Alison Blake named new UK High Commissioner to Bangladesh

Britain has announced its new High Commissioner to Bangladesh as Robert Gibson will move to another mission after serving more than four years in Dhaka.

Alison Blake, former deputy high commissioner of Islamabad, will succeed Gibson and take up her appointment in January next year, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office says.
 
Blake is a native Londoner who takes a keen interest in Ancient and Modern History, which she studied at Oxford University.
 
After completing her BA in 1983, she worked as an archaeologist in London.
 
She later worked for an economic policy research think-tank before joining the British Civil Service in 1989.

She worked with the Ministry of Defence, including in her capacity as assistant private secretary to the secretary of state for defence, before joining the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 1996.

She was the head of the FCO’s Conflict Group prior to her stint in the Pakistan mission.

Blake also served in the Cabinet Office, British embassy in Washington, and UK Delegation to NATO in Brussels in her career.

She also speaks French and Urdu.

Robert Gibson has been British High Commissioner to Dhaka since September 2011. He is the Dean of Diplomatic Corps in Bangladesh as the longest serving diplomat.

Britain is Bangladesh’s largest bilateral donor of grants. It was the first European country to recognise Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan and the first to host Prime Minister Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

At least half a million people of Bangladeshi origin now live in the UK.

Around 10 percent of Bangladesh’s total exports go to the UK, mostly clothes, according to British High Commission.