The Solomon Islands Minister of Foreign Affairs and External Trade, Hon. Clay Forau Soalaoi have commended the recently concluded Heads of Missions national consultation meeting in Honiara last week.
The meeting had gathered the country’s nine heads of missions from New York, Havana, Brussels, Geneva, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Canberra, Suva and Port Moresby for the four day event.
The consultations have enabled the Heads of Missions and MFAET staff to forged better understanding and appreciation of the Governments overall policies and provide an opportunity to strengthen coordination and aligning of the overall Ministerial work program to Government policies and priorities.
Speaking at the official closing last Friday, Minister Clay Forau said he hopes the outcome of the consultations will reflect a wide scope of wisdom that will benefit the country.
“This is the first Heads of Mission consultation which other Ministries and stakeholders have attended and I hope that the presentations by the other Ministries will help our Heads of Missions and the Ministry to be more aware of issues that needs to be raised at the international level.
“I am also pleased to see the commitment by the Heads of Missions and all the Ministry Staff and this showed how committed the staff are towards achieving the NCRA government policies,” Mr Forau said.
He also called on all Heads of Missions and MFAET staff to work closely towards implementing areas identified during the consultation.
“We must now work together more closely as this consultation has identified areas we need to collaborate on. The outcome of the consultations should help us put together a very good cooperate plan for the coming years,” Minister Forau said.
The consultations provided an opportunity for all Overseas Missions together with the headquarter staff to review their foreign Policy engagements and operations to ensure their policies are current and up to date in meeting the overall foreign policies of the NCRA government.
With the conclusion of the consultation on Friday, an outcome document was also produced by the heads of missions along with the staff of MFAET.
The outcome document is purposely to set a course for formulation of a foreign policy framework for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External trade.
Meanwhile, speaking on behalf of the Heads of Missions, Ambassador to Malaysia Mr Victor Ngele expressed gratitude to the Minister and MFAET staff for their hard work in facilitating the consultations.
“This consultation enables us to interact with local MFAET staff which in turn will help our work overseas.
“We realise that the task ahead needs a lot of commitment on our part but we humbly pledge that we will do whatever is possible within the resources that we are given to truly represent the interest of the country in the various missions that we represent abroad, “Mr. Ngele said.
Source: Press Release, Government Communications Unit