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Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
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25th November 2024
The climate crisis and gender-based violence
8th November 2024
Ecolabels: A Catalyst for Sustainable Food Choices?
14th March 2016 Paris, France
Euro 2016: Brush up on your tactics
There are less than 100-days to go until UEFA Euro 2016 and excitement is building across Europe as we head towards 10 June and the start of the tournament. With a record three home nations qualifying for this year’s competition, we’re expecting an unprecedented number of fans to make the short trip to France to […]
11th March 2016 London, England
Trading up – doing business in Africa
The newly appointed Prime Minister’s Trade Envoys for Africa show how the UK’s relationship with Africa is changing and developing. When I was appointed Minister for Africa I had clear instruction from the Prime Minister on what my focus should be – prosperity, prosperity, prosperity. Not just the UK’s prosperity, although that is of course […]
10th March 2016
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Archbishop Gallagher in the UK
Last week I accompanied the Holy See Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, on a visit to the United Kingdom. He came at the invitation of the British government, so inevitably much of his time was taken up in official meetings with a wide range of government ministers. He visited five different Departments […]
10th March 2016
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
What does the UK’s EU referendum mean for Bosnia and Herzegovina?
The date is set. On 23 June, the British public will vote on whether the UK should remain in the EU, or whether we should leave. The British Government is not neutral in this debate. Having secured an agreement to a special status for the UK, the Government has said clearly that it believes that the UK will […]
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9th March 2016 Mumbai, India
Attaché week – London
Last week, I was in London for the annual meeting of the UK Intellectual Property Office’s (IPO) overseas attaché network. This was an excellent opportunity for me and my counterparts based in China, Singapore, Brazil, Geneva, and Washington DC to meet with a wide range of stakeholders in the UK across government, industry, and civil […]
9th March 2016 Addis Ababa
International Women’s Day – 08 March 2016
Powerful and influential women are part of every country’s history, and Ethiopia is no exception. Empress Taytu Betul, was arguably Ethiopia’s most influential women in modern times. She was more than a match for her husband, Menelik II, the renowned commander and military strategist. Historians have drawn attention to the key role she played in […]
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8th March 2016 Skopje, North Macedonia
Step it up for gender mainstreaming in defence
Today we are marking International Women’s Day. It is usually the day when we are reminded that women are today represented in a multitude of fields: community builders and advisers, soldiers, diplomats, homemakers, doctors, analysts and officials. Different countries have different policies and different gender representation, but there are some issues which are shared topics […]
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8th March 2016 Geneva, Switzerland
Let This International Women’s Day Be Different
By the end of this year the President of the United States and the Secretary General of the United Nations could both be women. Women have made more progress towards real equality during my lifetime than in the previous 20,000 years of human history. When my mother was a British diplomat, she did not think […]
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8th March 2016 London, UK
Women’s Day: what “empowerment” means
Just in case you missed it, the UK’s theme for International Women’s Day 2016 is “Leadership and Empowerment”. I think I’m alright on defining leadership (something to do with steering a boat, right?) but when I sat down to draft a pithy piece on empowerment, I hit a blank – rare, for me. Because what […]
7th March 2016 Geneva, Switzerland
More is Less
Aftershave. Make-up. Back hair. At some point during our adolescence we realise that less is usually more and adjust our personal grooming behaviour accordingly. Despite my awkward formative years, even I managed to understand that aftershave was not to be applied by the bottle (though I never worried much about my make-up). The Council turns […]