Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs

A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy

5th July 2019

 Ijeoma Onyeator

Ijeoma Onyeator

News anchor, Channels Media Group, Nigeria

Improving visibility of female journalists

Ijeoma Onyeator has been a journalist for 17 years. She’s currently a senior anchor for the Channels Media Group in Nigeria, presenting live news and current affairs programmes. In this guest blog for the Foreign Office, she talks about female leadership in newsrooms and how she broke the glass ceiling. Doors of opportunity Being a […]

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2nd July 2019 Vienna, Austria

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by Leigh Turner

Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna

Where does the rain fall? London, Vienna… or Rome?

Very, very, occasionally, when it rains in Austria, an Austrian friend will say to me “Englisches Wetter, ha ha!”  I smile politely.  The UK is famously rainy, correct?  We’ve all read Sherlock Holmes stories where it seems to be raining and foggy all the time.  In “Asterix in Britain”, Asterix asks the Briton, Anticlimax, as […]

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1st July 2019 London,UK

Paul Brummell, British Ambassador to Romania

by Paul Brummell

Head of Soft Power and External Affairs Department, Communication Directorate

Waxing Lyrical

Madame Tussauds is one of those attractions that Londoners tend to dismiss as aimed mostly at visitors to the city. And it is not the easiest of places to get in, as the successful navigation of a queue to buy a ticket earns you a place in another queue to enter the museum. But it […]

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27th June 2019 Skopje, North Macedonia

Biljana Ginova

Biljana Ginova

Human rights defender

First Skopje Pride parade and the 50th anniversary of Stonewall riots

Introduction by HM Ambassador Rachel Galloway, British Embassy Skopje: The strongest, safest and most prosperous societies are those in which all citizens can live freely without fear of violence or discrimination, and where all citizens, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity, can play a full and active part in society.  This Saturday Skopje will […]

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27th June 2019 King Charles Street, London

Dr. Aakanksha Upadhyay

Dr. Aakanksha Upadhyay

Advisor, Newton Fund India

Celebrating women in science

Someone rightly said, the only barrier to promotion should be talent and effort. But women who account for almost 50% of the world’s population, whose contributions to our society are key to its functioning, despite exceling in a variety of fields have abysmal representation in them. One such area is Science, where less than 30% […]

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26th June 2019

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by Matt Field

British Diplomat

I Fought The Rule of Law, and The Rule of Law Won*

The rule of law. It’s a phrase I hear almost every day. I probably use it as often. It is the basis of complaints from citizens, accusations between politicians, and criticisms from civil society. It is at the heart of the European Commission’s recent ‘Opinion’ on BiH. I am not sure we know what we […]

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25th June 2019

Sheila Nduhukire

Sheila Nduhukire

Former news anchor & reporter for NTV Uganda

Female reporters must prove themselves twice

Sheila Nduhukire has been a journalist for more than eight years, most recently working as a senior news anchor and reporter for NTV Uganda. She’s currently on a Chevening scholarship at Cardiff University in the UK. In this guest blog for the Foreign Office, she talks about being forced to prove herself as a female […]

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21st June 2019 London,UK

Paul Brummell, British Ambassador to Romania

by Paul Brummell

Head of Soft Power and External Affairs Department, Communication Directorate

Acid Drops

When I first received the diagnosis of “reflux”, I was almost pleased. It had a commonplace sort of sound. I had feared worse. But what this really said is that I didn’t understand what reflux meant. I have soon come to realise that I was not alone in that. I have always been very British […]

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18th June 2019 Stockholm, Sweden

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by Mikael Allan Mikaelsson

PhD, Science and Innovation Policy Advisor, Europe Lead on Net-Zero Innovation & Climate Change

Supporting UK Cleantechnology’s Access to Finance

According to the recent UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1.5 degree report, the world must see an annual investment of $2.4 trillion in clean energy through 2035 to limit our global average temperature increase within 1.5 degrees and stave off some of the most catastrophic damage from climate change. Considering the longer payback […]

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18th June 2019 Beijing, China

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by Zhang Zhan

Newton Fund Programme Officer

UK and China join hands to address agricultural challenges

Spring is an important season for farmers as it is a season that they start to sow and hope for a bumper harvest in autumn; it is also the season for agricultural production which helps to maintain the stability of economic development. This spring saw the kick-off of our Newton Fund UK-China Agri-tech Challenges projects. […]

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