Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs

A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy

12th August 2014

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by Sarah Dickson

Ambassador to Guatemala (June 2012 - June 2015)

British Chamusca….

To commemorate the International Youth Day I have invited Paúl Manchú, ACJ-YMCA General Secretary, to share with us the wonderful experience we had last March with 300 young people from different schools in Retalhuleu. ACJ-YMCA is an NGO founded in 1964, since then has worked with children and teenagers to help them to achieve their […]

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12th August 2014 Yerevan, Armenia

by UK in Armenia

NATO in a nutshell: interview with Defence Attache Lt-Col Nick Wilkes

Ahead of the NATO Summit, to be hosted by the UK this year on September 4-5 in the beautiful, mountainous country of Wales, we are highlighting some of the human stories behind NATO and the UK armed forces.  Our first ‘NATO in a nutshell’ interviewee is Lt-Col Nick Wilkes, the UK’s Defence Attache for the […]

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12th August 2014 Brasilia, Brazil

by Chris Brealey

BRICS Week Part 4 – Do not forget the long term

“Today BRICs is a force to reckon with and is perhaps the future” – Tarun Singhal, Chevening Alumni and Director of Enterprise, Business and Strategic Alliances at Steri, India. With events in Gaza and the shooting down of flight MH17, the BRICS Summit might seem a long time ago now.  However, our posts from Chevening […]

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12th August 2014 Montreal, Canada

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by Mario Rivero-Huguet

Montreal yn croesawu Prif Weinidog Cymru

If you understood this blog’s title, it’s because you have some Welsh language skills! (Translation: Montreal welcomes First Minister of Wales). The First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, paid a 48-hour visit to Montreal on 22-24 July to take up an invitation to speak at the 23rd World Congress of Political Science. SIN, UKTI and […]

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12th August 2014

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by Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

New British Council head in Australia

Sydney’s arts and cultural community gathered at our Consul General’s Residence last week to say farewell to outgoing British Council Director Nick Marchand. The British Council do a fantastic job as the UK’s organization for international cultural relations. They support the third pillar of our relationship with Australia – people to people links – alongside […]

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11th August 2014

by Peter Tibber

Ambassador to Colombia

Sampling another side of life in Sudan

Over Eid, a small group of staff from the Embassy took the chance to escape Khartoum and sample life outside of the capital. Here’s their story – I hope you enjoy it: Eager to make the most of an extra few days off, we were determined to get beyond Khartoum and explore Sudan. With minimal […]

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11th August 2014 London, UK

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by Phil Buckley

Digital Transformation Manager

Transforming the Chevening Scholarship application system

Hello there, I’m Phil Buckley, a Digital Transformation Manager at the Foreign Office. On 1 August we released a new application form for the Chevening scholarship programme and I wanted to tell you a little more about it. Why we had to change the system I mentioned in my post introducing Service Transformation at the […]

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