ESAT News (December 20, 2016)

The UK government’s funding for an “Ethiopian girl band” has been placed “under review”, the international development secretary has announced.

Priti Patel promised MPs she would work to ensure taxpayer “value for money”, after reports the group Yegna was getting £5.2m ($6.5), the BBC reported on Monday.

She added that there were “many other ways” to deal with issues like forced marriage and violence against women.

But the government could not “vacate the pitch”, Ms Patel said.

Ministers have promised to keep spending at least 0.7% of national income on aid, but some Conservative MPs have said the money should go instead into funding adult social care in the UK, the BBC report said.

The Daily Mail reports that Yegna, a five-member band dubbed Ethiopian “Spice Girls”, has been provided with £5.2m to develop its “branded media platform”, as part of a project aimed at changing perceptions of women in the country.

Yegna, founded in 2013, works to encourage “positive behaviour change for girls in Ethiopia” and is part of the Girl Effect project, which was created by the UK’s Department for International Development and the Nike Foundation in 2011.

It uses storylines and music to tackle gender-based violence, reduce the proportion of girls who marry or give birth before the age of 18, increase the proportion of girls who complete primary school and go to secondary school and increase the number of girls “with control over economic assets”.