APPENDIX A A THE MINISTRY OF OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT s much of the work of the Ministry of Overseas Development is connected with the Commonwealth, it has been thought useful to include information about the Ministry and its associated bodies and committees in the Year Book. The Ministry came into being in October 1964. Its central purpose is to formulate and carry out British policies for helping the developing countries to raise their living standards. In doing this the Ministry works in harmony with the policies of the overseas departments and other departments concerned. When the Ministry was set up it absorbed the Department of Technical Cooperation and took over relevant sections of work from the Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office, the Colonial Office and the Treasury, The Ministry is responsible for: the British economic aid programme as a whole and its detailed composition; the terms and conditions of aid; the size and nature of the programme for each country; the management of financial aid and technical assistance; relations with international aid organisations; the British interest in United Nations programmes of technical assistance; and relations with voluntary bodies concerned with aid and development. The only exceptions to this are that in relation to dependent territories the Foreign and Commonwealth Office remains responsible, in consultation with the Ministry, for budgetary aid, while the Ministry, in discharging its responsibility for development aid, acts in agreement with that office. The Ministry is not responsible for military aid, which remains under the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. On the administrative side the Ministry is organised into a number of Divisions headed by Under-Secretaries. Of these one deals with general aid policy and finance; another with British relations with the international bodies handling aid and development, and with other aid-giving countries. Others deal with Asia, Africa and the Caribbean and Latin America. The Geographical Departments which form part of these Divisions are responsible for the capital aid and technical assistance programmes to the countries within these regions and for dealing through British diplomatic posts with the governments concerned regarding these programmes. Other Divisions deal with technical assistance and are responsible with the Ministry's professional advisers for organising the resources of Britain to provide this form of aid and for contacts with the many organisations in Britain outside as well as inside the Government which contribute to this. The subjects dealt with include agriculture and other natural resources; science and technology; schools, teacher training and social education; universities and technical education; recruitment for service overseas and the terms and conditions of service of personnel serving abroad; the organisation of training in Britain; voluntary organisations and the young volunteers programme; assistance in the medical field and population control; and Britain's relations with UNESCO and FAO. Outside the divisional organisation are the Information Department and the Special Projects Directorate, which is concerned with large projects combining financial and technical aid and also deals with consultancies. The Economic Planning Staff is responsible for the Ministry's work in the economic and statistical fields, including the provision of advice, personnel and training where requested by overseas governments. It is divided into three Divisions. Each of the economists in the Geographical Division is responsible for studying the economic problems of a group of recipient countries as a basis for the working out of aid programmes that will best contribute to their economic development. The World Economy Division takes part, from the economic point of view, in the formulation of general aid policies, and undertakes research into economic trends which affect the rate of progress of the developing countries. Both Divisions work closely with the operational departments concerned. The Statistics Division provides statistical services for the Ministry, including compilation of statistics of aid. The Ministry has a staff of professional advisers on technical subjects and is also advised by members of organisations partly or wholly financed from the Ministry's funds. Subjects covered included education, medicine, a wide range in the field of natural resources (including agriculture and geology), engineering, building, social development and a number of others. The Ministry is able to draw on the extensive experience of the Crown Agents for Oversea Governments and Administrations in civil, mechanical and electrical engineering, and especially in the field of railways and public works. Various organisations engaged in the provision of technical assistance are attached to the Ministry; they are the Directorate of Overseas Surveys, the Anti-Locust Research Centre, the Tropical Products Institute, the Tropical Pesticides Research Unit and the Tropical Pesticides Research Headquarters and Information Unit. APPENDIX B 773 P THE COMMONWEALTH TELEPHONE CABLE PARTNERSHIP RIOR to 1956, intra-Commonwealth telecommunications had been carried either by telegraph cable or by radio. However, by 1956 the British Post Office had solved the technical problems of using multi-channel submarine telephone cables to carry conversations over long distances and had come to an agreement with the Canadian Overseas Telecommunication Corporation to lay a 60-channel cable between Britain and Canada. It thus became necessary to consider whether this Anglo-Canadian telephone cable (later named CANTAT) should form part of the existing Commonwealth telecommunications system and whether additional intra-Commonwealth telephone cables should be laid. These questions were considered by a Commonwealth Telecommunications Conference held in London in July 1958; and it was recommended to Governments that a Commonwealth round-the-world telephone cable should be laid, section by section, Commonwealth Governments arranging between themselves to construct and finance particular sections as the need arose. The Conference was not able to recommend that these new telephone cables should be brought within the existing Commonwealth Telecommunications Partnership (q.v.) but proposed that they should be kept separate and should be operated under separate financial arrangements. These recommendations were endorsed by the Commonwealth Trade and Economic Conference held in Montreal in 1958 and were accepted by Commonwealth Governments. As a result of the recommendations of the Conference, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand agreed to lay and jointly finance a telephone cable across the Pacific from Canada to Australia via Fiji and New Zealand, to be called COMPAC, and set up a Management Committee, consisting of one representative of each Partner, to construct and operate it. Later, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia agreed to extend this cable to New Guinea, Hong Kong, Jesselton and Singapore, to be called SEACOM, and set up a similar Management Committee for the purpose. The CANTAT cable was opened in 1961, COMPAC in 1964 and SEACOM in 1967. In 1966 the two Management Committees were combined to form a single Committee which is now responsible for the commercial operation of the whole cable from Britain to Canada, from Canada to Australia and from Australia to Singapore. This Committee consists of representatives from the telecommunications authorities of Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore, and meets from time to time in various Commonwealth countries. The departure of South Africa from the Commonwealth and the advent of telecommunications by earth satellites make it now improbable that a round-theworld telephone cable will be completed. |