HC 565 - The UK's Development Work in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
HC 565 - The UK's Development Work in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2014-08-06

Total Pages: 52

ISBN-13: 0215075730

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The ongoing violence by Palestinian and Israeli extremists does not bode well for peace negotiations for a two-state solution, but as much of the coverage surrounding recent violence has highlighted, restrictions which restrain economic development within the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) remain a key issue for the Palestinians. In particular, as the World Bank made plain in a report last year, there would be scope to raise Palestinian GDP by over 20% if Palestinian businesses were allowed to invest the part of the West Bank controlled by Israel. The conflict between Hamas and Israel and the stalling of the peace talks should not prevent the UK and other European countries from pressing Israel to end unnecessary restrictions. In particular, the Committee challenges the assertion that restrictions which curtail economic development in the OPTs are based on Israel s security needs. The UK should encourage both sides to negotiate to address the disputed issues, including Palestinian access to 3G and 4G services in the West Bank, and greater access to the West Bank aquifer, construction permits, demolitions and master plans. DFID should also support the World Bank programme for helping the Palestinian Authority with land registration. While the Committee welcomes the UK's decision to introduce labelling guidelines for products made in Israeli settlements, they call for a review to examine whether the guidelines have been implemented and to what effect. MPs also strongly support the Palestinian Market Development Programme but also call for the provision of a Sector Grant Facility and Development Impact Bonds in the OPTs

HC 247 - Recovery and Development in Sierra Leone and Liberia
HC 247 - Recovery and Development in Sierra Leone and Liberia

Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. International Development Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 102

ISBN-13: 0215078209

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Sierra Leone and Liberia have made remarkable recoveries since their civil wars. Ban Ki Moon was in Freetown this month to bring an end to the UN Security mission and set the UN presence on a conventional development footing from 1st April 2014. In Liberia there has been a gradual drawdown of the peacekeeping mission which will approximately halve the UN military presence by 2015. However both countries remain fragile with high unemployment and concerns about corruption. The devastating Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone and Liberia demonstrates the dangers of ignoring the least developed countries in the world. The weak state of the health system in both countries has greatly reduced the effectiveness of the response to Ebola. There is an alarming lack of capacity in the health system, including a shortage of skilled clinicians.The Committee have determined that the scale of the Ebola crisis now unfolding in Sierra Leone and Liberia, may well be connected to declining levels of international support for health system improvements in what remain two of the poorest and least developed countries in the world.

HC 663 - The Future of UK Development Co-operation: Phase 2: Beyond Aid
HC 663 - The Future of UK Development Co-operation: Phase 2: Beyond Aid

Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. International Development Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 64

ISBN-13: 0215081269

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The number of low income countries is falling. At the same time, the importance of global issues - conflict, climate, migration, trade, tax, financial stability, youth unemployment, urbanisation economic development, and infectious disease - is rising. The Committee argues that aid remains vital for addressing poverty in poor countries, for encouraging economic development, for providing global goods such as tackling climate change, combating diseases such as Ebola and providing humanitarian assistance, but new forms of co-operation have to be developed in order to meet these challenges. This will include new financial mechanisms and facilitating links with UK institutions in a wide range of areas, including health, education, culture, law, culture and science. This will require the Department for International Development (DFID) to put more emphasis on working with small organisations and less on programme management.As the focus moves away from aid, policy coherence for development must be at the heart of a new approach. This means working across Government in the UK, and with global partners in the multilateral system, to maximise the impact on development of all the UK's actions. This approach and changes will require DFID staff to develop different skills.

HC 1138 - International Development Committee: The Legacy - Parliament 2010-15
HC 1138 - International Development Committee: The Legacy - Parliament 2010-15

Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. International Development Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 25

ISBN-13: 0215085736

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As the end of the 2010-2015 Parliament approaches, the Committee has taken the opportunity to look back on their work. This Report outlines some of the Committee's work, progress and effectiveness during this Parliament and sets out areas that may be of interest to their successor committee. It has also provided the opportunity to scrutinise what actions the Government has taken with regard to issues and recommendations raised in our reports.

HC 741 - Appointment of the Chief Commissioner of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact
HC 741 - Appointment of the Chief Commissioner of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact

Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. International Development Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 0215080750

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The Chief Commissioner of ICAI has a crucial role in scrutinising aid spending by the UK Government and reporting to Parliament through the International Development Committee. The Committee are pleased to endorse the appointment of Dr Alison Evans to this post, but recommend that at least one of the existing Commissioners be reappointed for a further term to ensure continuity, and that one of the Commissioners be an audit professional. The selection process used resulted in an unranked list of four candidates deemed "appointable" being presented to the Secretary of State for consideration. This puts too much power in the hands of the Secretary of State for an independent scrutiny post and threatens to undermine the candidate in the eyes of the public who may assume that the candidate most sympathetic to DFID was chosen. The Committee recommend that panels for ICAI Commissioner appointments should be invited to rank candidates or otherwise advise the Secretary of State as they see fit. In the longer term, it is recommended that the Committee be able to choose the Chief Commissioner from the list of candidates.

HC 876 - Responses to the Ebola Crisis
HC 876 - Responses to the Ebola Crisis

Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. International Development Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 24

ISBN-13: 0215080890

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The Ebola outbreak that has stricken Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea since March 2014 has had a devastating effect on the region. By 2 December 2014, more than 17,500 cases and 6,000 deaths had been reported. Ebola has had wider damaging consequences for local economies, food security, institutional stability and the broader health system. The House of Commons International Development Committee says DfID and the World Health Organisation initially failed to recognise the scale and severity of the Ebola crisis and were too slow to respond. This is in part due the WHO's member states, who have cut its funding and failed to emphasise building sustainable health systems in developing countries, leaving the global health system "dangerously inadequate" for responding to health emergencies. It recommends that DfID press for a review of the international approach to health emergencies, incorporating the function, structure and funding of the World Health Organisation and the role and expectations of major donors.

HC 523 - The Independent Commission for Aid Impact's Performance and Annual Report 2013-14
HC 523 - The Independent Commission for Aid Impact's Performance and Annual Report 2013-14

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2014-09-05

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 0215075854

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The Independent Commission on Aid Impact (ICAI) is an independent commission which reports to the House of Commons International Development Committee, not to the Department for International Development (DFID). The Committee ensures its accountability to Parliament in two main ways: through a sub-Committee, which takes evidence on the reports published by ICAI; and through an inquiry each year carried out by the full Committee into ICAI's Annual Report. 2013-14 has been a busy year for ICAI, with 12 reports published on a wide range of DFID's activities. ICAI's Annual Report contained three headline findings for DFID this year. Firstly, tighter management of multilateral partners is needed. Secondly, DFID needs to continue to improve its aid programme management capacity, especially where contractors are implementing programmes. Thirdly, DFID's corporate results agenda - and in particular its use of 'reach indicators' - is distorting programming choices. The Committee shares ICAI's concerns on these issues and intend to follow up its recommendations in two forthcoming inquiries this autumn: Beyond Aid; and DFID's Departmental Annual Report 2013-14. DFID spends a large amount of money - at least £200 million - on self-evaluation. However, it cannot provide an exact total. The Committee question this large expenditure, especially given that an ICAI evaluation recently found that DFID staff struggle to use self-evaluation material in their work. The contracts of the current ICAI commissioners, contractor consortium and staff all end in May 2015. While staff contracts may be renewed, new commissioners and contractors must be recruited. Planning is underway for the transition to the next phase of ICAI: all possible efforts must be made to ensure this goes as smoothly as possible.

A Threshold Crossed
A Threshold Crossed

Author: Omar Shakir

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13:

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"The widely held assumption that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is a temporary situation and that the 'peace process' will soon bring an end to Israeli abuses has obscured the reality on the ground today of Israel's entrenched discriminatory rule over Palestinians. A single authority, the Israeli government, rules primarily over the area between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, populated by two groups of roughly equal size, methodologically privileging Jewish Israelis while repressing Palestinians, most severely in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), made-up of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Drawing on years of human rights documentation, case studies and a review of government planning documents, statements by officials and other sources, [this report] examines Israel's treatment of Palestinians and evaluates whether particular Israeli policies and practices in certain areas amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution."--Page 4 of cover.