Foreign Office Minister spends time in the Stabilisation Unit

Foreign Office Minister, Alistair Burt MP spent time in the Stabilisation Unit this week, to discuss firsthand with staff the Unit‘s role in conflict prevention and ongoing work in conflict affected areas such as Afghanistan.

With the Foreign Office being one of the Stabilisation Unit’s parent departments, Minister Burt was keen to ensure that he, as a Foreign Officer Minister, was up to date with the Unit’s work.

During his visit, Minister Burt met with the Head of the Unit, Sheelagh Stewart,  and members of the Senior Management Team to talk about the current and future work of the Stabilisation Unit in fragile states. As the Foreign Office Minister responsible for North Africa and the Middle East, he was particularly interested in hearing about the key role the Stabilisation Unit is playing as part of the UK Government’s response to events in Libya and the region. This has included deploying stabilisation experts to the region and delivering key cross-Government planning papers that may feed into future multilateral stabilisation support. The Minister was impressed by how the Unit has been bringing together key Government departments across Whitehall and encouraged the Unit to carry on and expand this good work.

As part of his visit, Minister Burt took the time to meet with members of the Stabilisation Unit’s Libya team to thank them face to face for the hard work that they had been doing over the last couple of weeks.

“The current situation in Libya created a new challenge for the Stabilisation Unit and I am pleased to see that they have risen to that challenge brilliantly. Their rapid response to an ever changing situation has been commendable and they have been leading the way in enabling and delivering effective cross-government working.”

Whilst in the Unit, Minister Burt was also introduced to the Stabilisation Unit’s new Facebook page, commenting that:

“The Stabilisation Unit’s new Facebook page is an excellent way of communicating the great work that is going on in the Unit. As events in the Middle East and North Africa have shown, using new and innovative means of communication is vital in an increasingly connected world”

If you would like to follow the Stabilisation Unit and get regular updates on its work then simply follow the link below and ‘like’ the page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stabilisation-Unit/196123867067656