Supplementary Memorandum submitted by
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
UKMTAS 1992-93 TO 1997-98
1. The figures for military assistance from
1992-93 to 1997-98 published on page 4 of the 1998 Department
Report relate to funding under the FCO's United Kingdom Military
Training Assistance Scheme (UKMTAS), which also includes police
training, and also the Africa Defence Fund, the Africa Peacekeeping
Fund, and the South Pacific Police Adviser.
2. The purposes of UKMTAS were set out on page
16 of the 1998 Departmental Report:
"The UK Military Training Assistance Scheme
budget has supported several FCO objectives, including the promotion
of international and regional stability, for example with peacekeeping
training; and fostering the rule of law and good governance, for
example by training defence forces in their roles of assisting
police and civil authorities. It has also funded training in the
UK for overseas military decision-makers, and those younger officers
with the potential to reach high rank, exposing them to the ethos
of the armed forces in a parliamentary democracy."
3. UKMTAS has now been replaced by Assistance
to Support Stability with In-Service Training (ASSIST); the criteria
of the new scheme were published in a Parliamentary Answer by
the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on
26 March.
4. UKMTAS expenditure covered a wide range of
training organised principally by the Directorate of Foreign and
Commonwealth Training of the Ministry of Defence. The largest
single area of expenditure was support for attendance by candidates,
proposed by our overseas missions on UK staff college courses,
as follows (with approximate percentage of overall UKMTAS expenditure
on each):
— Royal College of Defence Studies
(10 per cent);
— single Service staff colleges, and
since 1996 Joint Service and Command Staff College (15 per cent);
and
— commissioning courses at Royal Military
Academy Sandhurst (15 per cent).
5. Another major component of UKMTAS was support
for British Military Assistance and Training Teams (BMATTs) in:
(a) Zimbabwe (helping the transition to democratically-controlled
armed forces in Zimbabwe and co-ordinating peacekeeping and crisis
management training in-country and for the region.
(b) Ghana (provision of directing staff at
the Ghana Staff College, a UN-recognised centre of peacekeeping
excellence) and:
(c) Barbados (regional co-ordination in the
fight against drugs trafficking).
Together, BMATTs represented some 20 per cent
of the UKMTAS budget.
6. The remainder of UKMTAS expenditure covered
the costs of participants, also selected by our overseas missions
on a wide range of developmental and technical courses, including:
Royal Naval Young Officers Course
International Small Ships Commanders' Course
International Sub-lieutenants' Course
Royal Engineers Troop Commanders' Course
Logistics Officers Course
Platoon Commanders' Battle Course
Combined Arms Training Courses
Aircraft Accident Investigation
Aviation Medicine Courses
Royal Military College of Science Courses
Disaster Management Training
International (Police) Commanders' Programme
(Bramshill)
HM Coastguard-Search Planning.
7. In addition, UKMTAS funded English Language
Training, at a cost of approximately £1 million per annum,
both as preparation for attendance at subsequent courses in the
UK, and to promote interoperability of overseas armed forces.
8. UKMTAS has also funded small-scale in-country
training, in addition to BMATTs, in response to specific bids
from our overseas missions, e.g., Anti-Personnel Landmines awareness
training, disaster management training and, under the police training
element of UKMTAS, training against commercial sexual exploitation
of children in South East Asia.
9. The Africa Defence Fund (ADF) co-finances,
with South Africa, a British Military Assistance and Training
Team (BMATT) in Pretoria, which works on the integration of armed
forces into the South Africa National Defence Forces. The ADF
also supports British Military Liaison Officers (BMLOs) in Luanda,
Addis Ababa and Port Louis. BMLOs liaise with their host government's
armed forces (and in Addis Ababa with the OAU's Centre for Conflict
Prevention, Management and Resolution) on training needs. The
ADF also supplements UKMTAS funding for the regional BMATTs in
Accra and Harare, which are recognised by the UN as centres of
excellence for peacekeeping.
10. The Africa Peacekeeping Fund provides support
for projects with a UN focus. These have included training and
equipment for the Zimbabwean-run regional peacekeeping exercise
"Blue Hungwe" in April 1997, providing a British officer
as Military Adviser to the United Nations Secretary General's
Special Representative in Sierra Leone. It is also used to support
peacekeeping training courses run by the Zimbabwe and Ghana staff
colleges. For example, £70,000 of this year's budget of £204,000
has been allocated to fund the attendance of 32 students from
12 African countries, and six guest speakers, at a Peace Support
Operations course at the Ghana Forces Staff College.
11. The South Pacific Police Adviser's Fund
amounts to £50,000 per annum. It is used to fund South Pacific
police officers' training in this country and support good governance
throughout the South Pacific.
12. Details of the United Kingdom Military Training
and Assistance Scheme (UKMTAS) expenditure, broken down country
by country, for the years 1992-93 to 1997-98, are attached.
|
