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Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
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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
4th March 2014 Boston, USA
Discovering what it takes to be an entrepreneur
When I was a college student in chemistry (not that long ago), the general career goal associated with “making it” in my field involved thinking big – as in working for big university or big company. While entrepreneurship certainly existed back then, it hadn’t made it very far into my world. The only entrepreneurs I […]
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4th March 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
What do governments talk to the Holy See about?
I hope that regular readers of this blog will already know the answer to this question. As Ambassador to the Holy See, I find myself engaging with the Holy See on a wide range of issues covering British foreign policy priorities and Holy See concerns, across our respective global networks. Perhaps a couple of examples […]
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4th March 2014 Washington DC, USA
My New Hero: Dr Denis Mukwege
On Tuesday evening at Georgetown University, the UK’s Foreign Secretary William Hague, received an award from his friend and former US counterpart, Hillary Clinton. The award recognizes his leadership in steering the energies of the British government into the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, an international project to end the use of rape and sexual assault […]
4th March 2014 Warsaw, Poland
Say Cheese – The Impulsive Guide to GREAT British Cheese in Poland
Piesek P is on the lookout for GREAT British Cheese in Poland – as he finds it he’ll let you know – just smile. Say Cheese and off we go on our GREAT Cheese tour of Poland. With over 700 named types of GREAT British cheese, that’s about twice as many in France, for you […]
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4th March 2014 Warsaw, Poland
Lord Livingston’s Central European Diary – Day 2
GREAT to start the day off in Warsaw yesterday. A marathon of a day promoting GREAT British Polish opportunity. I launched a brand new ‘Business is GREAT – come to the UK – You’re Welcome!’ campaign. The UK is the leading inward investment destination in Europe. Polish companies you’re invited! Lord Livingston enjoyed a number […]
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4th March 2014 New Delhi, India
A Social event in Bangalore
In February, we had a delegation from the UK to discuss social media analytics and web science with Indian counterparts. The workshop was hosted by IIIT-B and run in collaboration with Cognizant, ESRC and the RCUK Digital Economy Programme. We had presentations from a wide range of contributors (Indian and British, academia and industry, computer […]
4th March 2014 Bucharest, Romania
Investing in Romania’s Future
We have invited our colleague in the Political Section Cora Motoc to tell us more about the educational programmes that the OvidiuRo NGO runs in Cluj and about the embassy’s involvement in their projects. Romania has 4.89 million school-age people (3-23 years old), out of which only 3.73 million are actually enrolled. This means that […]
3rd March 2014 Warsaw, Poland
Lord Livingston’s Central European Diary – Megamission 2014
Poland – A GREAT Business Opportunity – the Minister came to see for himself….and he brought 70 companies with him… And more to the point he met 200 more while he was here. I’ve been living and working in Central Europe for 20 years this year and this is the biggest ever show of British […]
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3rd March 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
World Wildlife Day
Late last year, the UN General Assembly decided to make March 3 World Wildlife Day. On this day in 1973, the UN adopted the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, affirming the intrinsic value of wildlife and its various contributions including ecological, genetic, social, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, recreational […]
3rd March 2014 Vientiane, Laos
February 2014 Monthly Snapshot
February 2014 Look what we have been up to at the Embassy this month! Diplomatic Excellence on a visit to Laos Matthew Rycroft, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Chief Operating Officer visited Vientiane at beginning of February and introduced both us an Lao diplomats to the concept of #DiplomaticExcellence. Record numbers at our visa service A […]