Feb 4, 2022

BEI Weekly Update — 4th February 2022

Dear Members and Friends,

Last week, I spent an interesting few days at Wilton Park with a diverse range of stakeholders, discussing the topic — The nexus of international development and climate action. In wide-ranging and interesting discussions, topics covered; the narratives, the numbers and the networks. Seen as inextricably entwined, there was general agreement of the need for international development and climate action activities to be aligned to the Paris agreement. As a generalist, I was impressed with the wealth and breadth of expertise around me, save the rather noticeable absence of substantive private sector representation in a discussion where ideally all key stakeholders should have a seat at the table. Thanks to Wilton Park, supported by Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) for yet another great event.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to welcome a group of new members who joined BEI towards the end of last year. In total, we had 28 new members join us in 2021, and late in the year, we were delighted to welcome Ricardo, Crown Agents Bank, Alpha Plus Group, Skotkonung, Quay Asia, Altair and Sannam S4 to BEI. We look forward to opportunities for them to meet with our existing members and networks through the rest of this year.

Although we had a quiet week this week in terms of Events, we get back to a full agenda next week, with three planned activities. On Tuesday 8th February: we continue our Trade Envoy series with an opportunity to Meet the Trade Envoy for Mongolia Daniel Kawczynski MP. This series provides a great opportunity for members with experience or plans of working in the country to discuss future trade promotion plans and barriers to entry with the Trade Envoy. Mongolia’s growing economy offers opportunities for UK companies in the expanding renewable energy sector as well as the education and agriculture sectors.

On Wednesday 9th February: we are looking forward to an event on The Business Case for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. This virtual panel discussion will explore how an effective Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) company policy goes beyond compliance requirements or moral motivation and is becoming a business imperative. The speakers will discuss the many benefits of embedding EDI practices — as applied to an organisation’s staff, business strategy and operations.

On Thursday 10th February: we look forward to the rescheduled in-person Lunch with Louis Taylor, CEO of UK Export Finance. With Finance and funding so critical to all our members, Louis Taylor will share key insights on UKEF’s strategy and priorities and its growing collection of financial packages accessible to UK companies.

We are looking forward to the release of the Third Edition of our Education Working Group report ‘Recover Learning, Rebuild Education’. In addition to the previous member contributors, we welcome contributions from Abt Associates, Advance HE, Alpha Plus Consultancy, Ecctis, One Awards, Quay Asia, RM, The Skills Network and Transform ELT.

Finally, despite my best efforts, I was struck down by Covid this week, so my apologies if I have been slow to respond to anyone, but I expect normal service to be resumed from next week onwards.

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 most of our events are hosted virtually and we are starting to explore face to face and 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*.

8th February — Meet the Trade Envoy for Mongolia Daniel Kawczynski MP

9th February — The Business Case for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

10th February — Lunch with Louis Taylor, CEO of UK Export Finance

15th February* — Morocco Deep Dive

22nd February — Roundtable with Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to South Africa — Andrew Selous MP

23rd February — Opportunities for UK Companies in Nigeria

23rd March — Meet the Trade Commissioner for South Asia, Alan Gemmell

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External News & Events

10th February — DevelopmentAid will host a thematic webinar focused on Inter-American Development Bank, its profile, operations, portfolio, and procurement framework. Adriana Salazar Cota will provide several tips on how to prepare properly for upcoming bids and how to build a fruitful collaboration. Apply to attend here.

21st — 25th February — The UK/SG Innovation Partnership Series — Smart Cities, Green Tech, and Circular Economy- DIT in collaboration with the UK Science and Innovation Network (SIN) and Tech Nation, will host a virtual trade mission to Singapore. Apply to participate here.

22nd –24th February — The Department of International Trade is taking a Smart Cities mission to Malaysia. If you would like to attend, please register here.

25th — 29th April — Spatial analysis in QGIS and R — An Introduction for Environmental Scientists. Running over four half-day sessions, this hands-on and interactive online course will give you an introduction to spatial data analysis in an open-source environment. For more information click here and to sign up and pay online click here.

On 10 February 2022, DevelopmentAid will host a thematic webinar focused on Inter-American Development Bank, its profile, operations, portfolio, and procurement framework. Adriana Salazar Cota will provide several tips on how to prepare properly for upcoming bids and how to build a fruitful collaboration.