8th November 2024
Ecolabels: A Catalyst for Sustainable Food Choices?
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy
17th October 2024
OSLOBOĐENJE BEOGRADA
11th October 2024
Busting the gender myths – women and organised crime
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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24th May 2022 Belgrade, Serbia
History revision
I am a diplomat not a historian. But as a diplomat you cannot escape or ignore history – and nor should you want to. It is desperately sad to see a country with a rich heritage being trapped by a re-imagined history rather than addressing present needs and future opportunities. Chatting over dinner about 15 […]
23rd May 2022
Twenty five years of the Chemical Weapons Convention
Sarah Price has been Head of the UK Government’s Counter-Proliferation & Arms Control Centre since 2018. Between 2013 and 2017, she was British Ambassador to Finland. I first encountered the CWC as deputy Ambassador in Belgrade in 2003 when I accompanied UK experts to bilateral discussions on (then) Serbia & Montenegro’s CWC Declaration. I was […]
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23rd May 2022
The Chemical Weapons Convention was a long time in the making
Dr John R Walker worked in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Arms Control and Disarmament Research Unit from March 1985 until May 2020. He served as its head from 2014 to 2020. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and the European Leadership Network, and a Senior Research Fellow […]
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19th May 2022
Twenty five years of the Chemical Weapons Convention
Paul Arkwright is an independent business consultant and former diplomat. He was British High Commissioner to Nigeria between 2015 and 2018, and British Ambassador to the Netherlands and Permanent Representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) between 2009 and 2013. In 2011, he chaired the Sixteenth Session of the OPCW Conference […]
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