Commonwealth: Diplomatic Service

(asked on 20th June 2019) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government which countries the UK Commonwealth Envoy has visited since the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2018.


Answered by
 Portrait
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
This question was answered on 4th July 2019

Since taking up the role in June 2018, the UK Commonwealth Envoy has visited the following Commonwealth countries: Rwanda, Kenya, India, Barbados, Saint Lucia, South Africa and the Seychelles. The Commonwealth Envoy has called on all Commonwealth High Commissioners in London, and is in regular contact with them (including at frequent meetings of the Commonwealth Secretariat Board of Governors and Executive Committee).

Outside of the Commonwealth he has travelled to New York: for a Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers' Meeting, a Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group meeting and other Commonwealth-related meetings; Dubai, for Commonwealth meetings at the Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and to consolidate Commonwealth members' support for the re-election of the British Deputy Secretary General of the ITU; and to Addis Ababa, for a UN conference on implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (for which the UK is supporting several Commonwealth countries), and to discuss Commonwealth-African Union collaboration.

He has also visited: Brussels, to meet the Ambassador of a Commonwealth government which is not represented in London; and Geneva, for a Commonwealth Health Ministers' Meeting, discussions with the International Trade Centre (which is implementing the UK-funded She Trades Commonwealth Project) and the ITU (re the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation), a discussion with Commonwealth member representatives about increasing collaboration, and to visit the Commonwealth Small States Office, to which the UK has provided specific financial support.

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