Outside my office there is a wall of portraits of previous British High Commissioners to Canada. I call it, with just a hint of a smile, the “wall of diversity”. As you can imagine, the portraits are all of white men of a certain age.
And there’s nothing wrong with that – there are many good leaders amongst them, who have done a lot for the UK-Canada relationship. But it does explain why I still get double-takes when I walk into a room and introduce myself as the acting High Commissioner.
Fortunately, there are an increasing number of women now in my shoes in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – working our way up to senior positions and showing that you don’t have to fit the traditional mould to get ahead. And, generally, it works in our favour – there’s nothing like a double-take to get people’s attention!
In fact it’s testament to the FCO that it recognises that to successfully represent the British people – in all our diversity – overseas, we must also succeed in being representative, whether in terms of gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. And we’re getting there.
I’d recommend the FCO as a career to anyone who asks.
I love the variety, the responsibility and the daily challenges which are thrown in my direction. To give a flavour of my job as acting British High Commissioner, let me talk you through a typical day.
I have two young children, so, whenever I can, I’ll drop them at school, before coming into the office to chair a meeting of my section heads. I might then be heading off to give a speech, meet Canadian politicians to discuss policy issues, run events to help promote British exports to Canada and to market the UK as a place to invest, run a learning and development session for my staff, or make a tough budgetary decision.
I run a network of 120 staff across Canada – here at the High Commission in Ottawa, and in Consulates-General in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary. It’s really just like running a business – with a clear business plan, set of strategic objectives, and then everything you need to keep the show on the road, whether IT, finance, HR, estates management etc.
Right now, the UK is Chair of the G8, so we’re working closely with Canada on our G8 agenda. One of the key priorities for us, and relevant to International Women’s Day, is Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative. This is a crucially important agenda, and one where Canada, too shows great leadership.
The figures are striking: 1 in 3 women worldwide has been beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime; in some parts of the world, a girl is more likely to be raped than to learn to read; 100-140 million girls alive today have been subjected to female genital mutilation. It has to stop.
The international community has a moral responsibility to do something about it, which is why the UK wants to tackle this issue as part of our G8 chairmanship.
On International Women’s Day, let’s all agree to do our bit to raise awareness of this issue – to join the conversation on Twitter, follow #TimetoAct #endVAW and #IWD2013.