Our Ambassador

The last quarter has seen the Embassy building up to some major changes which took place at the beginning of October.  

On 12 October we stopped issuing British passports in Ecuador with applications now going to the central hub in Washington. I know a number of you have wondered about the sense of the United Kingdom government’s policy of centralisation.

The fact remains that a passport is an increasingly sophisticated document and for a variety of reasons it is no longer feasible to keep stocks and equipment in 200 posts around the world. The cost of a passport would double and I am sure that would not be welcomed either.

The other major change is internal with our new computer system coming online also on 12 October. We are part of a worldwide roll-out and, as you can imagine, this has meant a huge amount of work, to coordinate both here and in the United Kingdom with the delivery and installation of equipment, training and final switchover to our new generation system.

We have also been looking with our colleagues in other Andean Posts at how we can work better on a regional basis. There are many issues we deal with which have a regional impact, not least climate change, and we hope to launch the Andean Regional network soon.

Climate change is a good subject on which to end. We maintain close contact with the Ecuadorian authorities over their aims and objectives for the United Nation climate change conference in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Indeed the whole issue of the environment and Ecuador’s Yasuni-ITT proposal will be on the agenda for President Correa’s visit to the United Kingdom later this month.

More on that though in my next update…

Do let us know what you think about our website - we really would like your feedback."

Linda  

Linda Cross
H M Ambassador