The Ministry of Foreign Affairs
I look forward to serving as McMasterdonia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and bringing major changes to the Ministry. Many of you may know me as the TNPer who co-founded the Cards Guild and was the Guildmaster for about a year or as the TNPer who was recently commended by the Security Council. What many of you may be unaware is that I got my start in TNP by serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs back in 2016 for just under two terms. When I took the position with just a couple of months of NS experience underneath my belt, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was quite different from what we see today. We had a number of empty ambassador positions and regions saying that they would close embassies with us due to our inactivity in their embassy. During my time, we changed that to the active Diplomatic Corps that we see exists today. Unfortunately, a number of attempts at improving the Ministry have been attempted (eg. weekly reports on interregional affairs, diplomatic teams, or the UCR Outreach Program) but few have materialized and stuck around (the World Factbook Project being the major exception). During my term, we will look to make long-lasting improvements to the Ministry as a whole.
Transparency
I have always been a strong advocate for voluntary transparency. When I was MoFA, I chose to provide the region with reports on my activity on a weekly basis. With the permission of the Delegate, I will be providing weekly reports to the region on what has been accomplished in the last week and the plan for the next week instead of on a monthly basis. I am confident that this will demonstrate to the region the regular work that will be done to improve the Ministry.
I will provide regular reports to the region on affairs of our embassy regions—I previously provided this information to the Diplomatic Corps but will now present it to the public as well to ensure that citizens are informed of foreign affairs. I will definitely be engaging with the Diplomatic Corps to brief them on foreign affairs and encourage discussion. Additionally, when necessary full reports will be provided on major events such as were done during the CCD attempted coup. Hopefully, it is not necessary to do many of these as they seem to occur only when bad stuff happens!
Plans for Foreign Affairs
As mentioned before, we will work on the maintenance and updating of the World Factbook Entry. Unfortunately, not all of the entries have been completed. This will be done and kept current during the term.
I will investigate the previous administrations’ work on the UCR Outreach Program to get concrete information on the status of the project. Given the lack of substance on the initiative communicated to the region, I will then provide a report to the public on the UCR Outreach Program. Depending on the results of the investigation, we will either work on implementing the program or we will utilize more informal and personal methods to reach out to regions with which we lack diplomatic relations.
We will conduct a review of current in-game and off-site embassies and provide an opportunity for newer and lower-ranked members of the Ministry to participate in helping provide information and arguments that will be utilized to determine which of our existing embassies in both categories meet our needs and standards. Those that do not will be closed.
Aside from these campaign promises, we will also be investigating a number of methods to improve our Foreign Affairs from providing more informational material to the Diplomatic Corps, expanding our arsenal of FA tools, and reacting to the unfortunate increase in quorum raiding we have seen recently. Lastly, a review of the activity of the FA committee will be done to see if it should be something that is continued.
Staffing
All members of the staff are required to respond to this Roll Call with any assignments they have to confirm their willingness to participate the rest of the term.
Additionally, I am looking for volunteers to assist in the administration of the Ministry by serving as a Deputy Minister. Most likely you would be a Deputy Minister in charge of overseeing a particular aspect of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (eg. Distribution of Foreign Updates); I have not decided on the categories and individuals yet. Being newer to NationStates, The North Pacific or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is an asset in what I look for in a Deputy. If you are interested, please let me know on Discord through a Direct Message ASAP—preferably prior to Thursday, 11:59 PM PST. I will most likely have a couple of DMs.
Additionally, I have an open door policy. Please feel free to send me a message if you have any questions, concerns, or comments about.
Looking forward to serving the region over the next couple of months!
Yours,
Praetor
Minister of Foreign Affairs
The North Pacific
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