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
5th September 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Education
Education is the basis of the progress of any society – economically, technologically, politically and culturally. Most governments recognise this and put it at the centre of their policies. But it is not an easy or quick solution. It can literally take a generation for education policies to bear fruit as young people pass through […]
5th September 2014 Havana, Cuba
Pétanque diplomacy
What does an Ambassador do during their holidays is probably not a question that keeps many of you awake at night. But, if asked to come up with an answer you might hazard a guess that they spend their time following closely the latest foreign crisis, calculating what it means for the relationship between the […]
5th September 2014 Mumbai, India
EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Additive Manufacturing
During my 4-day visit to the UK in July this year, I had the opportunity to get a tour of the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Additive Manufacturing at the University of Nottingham. Inaugurated in March 2013, the centre carries out both – fundamental and translational research in additive manufacturing. In March this year, […]
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5th September 2014 Vientiane, Laos
Blogging on….. overview of events from May to September
It’s been a busy few months and a while since my last blog posting. So I wanted to give an overview of the key recent events at the Embassy and a look ahead. In May, I travelled back to the UK to attend the Leadership Conference; an annual event hosted in London and attended by UK […]
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4th September 2014 Brasilia, Brazil
Building Stability in an Unpredictable World
This week Wales hosts the NATO Summit, the largest gathering of international leaders ever to take place in Britain. I grew up in the east of England under the deep shadow of the Cold War. Throughout my teenage years the risk of armed conflict between the Warsaw Pact and NATO seemed very close and very […]
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4th September 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
IT Startup communities in Stockholm and London: Never Mind the Gap
Last November I was in London with the Crown Princess and Prince Daniel. They visited Cambridge University, an inner-city London school, the Google Campus and Tech City in East London. It was the latter visits which inspired my Swedish counterpart in London and me to think about a follow-up event focusing on how the flourishing […]
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4th September 2014 Singapore
Introducing the SE Asia Prosperity Fund Programme
Welcome to a blog about the South East Asia Prosperity Fund Programme. Since joining the programme in 2012, I’ve quickly come to realise how tricky it is to explain what the Prosperity Fund does. Explaining it to a Singapore audience makes it doubly hard. Why? That’s because I’m up against this guy in terms of mind-share… God of […]
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4th September 2014 Yerevan, Armenia
Building Stability in an Unpredictable World – the NATO Summit in Wales 4-5 September
Following the terrible events of the last few months – in Ukraine, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Gaza, and ebola in West Africa – describing our world as ‘unpredictable’ no longer seems adequate. It feels like some of our most basic assumptions – about civilized nations’ best interests, a Europe finally at peace, and the nature of […]
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3rd September 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Observando el uso del dinero de los contribuyentes británicos en acción
En el día Mundial de la Asistencia Humanitaria, tuve el honor de recibir el premio como Embajadora Humanitaria, en representación de todas las personas del Reino Unido que contribuyen con el presupuesto del Gobierno Británico para el desarrollo en el exterior. En 2013 por primera vez el Reino Unido cumplió su objetivo de contribuir con […]
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3rd September 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Seeing aid money from UK taxpayers in action
On world humanitarian assistance day I had the good fortune to pick up an award as a humanitarian ambassador on behalf of all the people of the UK who contribute to the British government’s overseas development budget. In 2013, the UK met the target of contributing 0.7% of its national income in aid for the […]
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