30th December 2019 Khartoum, Sudan
With the 17 August agreement, Sudan entered a new era. The signing of a constitutional charter to govern the transition, the formation of a Sovereign Council and the appointment of Prime Minister Hamdok and his civilian cabinet puts new, primarily civilian leaders in charge of running the country. The change has been immediate. Prime Minister […]
30th April 2019 Khartoum, Sudan
I marked my one year anniversary as the British Ambassador to Sudan this week. When I started this job, I could not have imagined finding myself in the situation we are in now. Sudan had experienced 30 years of authoritarian rule. These were 30 years of conflict and secession, of repression and extremism, of sanctions […]
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3rd November 2016 Khartoum
Last month, we received an invitation at the Sudanese Ministry of Investment from the UK Department for Business Innovation and Skills to attend a business conference at Lancaster House, London, which was commissioned in 1825. The conference was about ‘Shaping Business Environments for Global Growth and Prosperity’. I attended this conference and I am delighted for this […]
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6th October 2016 Khartoum
Imagine spending a year living beside Africa’s longest river (in El Mansoura, Egypt) and then not seeing those waters again for over thirty years. Imagine falling in love with the culture and people of the Sahel in Senegal and being deeply impressed with the diversity and tolerance of the Islamic tradition in Mali and then […]
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1st September 2016 Khartoum
Darfur: A green and pleasant land Last month I visited Darfur for the first time. My first impression was how green and beautiful Darfur is. We flew to Nyala via El Geneina in West Darfur and flying over Darfur I was amazed how green the countryside is at this time of year. Driving along the […]
4th August 2016 Khartoum
By way of quick introduction, I’m proud to be a trainer as part of the British Embassy’s media capacity building project which has run for over 3 years and trained hundreds of Sudanese journalists in print, radio and TV skills and also offered them English language courses. The project is delivered by the Thomson Foundation […]
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6th June 2016 Khartoum
Ramadan Kareem! On behalf of the British Embassy, and all the British people, I would like to wish all those observing the holy month a very happy and peaceful Ramadan. The central themes of Ramadan – where many take time to reflect on their own behaviours and give goodwill to others – are universal. Here […]
7th April 2016 Khartoum
For people in the UK, the catch phrase “It’s good to talk” conjures up memories of a rather persistent TV advertising campaign for telephone services, from one of our main telecom operators! It was one of those phrases that, during the 1990s, became synonymous with the simple act of picking up the phone and making […]
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3rd March 2016 Khartoum
My first impressions were wrong. When I arrived last November, I thought that there was limited prospect for meaningful development in Sudan. I thought that the long shadows cast by the decades of conflict in Darfur meant that there would be few opportunities to make progress. I thought that the international community had become constrained […]
2nd February 2016 Khartoum
I have been following with interest reports of discussions in the committee of the Sudanese National Dialogue dealing with identity. National identity is a subject which comes up in many of my conversations with Sudanese people I meet and there have been some interesting exchanges on Twitter and Facebook recently. In my view it is […]