Diplomatic Wing Foreign & Commonwealth Office
providing humanitarian aid to Southern Africa and the Horn - especially Somalia. In South Africa, the UK continued to encourage efforts to promote political reform and help efforts to combat the violence. The Foreign Secretary led the EC Troika of Foreign Ministers on a visit in September, during which it was agreed to send EC observers to work alongside those from the UN and the Commonwealth.
●The Environment: the UK took a leading part in the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in June. This agreed a programme of action (Agenda 21); a set of environment/ development principles (the Rio Declaration); forestry principles; and conventions on climate change and biodiversity. The UK successfully worked to establish the necessary institutional arrangements to monitor UNCED follow-up work. The UK also played a leading role in the G7 initiative taken at the Munich Economic Summit to tackle the civil nuclear safety problems in the former Soviet Union and central and eastern Europe.
●Vietnamese migrants: the UK reached agreement with the Vietnamese on the orderly repatriation of non-refugees who do not volunteer to return, thus opening the way to a durable solution to the long- standing boat people problem.
6.2 The FCO further:
• Set
up the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to strengthen political parties and other pluralist democratic institutions in emergent democracies, with a budget of £1m in 1992-3. Within its first six months it had supported 40 projects in 17 different countries.
⚫Started to implement the conclusions of a review of policy and management of the Caribbean Dependent Territories. A new Board of Management, chaired by
a Minister, will coordinate more closely the activities of the Whitehall Departments which have a role to play in discharging HMG's responsibilities for these territories. Preparations are well advanced to set up a joint Aid/Diplomatic Wing Secretariat in Bridgetown,
Barbados, to coordinate HMG's assistance to DTs.
●With the DTI, jointly funded British participation in Expo '92, a Universal exposition, in Seville between April and October 1992. Additional funding was raised in the private sector, contributing £5 million. The DTI organised the British presence, including its cultural programme, with the assistance of our Consulate in Seville, Embassy in Madrid and the British Council. Two million people visited the British Pavilion (which received wide architectural acclaim), a testimony to the popularity of the exhibition it contained.
• Removed the visa requirement from 1 July 1992 for Polish nationals wishing to visit the UK.
●Reduced the numbers of visa applicants in the Indian Sub-Continent waiting for interviews from 6,300 to 4,950. This reflects continued progress since 1985, when the corresponding figure was 22,000.
• Introduced in May 1992 a new facility, British Satellite News (BSN), to deliver a daily programme of short television news items, including Ministerial interviews, by satellite direct to TV stations in the former Soviet Union, eastern Europe and the Middle East. Within six months of launch, 16 countries were taking the service regularly and an additional 17 TV stations were taking a regular feed via their London correspondents.
●Signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Germans in July 1992 providing for the colocation of the respective countries' missions in Alma Ata (Kazakhstan) and the sharing of certain facilities.
7. Geographical Priorities and Likely
Resource Demands
7. The United Kingdom has global foreign policy and
defence interests and the Government remains
committed to maintaining a worldwide diplomatic presence. As British interests and priorities change, Diplomatic Wing resources have to be shifted to meet new needs. These reflect not only foreign policy priorities, but also the requirements of British exporters, British citizens abroad and of UK immigration, aid and domestic policies. Staffing and resource levels in some countries reflect not only their
bilateral significance to the UK, but also the missions' involvement in work on important transnational issues such as defence, the environment and
narcotics.
72 Geographical and functional priorities are largely
determined in the course of the Diplomatic Wing's annual Top Management Round. This forms the Diplomatic Wing's basic planning and resource allocation process, and enables management to monitor and control performance at all levels. The Diplomatic Wing also maintains a rolling programme of inspections of overseas Posts. 23 per cent of the overall number of Posts underwent inspection during