Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from Rt Hon David Miliband MP, Secretary of State for Foreign
and Commonwealth Affairs
I know that the Foreign Affairs Committee, Defence
and International Development Committees have all taken a very
close interest in the issue of the resources available to HMG
for activity to prevent and resolve conflict, and in particular
in the issue of how we will address rising assessed costs for
international peacekeeping. I attach the text of a Written Ministerial
(WMS)[3]
which I have issued today, together with the Secretary of State
for Defence and the Secretary of State for International Development.
The WMS explains that we will earmark £456 million
from the £556 million available for conflict in 2009-10 to
cover the projected rise in assessed peacekeeping costs. The FCO,
DfID and MoD will allocate an additional £71 million from
Departmental budgets to offset the impact of this on UK conflict
prevention, stabilisation and discretionary peacekeeping activity.
This will leave a total of £171 million for such activity.
The WMS contains further details of what we
will continue to be able to fund under these new arrangements.
Although assessed contributions to international peacekeeping
are inherently volatile, these arrangements will allow us to meet
our current forecast of £456 million in 2009-10. And they
will also allow us to maintain current levels of activity in Afghanistan
and across South Asia. But as the statement makes clear, we will
need to discontinue funding in the Americas and cut funding to
other regions, such as Africa.
We have come to these difficult decisions through
careful prioritisation, which has allowed us to focus activity
more tightly on countries where the risk and impact of conflict
is greatest and where our actions will have the biggest impact.
We are confident that this approach, as well as the additional
£71 million which we have allocated, should allow us to maintain
our significant contribution to international peacekeeping, and
to fund essential conflict prevention and stabilisation activity
in priority regions.
25 March 2009
3 Not printed. Already in public domain. HC Deb, 25
March 2009, Col 17WS. Back
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