A report on global food security from the parliamentary development committee this month urged the Department for International Development (DfID) to devote a greater portion of its budget to supporting agricultural extension services, particularly those targeted at women.
Savior Mwambwa, executive director of the CTPD, gave evidence on Tuesday before the UK parliamentary international development committee, which is looking at taxation in developing countries, focusing on Zambia, which committee members will visit in the next few weeks.
The parliamentary international development committee has warned that pressure to meet spending targets as the aid budget rises could result in the Department for International Development (DfID) making poor decisions.
A March report from the parliamentary international development select committee criticised the amount of money going to middle-income countries such as Turkey and the EU's slow bureaucracy, but concluded that on balance money going through the EU was no worse than other multilateral DfID funds.
The report of the parliamentary international development committee urges the government to take a moral lead and find new money for poor countries to adapt to the severe storms, floods and droughts that are already being seen around the world and are impacting most on the poor.
And the chairman of the parliamentary international development committee, Malcolm Bruce, said: "You can't use the aid budget to make up for defence cuts".
The EU Scrutiny committee spearheads parliamentary scrutiny of developments within the EU, decides which EU documents are debated and monitors the activities of British ministers.
Born in Rawalpindi, Huma Chughtai is a freelance consultant with over 25 years of experience working in the areas of governance, gender and development, parliamentary capacity, judicial reform, and human rights.
AusAID provides advice and support to the Minister and Parliamentary Secretary on development policy, and plans and coordinates poverty reduction activities in partnership with developing countries.
The 70-year-old was last week named chair of a "development coordination" parliamentary team, another sign that she might not take a executive branch position.
