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Tony Blair served as Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from May 1997 to June 2007. He was also the leader of Britain's Labour Party (1994 to 2007) and the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield, England (1983 to 2007).
Blair continues to be active in public life. He has many interests, not least his current role in the Middle East, which takes up the largest proportion of his time. He is working for the USA, UN, Russia and EU as the Quartet Representative, helping the Palestinians to prepare for statehood as part of the international community’s effort to secure peace.
Blair has launched the Tony Blair Faith Foundation to promote respect and understanding of and between the major religions and to make the case for faith as a force for good in the modern world. The foundation will work with Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. Blair believes that faith will have great influence in how the challenges that globalisation presents will be met.
In addition he will continue to be an advocate on the issues he cares about such as Africa and climate change. On Africa, Blair is a member of the Africa Progress Panel, which was established following the Gleneagles G8 to keep world leaders' attention on Africa and the commitments made on development. In addition, Blair is working on governance projects in Rwanda and Sierra Leone, advising President Koroma and President Kagame respectively on policy delivery and attracting investment, with a team of his staff working full-time with both countries.
On climate change, Blair published the first report from his 'Breaking the Climate Deadlock' initiative in June, which set out the framework for a new global deal for a low carbon future. It answered a series of practical questions about how the world can move to a low carbon economy. The project will now continue to identify the actions and questions that need to be resolved by political and business leaders to achieve a successful outcome to the UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Blair has always been a strong advocate of a values-based, activist and multilateralist foreign policy-an agenda that combined tackling terrorism and intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Sierra Leone, with action on issues like climate change, global poverty, Africa and the Middle East Peace Process. Blair is also widely credited for his contribution towards assisting the Northern Ireland Peace Process by helping jointly to negotiate the Good Friday Agreement and deliver a power-sharing government.
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