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
20th June 2013 Washington DC, USA
“Sticking” Together for Transatlantic Trade
As a Senior Trade Policy Advisor here at the Embassy in Washington, part of my role over the last few months has been in helping to coordinate the delicate dance required in the run-up to the launch of a major international negotiation.
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20th June 2013 Athens, Greece
Building Bridges – Guest Blog
Rania Kossiori, VC Rhodes, blogs about her shadowing trip to EUMed department and the Minister of Europe’s private office. I have been working as Vice Consul in Rhodes for the last 8 years. During this time, a lot of changes have taken place in the way that we provide assistance to British nationals overseas […]
20th June 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
A new refugee is displaced every four seconds
It is hard to comprehend the life of refugees who have been displaced from their homes. Some separated from their loved ones. Unable to earn a living to support their families. Their children forced out of school and living in compounds not knowing when things will go back to normal. (If they ever do – […]
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20th June 2013 New Delhi, India
Karnataka State Innovation Council
Sam Pitroda, as Chair of the National Innovation Council of India, wrote to the Chief Ministers of each State in 2010 suggesting they set up their own Innovation Council to “drive the innovation agenda… and harness the core competencies, local talent, resources and capabilities to create new opportunities” in their State. To date, 22 States […]
20th June 2013 Windhoek, Namibia
Visit to Osire Refugee camp in central Namibia
Today (20 June) is International World Refugee Day 2013 – and I marked the event by travelling out to Osire Refugee Settlement in central Namibia earlier this week. I was surprised when I arrived in Windhoek to discover that the country had a UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)-run resettlement camp filled largely by Angolans and Congolese. […]
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20th June 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Australia: gas super power
Hard hat, heavy boots, pre-dawn start. That’s what a visit to an Australian resources site entails. I’m getting used to it. Australia is a gas superpower, on its way to overtaking Qatar as the world’s largest LNG exporter by the end of the decade. British companies are big players in developing the industry, offshore in […]
19th June 2013 Beirut, Lebanon
G8 Summit: Lebanon does not face Syria refugee crisis alone
The windy resort of Lough Erne in Northern Ireland this week must have felt far from the millions of Syrians whose lives have been ripped apart by conflict. Yet many of the G8 leaders meeting there have seen the human impact for themselves. Prime Minister David Cameron’s focus on stopping the war in Syria is […]
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19th June 2013 Tashkent, Uzbekistan
The Aral Kum and the Kyzyl Kum
I visited Muynak recently with a senior representative of the British parliament. I’d read a lot about the Aral Sea, since the 1980s when I first worked on Soviet issues (as they were then). It’s one of those things – not by any means unique to the former Soviet Union – that illustrates humanity’s ability […]
18th June 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
G8 Summit
Today the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, is hosting the annual G8 Summit in Northern Ireland, with the Heads of State of Germany, Canada, USA, France, Italy, Japan, the UK and Russia. With these countries still comprising half of global GDP, the bold steps we take by working together through the G8 can make a […]
18th June 2013 San Francisco, USA
Ripple Effects: An App to Prevent Violence?
Sometimes, a seminar that you expected to be interesting turns out to be astonishing. This is what happened to me last week when the Science & Innovation team in San Francisco hosted a talk at the Consulate by Alice Ray, cofounder and CEO of Ripple Effects. Alice had been invited by one of the many […]
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