25th July 2024
Wearing Thin
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy
1st July 2024
Crimea: a place to remember, learn from and return to
17th May 2024
Reflections on IDAHOBIT: International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia
29th September 2022
Prioritising foundational learning at the Transforming Education Summit
September is a crucial month in the calendar. In the UK, as in many countries, children have been going back to school. We have a new Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. We have also seen the sad death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the accession of His Majesty King Charles III. And last […]
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1st August 2022 Geneva, Switzerland
Disarmament blog: the NPT Review Conference
Finally, it’s here. The 10th Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) begins today. National delegations, civil society representatives and the media are converging on New York from around the world for four weeks of intensive negotiations on some of the most sensitive, contentious and important issues for global peace and security. This RevCon […]
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29th July 2022
Global Education Summit: one year on
This time last year, leaders and ministers from all over the world were in London for the Global Education Summit. Co-hosted by the UK and Kenya, our mission was to raise as much money as possible for the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), the world’s largest fund dedicated to transforming education in lower-income countries. I […]
6th July 2022
Tackling the education crisis: our priorities for the Transforming Education Summit
I joined the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) Girls’ Education Department almost 10 weeks ago. Since then there have been multiple mentions of the ‘Transforming Education Summit’; the TES. I have just returned from Paris where, with Laura Davies, our Ambassador to UNESCO, I was representing FCDO at the TES pre-Summit. Held to build […]
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4th July 2022 Belgrade, Serbia
Displacement and destitution – the global consequences of Russia’s invasion
The numbers are growing. Some 13 million people have fled their homes in Ukraine since the Russian invasion. More than 5 million are still outside the country. Over 6 million people remain displaced within Ukraine. These are ordinary people, children and adults, citizens of a European country that is a close friend and ally of both Serbia and the UK. A few […]
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1st July 2022
Prioritising foundational learning in a crisis setting
In my role as the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Girls’ Education I have been lucky enough to visit many countries across Africa and Asia. Last week I was privileged to visit Jordan for the first time and got to meet children being supported by UK aid to get an education even in challenging settings […]
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17th June 2022
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Tough times, good people
This week I finish my time as UK Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. It has been a remarkable privilege to represent my country here. It has been the most challenging, frustrating, enriching and rewarding experience of my professional life. As a diplomat, you can never draw a clear line between professional and personal life. My […]
16th June 2022 Stockholm, Sweden
Bridging the behavioural science-policy gap for a net-zero society
Meeting our net-zero targets will require greater public engagement and a significant shift in behaviour, including rapid and widespread adoption of new low-carbon technology and a considerable reduction in the consumption of carbon-intensive commodities and services. This message was clear from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report, as all of the different […]
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6th June 2022 Belgrade, Serbia
Russia’s war in words and numbers
What is happening in Ukraine can be no less shocking to people in Serbia than to people in Canada, Norway, Poland, the UK – or anywhere else including Russia, when and where the truth is known. Deliberate disinformation has been rife and multifaceted – from mundane lies (no intention of invading Ukraine) to fantasy fiction […]
2nd June 2022 Geneva, Switzerland
Disarmament: space and cluster munitions
May was a big month for 2 of the UK disarmament team’s main objectives for this year. On 9 May, the Open Ended Working Group on Space Threats got underway at last, holding the first of its substantive (as opposed to organisational) meetings. It felt like the culmination of a process we began back in […]
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