2004-05 to 2008-09 is available in the following link to DFID’s annual publication, Statistics on International Development.

Please note that DFID collates and publishes information on UK aid on the basis of financial years.  Information on aid spending in the current financial year, 2009-10, is available in Statistics on International Development 2010.

• National Audit Office reportopens in a new window
• Statistics for International Development

Figures for numbers of male and female DFID staff are published in DFID’s Annual Departmental Reports and more detailed information is available in the Annual Diversity Report. Annual Diversity Reports can be found on the DFID web site.

• Annual diversity reports

In the period for which information is available, i.e. from September 2007, no formal complaints or allegations of sexism or sexual discrimination have been recorded.

DFID stopped buying bottled water for its UK offices in 2007. Mains-fed water filter units, serving chilled tap water, are installed throughout the UK offices for the use of both staff and visitors.

DFID employs no surplus staff and therefore there is no cost to the department.