FCDO Editorial

25th June 2019

Sheila Nduhukire

Former news anchor & reporter for NTV Uganda

Female reporters must prove themselves twice

Sheila Nduhukire has been a journalist for more than eight years, most recently working as a senior news anchor and reporter for NTV Uganda. She’s currently on a Chevening scholarship at Cardiff University in the UK. In this guest blog for the Foreign Office, she talks about being forced to prove herself as a female […]

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14th June 2019

Mwape Kumwenda

Deputy Managing Editor-Prime Television, Zambia

Journalists now keen on nutrition reporting

In this guest blog for the Foreign Office, journalist Mwape Kumwenda from Zambia talks about nudging farmers towards more diverse crops and turning viewers off junk food. My work centres on community news reporting. I work on diverse issues to do with poverty, agriculture, health, corruption, human rights, press freedom, gender and education with healthy […]

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7th June 2019 Vatican, Holy See

Fr. Eamonn O’Higgins, L.C.

Manager of The Vatican (St. Peter’s) Cricket Team

The Vatican Cricket Team: Sport and faith in action

A guest blog written by Fr. Eamonn O’Higgins, L.C., manager of The Vatican (St. Peter’s) Cricket Team, and Fr. Sameer Advani, L.C., co-manager. Cricket is perhaps not what immediately springs to mind when you think of the Vatican, but the Vatican (St Peter’s) Cricket Team has an important role in building bridges between faiths and […]

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7th June 2019

Susan Njanji

Southern African regional correspondent, Agence France-Presse (AFP)

Reporting from the frontline

Long-time Southern African regional correspondent Susan Njanji from Zimbabwe was one of very few black African female journalists to cover the genocide in Rwanda. Here she reflects on the challenges that she’s faced when reporting from the frontline as a woman – and why gender should never be a factor in deciding who gets the […]

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28th May 2019

Nathalie Sala

Radio journalist, Fondation Hirondelle

Women are fighting to change perceptions

A church hall full of women farmers eager to debate elections in central Africa. Unlikely? Not if you listen to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Nathalie Sala who works with the Fondation Hirondelle to create the kind of radio programmes that urge women to vote and get more involved in politics in the second largest […]

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20th May 2019

Berna Namata

Acting Branch Manager, The East African

The biggest challenge to a robust media is relevancy

Berna Namata has been a business journalist for more than six years, mostly in Rwanda. She spent a year in London as a Chevening scholar. She returned in 2017 and currently works in Rwanda for the Nation Media Group’s popular regional weekly newspaper, The East African. In this guest blog for the Foreign Office, she […]

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23rd January 2019

Sir Simon McDonald

Permanent Under Secretary and Head of the Diplomatic Service

The spy who saved 10,000 Jews

I have been lucky enough to meet two of my heroes.  The first was Nicholas Winton.  In the days of single TV households I often found myself watching a programme I didn’t particularly like; That’s Life was one of them.  But it launched the career of Victoria Wood and occasionally featured interesting stories, so I […]

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3rd December 2018

Jonathan Drew & Nicole Davison

FLAGG at 20: reflections from the founders of the FCO’s LGBT+ staff association

Jonathan Drew: There are some things that need a very deep intake of breath before starting.  Like writing to the PUS, six months into being a diplomat, to ask him to give his blessing to the formation of a staff LGBT+ group. On a cold November night twenty years ago, with some trepidation, I wrote that […]

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11th October 2018

Duncan Brack

Independent environmental policy analyst

The illegal timber trade, forest governance and lessons for tackling illegal wildlife trade

Previous conferences on the illegal wildlife trade haven’t tended to feature much discussion of illegal logging and the trade in illegal timber – probably because most trees in international trade are not endangered species. Nevertheless, there are several common elements between illegal logging and the illegal wildlife trade. Both flourish in situations of weak governance […]

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10th October 2018

Philip Muruthi and Ken Mwathe

Philip Muruthi is the Vice President of Species Protection for the African Wildlife Foundation / Ken Mwathe is Programme Manager for Policy at the BirdLife International Africa Office

The fight against the illegal wildlife trade CAN be won

This week the UK hosts a conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade, bringing together global leaders to work together to end wildlife crime. Here two conference delegates from Africa pen a guest blog for the Foreign Office on what they’ll put into the conference – and what they expect to get out of it. “What […]

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