Chief of Staff to the Africa Director
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Total years of experience :5 years, 0 Months
● Manage the Africa Director's diary and forward look, briefing the Director on upcoming meetings and engagements.
● Leading on travel arrangements, including booking flights, coordinating visit programmes and commissioning of briefing.
● Brief the Director on a range of policy and corporate issues presenting options and risks.
● Relay the Director’s steers and preferences to departments to help the delivery of policy.
● Assist with the delivery of major events in both FCDO by coordinating logistics, protocol arrangements and ministerial briefing packs.
● Lead on region-wide multilateral campaigns around Media Freedom, Freedom of Religious Belief, Human Rights and modern slavery.
● Lead on protocol arrangements at UK-hosted events on climate and the Commonwealth and dialogue agendas for roundtable discussions on Syria, South Sudan and Yemen.
● Coordinating cross-Whitehall Private Office engagement, regularly briefing the No.10 team on the PM’s logistics and drafted Note Verbales to arrange ministerial bilaterals for the outgoing UK delegation.
● Standing in as the UK representative on Burundi and ‘responsibility to protect’ roundtable discussions
● Led on key stakeholder relationship-building and network and Ministerial policy planning in West Africa
● Oversaw region-wide multilateral campaigns in Freedom of Religious Belief, Human Rights and Modern slavery
● Worked on diaspora engagement, public communications and Civil society/NGO and Chevening capacity-building
● Provided policy support to overseas network in West Africa on prosperity, bilateral engagement and soft power diplomacy framework
● Responsible for correspondence, strategy development, delegations program planning, Ministerial Briefings, FCO Orals, monitoring and evaluations of post engagement and network uplift
● Draft correspondence, FCDO Oral briefs, brush-by briefs and Travel Advice for twelve countries coordinating with colleagues at Posts and across Whitehall.
● Cover as the desk officer for Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire and The Gambia. Drive diaspora, Chevening and civil society engagement.
● UKVI operational decision-making of visa applications based on case-working analyses, conducting credibility interviews and implementing visa policy changes in decision-making practises
● Developed strong and transferable knowledge of UK immigration policy
● Prepared explanatory statements, refusal notices, complaints responses and responses to written enquiries from UK sponsors, solicitors, Home Office and other stakeholders
● Ability to process visa applications, establishing eligibility under the Immigration Rules
● Responsible for correspondence with other government departments, communicating with applicants and sponsors, line management of administrative officers and mentoring new entry clearance officers
● Advocate in addressing issues of cultural significance including FGM, Honour Killings, domestic violence, polygamy, and forced marriage among migrant communities in Canada
● Proactive at communicating community needs to state and federal authorities and fundraising, as well as delivering integration policy outcomes from the authorities to local communities to liaise compliance on both parts
● Developed community relations through contingency planning, career support services and training opportunities for new migrants and providing advice for access to translation and social support services
● Established facilitates to teach English language skills and refugee counselling service, and provide Canadian integration classes and cross-cultural dialogue conferences to support community cohesion
● Responsible for providing provisions for community networks and regional sponsors and the management of funding budgets for key priorities and investing in local engagement to the federal level
Diploma of Higher Education