25th April 2024
Reflect & Remember: Anzac Day 2024
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy
23rd April 2024
Good English – A Key to Panama’s Future Success
21st March 2024
Forests in focus on International Day of Forests
22nd January 2021 Belgrade, Serbia
Counting COVID
This is the first blogcast I have recorded for several weeks. This is mainly because I had to travel to the UK for family reasons – a journey that was a story in itself. But there is another reason too. I have been spending my evenings doing an online training course. Diplomacy is a career […]
20th January 2021 Geneva, Switzerland
The Next President
I feel a bit sheepish about not doing a blog at the end of the last session. By the time we’d finished in October it really felt like the less said about the non-stop misery fest that was 2020 the better. I’ll put the fact that not a single person mentioned it down to collective […]
18th January 2021
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
2021 – a year of action?
Joint blog by Matt Field, British Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Eric Nelson, U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina 2020 is over. Many of us have been counting the days until the end of the strangest of years. Of course the simple change of a calendar does not fix the problems we face, but it […]
14th January 2021 Geneva, Switzerland
Disarmament in 2021
For the last couple of Januaries I’ve used this blog to look ahead to the year to come in the Geneva disarmament world. After 2020, I hesitate to be definite in predicting anything… The pandemic is far from over. For at least the first part of 2021, it’ll still be impossible to hold large-scale in-person […]
14th January 2021 Geneva, Switzerland
Innovative Finance in Mine Action
At last November’s Meeting of States Parties of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the UK announced that it would be funding research to investigate and provide recommendations on innovative financing options for the mine action sector. I am pleased to say that, after a competitive tender process, our Mine Action Team in London has appointed […]
14th January 2021 Vienna, Austria
Diplomatic lessons 4, Russia 1991-95: have a plan, and break it
Outside “The Two Chairmen”[1], the beer was cool and fresh. My colleague raised his glass. ‘You had children a few years back,’ he said. ‘We can’t decide on the best time. What do you think?’ ‘Some things, you can’t plan,’ I said. I had met Pamela, a colleague in London, in 1990. Later that year, […]
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4th January 2021 Vienna, Austria
2021: a turning point for climate ambition
We are at a turning point for our planet. As the world comes back from COVID-19, it is vital that we build back greener and more resilient. This year, the UK will host the 26th UN climate change conference COP26, in Glasgow with our partners, Italy. The pandemic has not stopped the climate crisis. On […]
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21st December 2020 Belgrade, Serbia
Tidings of Comfort and Joy
My mother was one of four sisters. Her favourite book was also a tale about four sisters, Louisa Alcott’s ‘Little Women’. Right up until the end of her long life, though almost blind, my mother could still read and recognise its famous first line: ‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents’. For many, many […]
21st December 2020 Juba, South Sudan
Farewell to South Sudan
At the start of the year, I wrote a piece on my twenty wishes for 2020. Now that both 2020 and my time in South Sudan are coming to an end, I wanted to reflect on those wishes and, more broadly, my four and a half years working on South Sudan. So much has changed […]
16th December 2020 Skopje, North Macedonia
20 GREAT years working for the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Two decades! I cannot believe it, but the photos I am looking at now prove that I ran a marathon at the British Embassy and I am celebrating with a cup of English tea my 20th anniversary. I opened my box of memories and I found so many things that brought me back into the […]
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