A WEEK IN LIFE – MARTIN DAVIDSON
Published in the Sunday Times July 20th 2008

The sun never sets on the British Council. Britain’s vehicle for promoting the UK through cultural relations has 7,400 staff in 110 countries including troubled places where Government diplomats sometimes fear to tread.

In Zimbabwe and Burma, British Council people remain resolutely at their desks, despite official hostility to the UK. It also operates in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran.

Martin Davidson, its chief executive says: “I’m enormously proud that our offices in Mandalay and Rangoon are probably the only public spaces in that country where you can read a foreign newspaper, look at the internet or see foreign television. We get about 350,000 people pass through our offices just to get that contact. I don’t think there is any doubt that they are identified and their names are taken.”

“In Zimbabwe we are providing a link to the outside world hugely valued by the young professional Zimbabwean for giving an understanding of what the outside world is thinking about Zimbabwe, contact with colleagues outside and helping to persuade them to stay in the country.”

Davidson, 52, says the Council’s role has changed little since its creation 75 years ago in response to Nazi propaganda. “Then we sought to demonstrate through education, culture and science that there was an alternative narrative about how people live with one another and across international boundaries. That is still what we are for. We use different language now and talk in terms of our role being to build engagement and trust for the UK through the exchange of knowledge and ideas.”

He is paid £160,000 a year to oversee a hugely complex operation with a shifting set of priorities. The Council’s independence of government, “rather like the BBC” gives it credibility. It gets £190 million from Westminster, but makes £375 million from a range of commercial enterprises, especially education. Millions learn English through the British Council’s work.

Davidson’s week reflects the Council’s international nature. Recently he returned from trip consolidating educational links with Arab nations. Improving relations in the Islamic world is currently high priority.

So is climate change. Hours after returning from Beirut, he flew to Switzerland for a forum at which young people from around the world - recruited by the Council - presented their personal encounters with climate change.

Back in London he delivered an evening briefing at Chatham House followed by breakfast with Margaret Hodge, the Arts Minister. Then he briefed a Foreign Office forum on cultural diplomacy.

The key office event was an internal public accounts meeting. A report concluded the Council delivered significant value for money – promoting the present key idea of Britain as: “an open, diverse, interested and engaged society.” Our values are respect for the rule of law, the individual, diversity and for people who come from different places. “That is the narrative we are trying to present about the UK.”