Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs

A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy

11th January 2017 London, UK

Rebecca Hastie and Cathryn Tomney

Rebecca Hastie and Cathryn Tomney

ICS Volunteers

Young Brits making a big difference in Tanzania

Rebecca Hastie and Cathryn Tomney volunteered with International Citizen Service in Tanzania. Here they share their experiences of working with communities in Tanzania on education and sanitation projects. 23-year-old Rebecca switched Newcastle for Lindi in south Tanzania, to become part of helping to raise education standards. As part of the Elimu Fursa project (Opportunities in […]

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10th January 2017 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

Tackling Modern Slavery – in Vienna

A person is transported illegally away from their community to somewhere unfamiliar or foreign.  Once there, they are forced to work without any form of contract or proper remuneration. This is modern slavery.  It is happening throughout the world, including in Europe, on a large scale. According to the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and […]

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9th January 2017 Mumbai, India

Dr Michael Messenger

Dr Michael Messenger

Head of the Leeds Centre for Personalised Medicine and Health

Exploring precision medicine at the India-UK Tech Summit

Dr Michael Messenger (Mike), Head of the Leeds Centre for Personalised Medicine and Health, was in India in November 2016. Leeds is one of the leading centres of excellence designated by the UK Precision Medicine Catapult (PMC) and is taking a whole-system city wide approach to bring the benefits of precision medicine and health to its population, […]

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9th January 2017 Tokyo, Japan

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by Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

Final preparations before heading to Tokyo

After spending much of this year re-learning Japanese, I have been in a whirl of final preparations before heading off Tokyo in January, as Ambassador to Japan. I have been all over the UK, including Scotland and Wales, meeting ministers, officials and Japanese investors. In Cardiff, Japanese Ambassador Tsuruoka and I met the First Minister, […]

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5th January 2017

Paul Brummell, British Ambassador to Romania

by Paul Brummell

Head of Soft Power and External Affairs Department, Communication Directorate

2016 at the British Embassy Bucharest

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January is a time for looking both back and forward, rather like the Roman God Janus. Here’s a personal selection of a dozen of the highlights of a busy and productive 2016 at the British Embassy Bucharest. In January I was in London for the DIT Civil Nuclear Showcase, talking to UK companies in the […]

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5th January 2017 London, UK

Tania Tuzizila

Tania Tuzizila

ICS volunteer

Tania’s volunteering story: I thought I’d never be able to do this

22 year old Tania Tuzizila was the 20,000th ICS volunteer to go overseas. Here she talks about her experiences helping on women’s health and human rights in Cambodia. I always wanted to get into charity work, and when I saw the opportunity to do ICS I made sure I went for it. It appealed to me […]

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5th January 2017 Colombo, Sri Lanka

Laura Davies » Deputy High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and the Maldives

by Laura Davies

Former Deputy High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and the Maldives

To our very good health

High Commissioner James Dauris with the examiners and the administrators of the first PACES examination, November 2016

At the start of the new year, many of us make resolutions to live more healthily.  So this blog looks at one aspect of the ever expanding relationship between the UK and Sri Lankan medical establishments. This relationship has always been close. The convention that Sri Lankan doctors can only progress to Consultant on completion […]

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2nd January 2017 Delhi, India

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by Anshika Jha

UK Intellectual Property Office’s (UK IPO) Attaché

How do you put a monetary value on a brand?

UK IPO is partnering with leading Indian intellectual property (IP) law firm Anand and Anand to study brand valuation and IP commercialisation in India.  The methodology behind putting a value to a brand – in monetary terms – is still in the stages of being studied and understood not just in India, but around the […]

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