Dear Members and Friends,

This week, we were delighted to launch the second edition of our Education Working Group’s Report: ‘Recover Learning; Rebuilding Education’. In an event hosted by The Rt. Hon Baroness Hooper CMG, Conservative life peer in the House of Lords, the Group presented their findings and capabilities to an audience that included 14 London based foreign embassies and representatives from the FCDO and DIT. Going forwards, the Education Working Group will be continuing to share their work with key multi-lateral agencies and regional education authorities. You can access a copy of the report here.

We feel this is a very strong model and approach to amplify the capabilities of our members and illustrate how they can help tackle key issues and contribute to the Global Britain agenda. We are actively working to develop similar materials through Autumn and Winter across Infrastructure, Climate Change and Professional/Support Services

This week, we hosted a further Trade Envoy session with Lord Popat, PM’s Trade Envoy for Uganda, Rwanda and more recently the DRC. Lord Popat highlighted the vibrancy and ample opportunities for UK companies as well as the support to companies available from DIT and UKEF. Members were also able to share their experiences and some of the challenges they face in these markets.

Our Trade Envoy series continues on July 6th when we will host Richard Graham MP, PM’s Trade Envoy for ASEAN Economic Community, Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia; and on 15 the July we will be joined by Andrew Selous MP, PM’s Trade Envoy for South Africa.

Next week, we also have three additional events. On 6th July Ahead of ICAI’s upcoming rapid review, we will be hosting a private presentation and discussion with the ICAI team exploring UK aid alignment with the Paris Agreement feeding into the review process

The Safeguarding Leads Network on 7th July will be host a participatory webinar on Survivor-Centred Approaches and will offer time and space for participants to explore the difficult issues through facilitated discussion.

Finally on 8th July we have a meeting of the BEI Infrastructure Working Group.

We are also developing and finalising our programme for Autumn, and this will include a number of key themes:

• Building on the success of our ‘Meet the Ambassador’ series, we will be following up with a series of country-specific Deep Dives, focusing on opportunities in both hard and soft Infrastructure; we will also continue our series ‘Meet the Trade Envoys’ and ‘Meet the Trade Commissioners’
• We will continue to develop our series of events and publications driven by our Education and Climate Change Working Groups, showcasing UK expertise
• We will focus on events that connect our development aid sector members with senior decision and policy makers as the next spending review is finalised and hopefully greater visibility on the longer-term pipeline
• We will focus on the key issue of global funding of projects — through engagements with development banks, multilaterals, institutions, foundations and other international organisations
• We are beginning to plan for a gradual return to face to face engagements, with a small number of in person round tables and lunches

I will communicate more detail around this programme before the summer break.

I wanted to draw your attention to an excellent report from our sister company, the British Foreign Policy Group, ‘Global Britain and Levelling Up: Strengthening the UK’s Democracy, Resilience and Security’. It explores the key areas of alignment between the UK’s two major international and domestic renewal projects — Global Britain and Levelling Up — and demonstrates how, both conceptually and practically, these could work together in a mutually beneficial way.

Finally, as we look forward to a big sporting weekend, even though I did not draw them in our office sweepstake, I would like to wish the England team the very best of luck in their quarter final with Ukraine. I wish you all a relaxing 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*.

5th July — Education Working Group

6th July — Closed Roundtable Discussion with Trade Envoy Richard Graham MP

6th July — Exploring UK aid alignment with the Paris Agreement

7th July — Safeguarding Leads Network event on Survivor-Centred Approaches

8th July — Infrastructure Working Group

13th July* — Adaptive Management in Development Programmes

14th July — UK Business Guide to Net Zero

14th July* — The Quality of Official Development Assistance– Aid Effectiveness isn’t Dead Yet

15th July — Closed Roundtable Discussion with Trade Envoy Andrew Selous MP

20th July — Brazil Deep Dive

21st July — Climate Change Working Group

27th July — Diversity and Inclusion Working Group

7th September — Closed Roundtable Discussion with Heather Wheeler MP

15th September — Business Opportunities in the Asian Development Bank — Transport and Energy

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External News & Events

13th July — The Saudi-British Joint Business Council is hosting a UK/Saudi Sustainable Investment Forum at Mansion House in London with investors, government representatives and business leaders. Registration is now open, please follow this link to secure your place.

13th — 16th July — The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology will deliver an interactive online course on Spatial Analysis in QGIS and R — An Introduction for Environmental Scientists.

Public Administration Services offers capacity development and training promoting good governance and good practice in delivering public services.

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