Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for International Relations and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:37 pm on 20 November 2019.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 2:37, 20 November 2019

It's absolutely true that people in Wales, I think, are very generous and understanding of the need to support poorer communities around the globe. I'm sure you'll be very pleased to hear that the Welsh Government actually supports the co-ordination of the work of the Disasters Emergency Committee, and we've been actually paying for that co-ordination work by helping to pay for an administrator. What we know is that that co-ordination of different charities—. There are about 14 charities that come together, and the plan is to get as much money in as fast as possible. I think that's a valuable piece of work, and you'll be aware that the First Minister always does a video to help promote those as well. 

So, there's no question about the generosity of the people of Wales, but the question for us is: with the small budget that we have, how do we make that work best? Now, we can scattergun it throughout the world or we can focus it, and I think that there is a case to be made for focusing that funding, and that's what we're proposing to do. We're focusing it on various themes—for example, on sustainability—but also focusing it on countries where we do have particularly strong relationships, namely Lesotho and Uganda, where recently, you'll have heard, we planted the ten-millionth tree. So, I think there's an opportunity for us to work there, but the broader we go, the less impact we're likely to have.