17th July 2025
Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
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
9th December 2014 Sana’a, Yemen
Fighting corruption – a window of opportunity?
Today, 9 December, is also the ninth UN International Anti-Corruption Day. Yemen is the 11th most corrupt country in the world, ranking 161 out of 174 countries, on a par with Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti and Venezuela, according to Transparency International’s 2014 Corruption Perception Index (CPI). The scope of the CPI is limited to public perceptions […]
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9th December 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
World Anti-Corruption Day
The 9 December is World Anti-Corruption Day. Corruption is a complex social, political and economic phenomenon that affects all countries. It undermines democratic institutions, slows economic development and contributes to governmental instability. A couple of weeks ago Transparency International published its latest Corruptions Perceptions Index which measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption worldwide. […]
9th December 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
The Costs of Corruption
9 December is World Anti-Corruption Day. Corruption is a global problem – it hurts a country’s economic, political and social development; it adds unnecessary costs to doing business and it denies smaller, less well resourced companies the chance to compete fairly. It hurts individuals in their daily lives. Corruption impacts the most vulnerable groups in […]
9th December 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
30 years after hell on earth….
A joint blog with Julius Court, Acting Head of DFID-Ethiopia The latest Band Aid song focuses on Ebola. Rightly so, whether or not you agree with all the lyrics. During the festive season 30 years ago, when the original track was cut, the focus was on Ethiopia – specifically the northern region of Tigray. Everyone […]
9th December 2014 Singapore
How the South East Asia Prosperity Fund is helping in the fight against corruption
Today marks International Anti-Corruption Day which is a great opportunity to share more about some of the work that Southeast Asia Prosperity Fund supports. Since its inception in 2011, nearly a fifth of the Prosperity Fund’s grants have gone to projects to better enable transparency in government and businesses; reflecting the importance of combating corruption […]
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9th December 2014 Yerevan, Armenia
Remembrance and reconciliation: WW1 centenary events from the UK and German Embassies
Why were the German Ambassador and I at a British-German football match on Friday afternoon, singing Christmas carols and drinking hot soup from tin mugs? What was UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon doing at a penalty shoot-out between British and German delegations to the UN? For a week, in football matches across the UK […]
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9th December 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Romanian Revolution through British Eyes/Christopher Walker: ‘Scoop with real bullets’
‘Although I spent four months in Romania covering the revolution from early January 1990 through until world attention faded, my reasons for being there – I was officially Middle East Correspondent of the Times based in Cairo – bore more resemblance to Evelyn Waugh’s hilarious satire, Scoop, than any hard-nosed, tale of derring-do. For personal […]
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9th December 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Helping British business in Australia
I was invited to address the British Business Lunch Group in Sydney for their end of year event. It was an opportunity to set out the range of things we do to support business here. In my speech here I explained that this is a top priority for all of our ambassadors. Of the nearly 100 […]
8th December 2014 Paris, France
#FootballRemembers: commemorating the Christmas Truce in 1914
I’m really proud that the British Council team here in Paris have been leading the campaign with the Council to remember the football truce, that extraordinary moment around Christmas of 1914 when British and German soldiers got out of their trenches around Ypres (but we think also in some areas in France) and ended up […]
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8th December 2014 Havana, Cuba
Mariel – building for the future
I was pleased to be able to visit Cuba’s new ‘Special Development Zone’ in Mariel recently. Mariel is a central element in the Cuban government’s plan to attract more much-needed foreign investment and seeing it first-hand is something I have wanted to do for a while. Several British businessmen, interested in investing in Cuba, have […]