Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from the Rt Hon David Miliband, Secretary of State for Foreign
and Commonwealth Affairs, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
As you know, each year the FCO lays before Parliament
a report on the achievements of the Global Opportunities Fund.
As is normal practice with Command Papers, I also send you and
other FAC members an advance copy of this report.
The Global Opportunities Fund is a key tool
in helping the FCO to pursue an active foreign policy, which engages
with and reaches out to our partners across the world. Going forward,
I am keen that we focus these funds more tightly though not exclusively
on our main policy goals: counter terrorism, weapons proliferation
and their causes; promote a low carbon, high growth, global economy;
prevent and resolve conflict; and develop effective international
institutions, above all the UN and EU.
To underline the link between our policy goals
and these programme funds, I have decided to rename the Global
Opportunities Fund as the Strategic Programme Fund. We plan to
announce this publicly on 31 March. We will also, of course, be
writing to all relevant stakeholders to inform them of this name
change.
David Miliband
24 March 2008
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