Tony Blair served as Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1997 to 2007 and chairs The Climate Group International Leadership council. He was a staunch advocate of an interventionist foreign policy, in particular in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq. He trebled the UK’s aid programme for Africa and introduced the first environmental programme in the UK to combat climate change.
Since leaving office Tony Blair has spent most of his time on work in the Middle East, in Africa and on the fight against religiously based extremism. In the Middle East, formerly the Quartet Representative, he is now specifically focusing on building relations between Arabs and Israelis. He works in eight African countries – Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Mozambique – through his Foundation the Africa Governance Initiative, helping the Presidents of those countries to deliver change programmes.
He has established a Foundation to combat extremism – the Tony Blair Faith Foundation – which works in over 20 countries with programmes on education and tracking extremism across the world.
He also founded and funds a Sports Foundation dedicated to boosting grassroots sport for young people in the North East of England, which includes the Sedgefield constituency he represented in Parliament.