Dear Members and Friends,
Last week, the Foreign Secretary announced new UK aid funding to find the most effective ways to give the world’s most vulnerable children an education. It will address a chronic lack of research into the best methods to provide schooling in conflicts and long-term crises around the world. The £15.8 million research focus on six countries which are home to 3 million refugee and displaced children and includes northern Nigeria, South Sudan, Myanmar, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon.
This is good to see and is in line with our own Education Working Group’s report that highlighted that the most disadvantaged in society have been most effected by learning loss. The Working Group is now extending its focus into another group disproportionately impacted — with a sub-group launched on Girls’ Education. This team will focus on both knowledge sharing and advocacy, with a programme of work designed to showcase the expertise and track record of British based companies in this vital area, and help members create new partnerships. To find out more about the group and the plans, please contact Joe or Alexandra.
Our Climate Change Working Group also met to review the plans for showcasing British Expertise in three vital areas: the Built Environment, Nature Based Solutions and Flood, Weather and Risk Management. Each of these sub-groups is working to release these capability summaries in advance of COP 26, supported by our team here at BEI.
This week, we also hosted a very insightful Brazil Deep Dive. This session provides an opportunity for members to hear from the Ambassador, HE Mr Peter Wilson CMG and DIT colleagues across Infrastructure, Education and UK Export Finance. The sheer scale of Brazil was evidenced by the fact that the three largest economies across Latin America are Brazil itself, the region of Sao Paolo, and the city of Sao Paolo. The team highlighted the scale of the opportunities across multiple areas, but were also pragmatic about the challenges of doing business in the country and the critical importance of building relationships for the long term. It was also interesting to hear that UK Export Finance has strengthened its proposition for the SME Market. You can access details of the session and the slides here.
On the subject of education, leaders from across the world will be meeting for the Global Education Summit, to set out how to address the education and skills challenges working together across government, business and civil society. As part of the Summit, we’re delighted to see some of our members contributing to a one-day programme of events to be held on 26 July 2021 — Girls’ Education Day, this includes Girls’ Education Challenge Alliance partners PwC, Cambridge Education, Nathan Associates and Social Development Direct. The one-day programme of events, brings together leading voices on girls’ education from across the globe to explores how we can ensure that all girls can benefit from high quality schooling in a post-COVID world. The full programme is available here.
As the holiday season sets in, our last event before the break will be a meeting of our Diversity and Inclusion Working Group. I will also be taking a break from the weekly newsletters over the summer period with my last edition coming out next week. In this last newsletter before the summer break, I will provide an overview of our plans for September to Christmas, together with some specific event highlights in September.
In the meantime, I hope you manage to avoid the thundery showers forecast for the weekend.
With Best Wishes
Derrick
Derrick Sanyahumbi
Chief Executive Officer
British Expertise International
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Don’t forget…
See our full events programme here, and to enquire about becoming a member of BEI, register your interest here.
Join our Working Groups — as part of our member focus, the working groups offer opportunities for peer-to-peer engagement, learning & sharing, profiling expertise & capabilities and highlighting thought leadership. Groups include Climate Change, Education, infrastructure, D&I, and we also support a Safeguarding Leads Network. For details contact Joe McLynn
Join our LinkedIn Group and keep up with our news and our upcoming events highlights. Members can also post and share latest news and thought leadership. Join the group here.
Recruitment Board
Take advantage of the new Job Board on our website to post your organisation’s vacancies, currently this facility is available for free.
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Upcoming Events
Currently all our events are hosted virtually and look forward to exploring hybrid event options as the government eases socialising restrictions. For any event registration support please contact the events team. Click on titles to access full event details. The full calendar of events can be viewed here and recently added event dates are highlighted with an asterisk*.
27th July — Diversity and Inclusion Working Group
29th July* — Education Working Group Networking Evening
2nd August* — Education Working Group
12th August* — Infrastructure Working Group
18th August* — Climate Change Working Group
6th September*- Education Working Group
7th September — Closed Roundtable Discussion with Heather Wheeler MP
8th September — Business Opportunities in the Asian Development Bank — Education & Healthcare
9th September* — Infrastructure Working Group
15th September — Business Opportunities in the Asian Development Bank — Transport and Energy
15th September* — Climate Change Working Group
28th September* — Diversity and Inclusion Working Group
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External News & Events
Our sister company, the British Foreign Policy Group (BFPG), recently published a report on ‘Global Britain and Levelling Up: Strengthening the UK’s Democracy, Resilience and Security’, which explores the key areas of alignment between the UK’s two major international and domestic renewal projects.
26th July — The Girls’ Education Challenge Alliance partners — BEI members PwC, Cambridge Education, Nathan Associates and Social Development Direct — are hosting the Girls’ Education Day as part of the Global Education Summit. This one-day programme of events will bring together leading voices on girls’ education from across the globe to explore how we can ensure that all girls can benefit from high quality schooling in a post-COVID world. Full programme and registration available here.
26th — 30th July — The Department for International Trade (DIT) is hosting a series of virtual events on ‘Doing Business in the Commonwealth’ to provide delegates with marketing intelligence.
27th July — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is hosting a roundtable event with the CAREC Institute on ‘Research and Policy Trends and Prospects for Sustainable Post-COVID Recovery in Central Asia’. This event will aim to outline key local and cross-border sustainable COVID-19 recovery issues for Central Asia and discuss policy approaches for advancing the region’s sustainable recovery.
30th July — The Saudi-British Joint Business Council will host an event on ‘Saudi Smart Cities Briefing’ in partnership with the Arab British Chamber of Commerce and DIT on the occasion of the UK visit by HE Eng Abdullah Alswaha, Saudi Minister for Communications and Information Technology.
4th August — The Department for International Trade (DIT) will be hosting a UK Online Qualifications Virtual Showcase in Asia Pacific, a UK education showcase and learn how online qualifications can be adopted now, and for the future, across Asia Pacific.
13th August — The Department for International Trade (DIT) has advertised a business opportunity for British exporting companies on a tender to supply power generators in Argentina. Please follow this link to express your interest.
28th — 30th September — The African Development Bank (AfDB) is hosting the fourth annual ‘Africa Resilience Forum’, this year on the topic ‘Covid-19 and Beyond: Working Together for a Resilient Recovery’.
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