Stephen Wordsworth

Join in and switch off

Today I shall host the entry written by Bill Longhurst, Deputy Head of Mission

This Saturday will see the third "Earth Hour" at 8-30pm Belgrade time.  This is a WWF sponsored event which began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. The 2009 target is for one billion people to send a symbolic message on the importance of energy conservation and carbon reduction by simultaneously switching off at work or at home.  It will be interesting to hear afterwards whether Serbia's electricity power generation saw a significant slump in demand for power at this time.

High-profile campaigns like this serve to remind us of the importance of conserving energy in all its forms.  Of course, this is something for everyone to do all day every day.  Even for those sceptical of the impact of climate change, or who think that there is nothing that can be done, energy conservation is surely a good thing - making our scarce resources and budgets go further. 

In Belgrade, I frequently notice open windows in office buildings even when the heat is on full blast in winter or with air-conditioning in the summer - valuable energy being wasted.  Someone explained the heat issue to me by saying that the system of charging per square metre means that consumers do not take care in how much they use, since it does not affect their bills.  If we can ever reach a point where we can all, individually, be responsible for the full cost of the energy we consume whether it is at work or at home, it will focus our minds much better on the need for economy and sparing use.

In the meantime, we in the Embassy here will do our small bit by turning off all unnecessary lights on Saturday.  Longer-term we have also introduced recycling of paper, glass, cardboard etc. and fitted light sensors in our main buildings so that lights automatically go out after a few minutes when rooms are unoccupied.  A campaign to get people to switch off photocopiers and printers in the office and electronic appliances at home (not leaving them in standby mode) overnight can also save astonishingly large amounts of electricity.

So join in and switch off this Saturday! 

Posted at 11:26 27 March 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth  |  Comments[0]

Goodby-ee, Goodby-ee, Wipe a Little Tear from Your Ey-ee...

On Tuesday evening - 10 March - I spoke at a farewell reception hosted by my Defence Attaché for James Sutherland-Smith.  James has been working here for some six and a half years, supported by the British Council, to develop English language teaching for the Serbian armed forces. 

Posted at 14:01 12 March 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth  |  Comments[1]

PPP: Benefits, Risks and Lessons Learnt

I gave a short speech this morning (10 March) to open a conference on Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), organised under the auspices of the Foreign Investors' Council.  The United Kingdom was one of the first countries to recognise the potential of PPP. 

One of the commonest forms of PPP in the UK involves contractors paying for the construction costs of a project - say, a road, a school, or a hospital, or even a new Embassy, as with the British Embassy in Berlin - and then renting the finished project back to the public sector.  By requiring the private sector to put its own capital at risk, and to deliver clear levels of public service to the public over the long term, PPP can help deliver high quality public assets and services and ensure that they are delivered on time and to budget.  But I also pointed out that the process can be controversial.  The risk is that governments may be tempted to pursue projects that they cannot really afford, for short-term political advantage.  So it's more important than ever, with PPP, to assess the potential projects rigorously, to be sure that they are needed, and that the promised benefits are real. 

There are advantages for Serbia, if it goes down this path; but the government will need to take its time and to learn from the experience, including the mistakes, of others.  It was good that a number of senior Serbian Government representatives were there; I hope they will find it useful.

Posted at 19:40 10 March 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth  |  Comments[0]

Why Stable and Prosperous Sandzak is So Important for Serbia

Posted at 14:49 10 March 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth  |  Comments[0]

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream...

I was invited to go today (4 March) to the Red Star Rowing Club on Ada Ciganlija in Belgrade by the Club's President, Dragoljub Kavran, and Director, Dusan Kovacevic.  I hadn't been before, and didn't know much about it, but I was interested to hear that they are sending a team to a race in London soon, and wanted to find out more.  I rowed in an 'eight' when I was a student at University for a few months - I have still got a photo somewhere to prove it! 

Anyway, I had a good tour around, and it turns out that 'Red Star' is now a lot more than just a rowing club - to raise funds for their rowing, they have a child care centre there too, a fitness centre, an indoor football pitch, a restaurant and other things, all open to the wider public.  I was glad I went - and hope they do well in London.

Posted at 16:19 04 March 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth  |  Comments[0]

A Little Way Down the Danube

On 25 February I went for a short drive today down to Smederevo, a city about an hour away down the Danube.  I had visited before, as a tourist - the town is most famous for its castle, which has a fantastic location right by the river.  It was built very quickly, in the first half of the 15th century, as Serbia's rulers tried to survive between Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.  It finally fell to the Turks in 1459, which marked the end of the medieval Serbian state. 

This time I wanted to find out more about the town from the official point of view - what the plans of the city's government are, what opportunities there might be for business and investment.  I had a good meeting with Mayor Umićević and his team, and learned a lot about their ideas for the development of education, industry and tourism.  I even learned that one small British company is based there - I hadn't been aware of them before, although I know now that they have been working there for some time. Some of the town's plans involve, or could involve, the UK - we agreed that I would look into what we could do.  It was a really good meeting - I hope we can build on that.

Posted at 19:49 28 February 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth  |  Comments[3]

Happy Birthday Charles Darwin!

The Faculty of Biology here in Belgrade and the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts invited me today to join a commemorative meeting dedicated the memory of Charles Darwin, who was born exactly 200 years ago. 

I was very happy to do so - I think it is a great tribute to Darwin that the Serbian Academy should decide to hold such an event.  I saw from the programme that several distinguished scientists would be speaking, so I decided not to talk about the science, but to talk about the man instead. 

I have to confess that I hadn't known much about him before; but doing the research was fascinating.  He never planned to be a famous scientist.  He trained first to be a doctor, but didn't much like that, then he went up to Cambridge to prepare for the Church, but he didn't much like that either.  What he did like was natural history, so a professor at Cambridge he had met suggested he might join HMS Beagle on its planned voyage around South America, starting in 1831. 

He was away for five years, and then spent over twenty years more developing his ideas.  He only produced his most famous work - 'On the Origin of Species' - when he found out that someone else was about to write something similar.  He had to get in first!  His planned 'big book' was still not ready, so he produced - greatly to his own dissatisfaction - a shorter book, 'my abominable volume', for a more general readership.  The rest, as they say, is history. 

But it was great to be able to celebrate that history here in Serbia today, with Serbian friends.

Posted at 20:47 12 February 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth  |  Comments[0]

Serbian Tennis Stars

My wife and I went to the FedCup ladies' tennis contest at the Belgrade Arena on Sunday (8 February) afternoon, Serbia versus Japan.  Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic both played for Serbia, and each won their match comfortably. 

I often watch tennis on TV, but this was the first time I have seen players at this level 'live', and it brought home, in a way that TV doesn't for me, just how tough the game is physically, and how fast.  Naturally the crowd were delighted to see their local heroes win, but the Japanese players got a good reception, and the children with their outsize 'souvenir' tennis balls for autographs were happy to collect theirs afterwards too. 

I have just checked - as of this afternoon there are only 133 days to go until Wimbledon opens.  It would be really exciting to see a Serbian winner this year - I wonder if we will?

Posted at 11:16 09 February 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth  |  Comments[0]

Roberts Burns Ceilidh Belgrade 2009 - Update

The figures are through, and we raised almost 64,000 Euros for Save the Children's work in Serbia - up from 46,000 Euros in 2008.  This is a great result and reflects very well on all the hard work put in by the organising committee, and on the generosity of the Platinum and Gold sponsors and of all the others who bought a ticket or supported us in so many ways. 

Thank you to them all!

Posted at 14:40 07 February 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth  |  Comments[0]

Robert Burns Ceilidh Belgrade 2009

My wife and I hosted our second annual Burns Night charity dinner on Saturday (31 January), in aid of the work in Serbia of the UK-based charity 'Save the Children'.  '

Burns Night' is celebrated every year in Scotland on the anniversary of the birthday of the famous Scottish poet, Robert Burns, with bagpipers, speeches, lots of whisky (of course!), Scottish dancing and haggis, a special Scottish dish.  We had three pipers and a Scottish dancer, all of whom came specially from Edinburgh, giving their time for free.  They came a day early, and also did a performance at a local school, where there are some children who are supported by Save the Children. 

On Saturday, they performed several times, and the dancer did the famous Scottish sword dance (using a sword we had been lent by a Serbian General - airlines don't like people travelling with swords!).  We all danced a lot - we had been practising for weeks to get the special dances right.  But the real point of the whole evening was to raise money for the charity; it took a lot of planning and organising, and we are very grateful to all the Serbian companies who supported us, either as sponsors or by providing their services for free. 

Our Burns Night last year raised 46 thousand euros; we haven't done the final sums yet for this year, but we think we have beaten that total.  Which is good news for all the children with special needs we hope to be able to go on supporting this coming year.  

Posted at 11:35 02 February 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth  |  Comments[2]