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12+ girls are agents of change, picked as representatives in local and national fora to speak up for girls’ rights at school and at community events.

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The airshow started at 02:00 pm on Sea View Road and was attended by the British High Commissioner, senior officials from the British Council and the Pakistan Air Force. The public of Karachi were also there in huge numbers to witness the joint airshow, which marks the first time the Red Arrows have performed a full display in Pakistan in 20 years.

The British Council also set up a pop up library at Sea View which included digital wall with a curated collection of e-books and an information booth.

peaking at the event, the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team’s Supervisor, Squadron Leader Mike Ling, who is known as Red 10, said:

The strength of the UK-Pakistan relationship is highlighted by this joint airshow by the Red Arrows and the Pakistan Air Force’s JF-17 Thunder aircraft. The visit by the Red Arrows this year is also historic as it marks 70 years of UK-Pakistan relations.

We are thankful to the officers and men of Pakistan’s Southern Air Command for their generosity and support in hosting us for this visit”.

Earlier on Thursday the Red Arrows visited Pakistan Air Force’s Masroor Base where they were welcomed by senior officials from the Pakistan Air Force. The Pakistan Air Force and the British Council co-hosted this event. In addition to ministers and dignitaries, schoolchildren from the PAF Saleem Nawaz Fazaia College had the opportunity to interact and engage with the Red Arrow and JF-17 Thunder pilots.

Speaking at the event, the Country Director for the British Council in Pakistan Ms Rosemary Hilhorst OBE said:

The British Council is delighted to have such a strong partnership with the Pakistan Air Force in education supporting its schools and colleges.

Today is a very special day which represents the excellence of the aerobatic teams, both the Red Arrows and the JF-17 Thunder display teams, and the strong relationship between the UK and Pakistan which has held steadfast these past 70 years.

With the message of ‘Shared History, Shared Future’, the British High Commission’s 70th anniversary celebrations consist of a year-long series of activities and events that celebrate the strength of the UK-Pakistan relationship over the last 70 years. This year also marks 70 years of the British Council working in Pakistan, which it is celebrating through diverse activities and programming ranging from cultural festivals to alumni events.

Working in cooperation with the Government of Pakistan and the Pakistani High Commission in London, the celebrations seek to increase the bilateral trade, cultural and educational links between the two countries.

The Red Arrows are one of the world’s premier aerobatic display teams. Flying British-built fast-jets, they have performed more than 4,800 times in 57 countries, showcasing the excellence of the Royal Air Force and representing the United Kingdom overseas. The team is carrying out a five-week tour of the Middle East supporting UK interests.

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Thank you Mr President and thank you Jean-Pierre, Marc-André and Masud for your briefings.

I want to begin by paying tribute to the bravery and sacrifice of the men and women of UN Peacekeeping. They represent the very best of this organisation. We owe it to them, and to those that they protect, to ensure that peacekeeping operations have the right capabilities for the mission at hand. That means the right people, with the right equipment and skills, carrying out the right mandate.

How often do we actually meet that standard? How often instead do we hear of peacekeeping operations having to rely on whichever forces are available, rather than on the forces best suited to the mission?

Our ultimate goal must be to give the UN the freedom to tailor the forces it deploys according to the unique circumstances of each mission’s mandate. We’ve made a good start towards that goal, including at the UN Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial in London last year. But as our Canadian colleagues pick up the baton, it is clear that there is more to do. Let me outline three steps which we need to take.

First, we shouldn’t be afraid to innovate. We know there are persistent gaps of niche capabilities, like attack helicopters, specialist engineering skills, medical skills. We shouldn’t accept this as an unavoidable reality, but instead, we should look to countries to work together to rotate the provision of that scarce capability. This could mean one country providing those skills, while another supplies the supporting logistics, sharing the burden and increasing the availability of that niche asset. These innovative ‘smart pledges’ will be one of the issues that the British Defence Secretary will be raising in Vancouver.

Innovation also means incorporating modern technology to make peacekeeping more responsive and more effective. We’ve already made some progress on using unmanned aerial vehicles, but there are more technologies that we could be harnessing. To do so effectively, we need to be able to anticipate the future requirements of missions, and that brings me to my second point, Mr President.

Put simply, UN peacekeeping missions are not meant to stay the same. They are meant to evolve alongside the conditions on the ground. As a mission’s objectives are achieved and as political processes progress, force requirements will also change. And we should be able to anticipate those changes and be agile enough to provide the capabilities required.

This means moving away from setting arbitrary troop ceilings and instead moving towards a tailored approach, that relies on better information on what capabilities are actually needed, and when, so that we are more focussed on the effect that we want the peacekeeping mission to deliver.

For example, next month we’ll be discussing the MINUSCA mandate. Many here will no doubt advocate for an increase to the troop ceiling. But the UK is more concerned that the mission has the right troops. For us that means troops who are agile and mobile, willing and capable of moving to where they are needed at short notice.

We know that this approach works, we have seen it in action elsewhere. I’d like to praise MONUSCO and the Pakistani contingent there for their agility in relocating troops to hotspots where they’re really needed for the protection of civilians.

To help us anticipate future force requirements, we need rich, real-time data from the UN to inform Council decision making. That analysis needs to be used also to inform force generation decisions. So we welcome the call in resolution 2378 for the collection and analysis of data on peacekeeping performance. It’s a really important step forward; and let us all work with the UN to make it a reality.

My final point is that we can’t lose sight of long-term planning and strategic force generation. This includes more partnerships, more training, more capacity building, so that we are moving beyond the immediate force generation, to future strategic force generation, so that we are preparing for future needs, not just filling the current capability gaps.

And as we do so, let us not forget that the military force is only one of the three pillars of a mission. As missions become more involved in political work, we will all need to think about how we generate the civilian component and the policing component so that missions can play an impactful role not just in keeping the peace, but in building and sustaining it too.

Thank you.

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The Chief Inspector requests evidence for his inspection on how the Home Office ensures it acts in the ‘best interests’ of unaccompanied asylum seeking children

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Within 24 hours of the Disasters Emergency Committee launching its appeal for Rohingya people fleeing Burma, more than £3 million has been raised.

Of the amount raised so far, £1.2 million has been provided by UK aid, pledged by the British Government to make public donations go that much further.

International Development Secretary Priti Patel said:

The generosity of the British public has been overwhelming and once again they have shown the rest of the world what the UK does best; acting without hesitation to help victims of brutal violence and persecution.

I want to say a huge thank you to those who have donated to the appeal and every penny is making a difference. Your contributions are saving the lives of hundreds and thousands of men, women and children who have been forced to leave behind their homes and loved ones to make the treacherous journey into neighbouring Bangladesh.

UK aid is reaching Rohingya refugees in desperate need, providing food, shelter and water. By matching pound for pound donations from the British public to the DEC appeal, the UK Government is doubling the impact that British people can have and making their money go further.

The UK will double all donations up to £3 million, meaning even more aid is available for those in need.

The British Government was quick to recognise the unprecedented scale of the crisis in Burma and the impact it is having on Bangladesh, and has already given £30 million to provide lifesaving food, water, shelter and healthcare to victims of the violence.

Notes to editors

• The DEC brings 13 leading UK aid charities together in times of crisis: ActionAid, Age International, British Red Cross, CAFOD, CARE International, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Islamic Relief Worldwide, Oxfam, Plan International UK, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision; all collectively raising money to reach those in need quickly.
• The UK is appalled by the violence taking place in Rakhine State, particularly by the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing that violence and the reports of grave human rights violations taking place.
• As of Monday, 2 October 507,000 people have fled the violence into neighbouring Bangladesh. Numbers are rising.
• The UK has been a leader in responding to the crisis – in speed and size – to help meet the urgent humanitarian needs of vulnerable men, women and children in both Bangladesh and Burma.
• Prior to the latest violence which began on Friday, 25 August 2017, we committed £5.9 million to meet the needs of the most vulnerable refugees and the host communities who support them.
• In response to the latest influx we have provided a further £30 million of support.
• Our existing work in the region meant that we were already in position to provide life-saving support when the crisis flared – without this, aid would have taken much longer to reach those in need. And we are sending more aid to Bangladesh.
• In Rakhine State in Burma, aid workers have been getting British-funded humanitarian assistance to many tens of thousands of people. DFID’s partners are ready to provide emergency food to 30,000 people and to treat more than 3,000 severely malnourished children and pregnant women, but the Burmese authorities must stop refusing to grant access.
• This lack of access on the Burma side means vital needs will not be met and lives lost. Britain urgently calls upon the Burmese military to end the violence in Rakhine and the Government of Burma to allow immediate and full humanitarian access and support for the people and communities affected. *We have raised the situation in three UN Security Council meetings and led work in the Council to develop an international response. The Foreign Secretary also held a Ministerial meeting of General Assembly members at the UN General Assembly on 18 September to drive this process forward.
• Mark Field, Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, visited Burma, including Rakhine State from Monday, 25 – Wednesday, 27 September. He held talks in Burma with State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi to press for an urgent resolution to the crisis in Rakhine.
• On Thursday 28 September Minister Burt and Minister Field hosted a series of high-level talks in Dhaka, Bangladesh with key Government officials and aid agencies to identify how best to provide lifesaving support to the large influx of refugees in Bangladesh.
• Britain is ready to support the recommendations of the Kofi Annan led Rakhine Advisory Commission to assist the long-term development of all people in Rakhine state, but right now the immediate action is for the security forces to end the violence and the government of Burma to allow humanitarian access.

ENDS

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