Source · Select Committees · Foreign Affairs Committee
Recommendation 10
10
Paragraph: 11
The UK has a strong capacity to use its memberships and influence to bring countries...
Conclusion
The UK has a strong capacity to use its memberships and influence to bring countries together in dialogue. Contributors also admired the UK as a pragmatic country whose thought leadership, and the legal drafting capabilities of the FCDO’s lawyers, can bring the world together through agreed, stable and predictable frameworks. The UK’s own adherence to such frameworks is of paramount importance to its international reputation.
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Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
10.1 The UK’s G7 Presidency and COP26 next year will provide two significant platforms to work with others to address global challenges, while projecting UK values and advancing our national interests. Our focus for the Presidency will be to tackle the major global challenges such as climate change, strengthening the international response to, and recovery from COVID-19, and promoting the resilience of our societies, economies and the planet; and to demonstrate the strength of open, democratic societies. 10.2 The UK, as a leading donor to the global COVID-19 response and one of the world’s biggest development and humanitarian actors, has been pushing the UN and wider international system for a strong, co-ordinated and prioritised response. For example, we have played a leading role in securing agreement of a new G20 Finance Action Plan on supporting the global economy through the COVID-19 pandemic, and worked with other finance ministers through the G20 Finance Track to suspend all debt repayments for the poorest and most vulnerable countries until the end of 2020. 10.3 We agree that the UK must enhance its international engagement in the development of standards, regulations and norms to guide the development of digital, emerging technology and data. We will demonstrate leadership on regulation, standards and norms of digital, emerging tech and data as part of the UK’s G7 Presidency in 2021, as well as advancing our interests in multilateral forums including the OECD, Commonwealth, G20 and UN. We will use our COP26 Presidency to push forward norms that promote clean growth. The UK will take a prominent role in shaping the rules of international digital trade through the WTO’s Joint Initiative on E-commerce and become a thought leader on services, digital and environmental issues in trade. 10.4 The UK will continue to invest in world leading ODA-funded research and innovation partnerships. These produce new technologies which save and improve millions of lives and generate new knowledge for UK and developing country policy makers, development practitioners and entrepreneurs. We deploy these investments and partnerships in support of country cooperation and strategic dialogue.