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Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy
15th July 2025
International Day of Women in Diplomacy: UK Special Envoy for Women and Girls visit to Geneva
1st May 2025
The UN Commission on the Status of Women: My first visit as UK Special Envoy for Women and Girls
3rd February 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Helping Pope Francis
The new Holy See Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, is well-named. When earlier this week Msgr. Gallagher met the ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, the Deputy Secretary, the Maltese Msgr. Antoine Camilleri, reminded us that the name Gallagher is the anglicisation of the Irish surname Ó Gallchobhair, meaning “foreign help” or […]
2nd February 2015 Washington DC, USA
Falklands Symposium: Q&A with Dr Paul Mayewski (USA)
Following in the footsteps of Charles Darwin, the first ever Pan–American Science Delegation to the Falkland Islands is participating in a week-long mission to showcase the beauty of the UK South Atlantic Overseas Territories and immense opportunities for scientific research and collaboration in the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. Scientists from the US, Canada, Chile, […]
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2nd February 2015 USA
Tackling Ebola: Q & A with Dr Schieffelin, Tulane University
The UK and US have been leading a coordinated international response to the Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the epicentre of the crisis. According to the WHO over 7900 have died out of 20 000 cases of confirmed, probable and suspected cases of the disease. Through collaboration with UK physicians and scientists, Dr Schieffelin […]
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2nd February 2015 London, UK
To find out about things
Ten years ago, the UN General Assembly designated 27 January the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Why? The Nazis’ murder of six million Jews, along with several million other concentration camps victims, is not the only example of humanity’s capacity for brutality on a huge scale. Indeed, sadly, […]
2nd February 2015 Bangalore, India
Business models and routes to market
Guest blog by Dr Shailendra Vyakarnam is the Director of Centre for Entrepreneurship Learning, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge The Indian biotech sector is set to grow. This has been clearly stated by the Dept. of Biotechnology and numerous agencies. Resources are being allocated for this purpose and the evidence of this can be seen when […]
2nd February 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
British tourists or travellers – come to Belarus!
One of the great attractions of becoming a diplomat is the opportunity to live in different places abroad. Lots of people travel abroad but, unlike diplomats, they tend only to stay for a short period. I notice there is a lot of argument in cyberspace about the differences between “a tourist” and “a traveller”: I […]
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31st January 2015 Brasilia, Brazil
Unlike in Brazil: elections in the UK – guestpost by Adam Dady
Guest post by Adam Dady On Thursday 7 May, British voters will vote for our next government. The 2010 elections saw our first coalition government (Conservatives and Liberal Democrats) since 1945. This year’s elections promise to be even more unpredictable by UK standards, with five parties currently receiving more than 5% support in the polls. […]
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31st January 2015
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Turkey 2023: why the UK welcomes Turkish success
Let’s imagine a Turkey almost 10 years from now, in 2023. The years since 2015 have been tough for the Turkish economy, as for all countries. But the people of Turkey have risen magnificently to the challenge. By 2023, buoyed by high rates of economic growth for each of the last eight years, nominal GDP has more […]
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30th January 2015 Pretoria, South Africa
Climate change: calculating the risk – and opportunity
This week the UK Government launched the Global Calculator, a free and interactive website that allows anyone to test out different solutions to climate change and find out what it really takes to stop global warming. Climate change often feels like such a massive and nebulous problem, and so for me it has been fascinating […]
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30th January 2015 Gaborone, Botswana
Botswana’s Business Environment
The imminent presentation of the budget speech has made me focus on Botswana’s economic development and in particular the business enabling environment. Botswana is judged by international institutions to be amongst the best destinations for doing business in Africa and, in perception terms the least corrupt country on the continent. These ratings quite rightly reflect […]