Tony Blair, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, met the South Sudanese president Salva Kiir in Juba on Friday, reiterating his support for the new country and promising to provide advisers for the national government.
While prime minister, Blair had overseen UK backing for South Sudan’s main rebel front, SPLM, later offering a UK guarantee to the peace deal that made the rebels the ruling party of the south.
He visited Friday as representative of the Africa Governance Initiative, an advisory body under his patronage.
Speaking at the office of the president on Friday, Blair said “I’ve just had an excellent set of meetings with the president. We discussed the country and its progress in the 18 months since it achieved its independence.”
“Myself and my team will do all we possibly can to help make the president’s vision for the country be realized and achieved,” he added.
The former UK leader also visited the Council of States, the upper chamber of the assembly which was formed after South Sudan’s independence in July 2011.
A press statement on the website of the Africa Governance Initiative described Blair’s visit as a “regular end-of-year visit.”
The statement explained that “AGI has a team of advisors providing support to central government institutions and to building systems of performance management and accountability so as to deliver policy outcomes in priority areas such as agriculture, energy and investment.”
Photo by Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative.