Kebur Azbaha

Leading the development, humanitarian and multilateral policy team at the British Embassy Washington DC. Managing UK strategy on diplomatic and policy engagement with the US government, Congress and other partners on international cooperation on economic development, global health, , digital and innovation, and development finance for infrastructure.

• Directly lead a team of 12 policy, technical and programme staff for the delivery of 7 Prosperity programmes (worth £20m) in line with the Integrated Review, and in support of DIT’s market access objectives. Indirectly oversight of the outputs and impact of 10 delivery partners with over 90 contracts/fixed term staff.
• Led a programme that contributed to the return of US$300 million of laundered assets, and imposition of a regulatory fine of US$3.9 billion on Goldman Sachs, related to the 1MDB grand corruption scandal. This has contributed to improving governance of state owned enterprises, and confidence in Malaysia’s financial sector.
• Influenced the Malaysian government to reform their investment promotion and practice policy, which will increase FDI in the future.
• Established the UK-Malaysia High Level Economic Dialogue to promote trade, investment, and economic policy knowledge exchange. This will contribute to the UK’s strategic bilateral relationship with Malaysia as an important ASEAN member state.

• Led a team of 5 policy and programme staff, and 15 contractors responsible for £60 million worth of public-private partnerships including on trade facilitation, custom modernisation and global value chains programmes supporting UK businesses to tackle border trade costs and bureaucracy.
• Led on designing and influencing donor contributions for a £50 million Global Alliance on Trade Facilitation – an initiative to reduce trade costs, at the World Economic Forum, Geneva. Working with companies such as Maersk, DHL, and Walmart, and the International Chambers of Commerce.
• Expanded a £5 million Trade and Global Value Chains programme to support UK firms to improve their supply and value chain sustainability. Worked with brands such as Sainsburys, Waitrose, Marks and Spencers, and Primark.

• Led a team of 3 FCO trade policy officers, to analyse and report on and contribute to negotiations related to trade, economic, intellectual property and development policy at the World Trade Organisation, World Intellectual Property Office, and UN.
• Substantially contributed to the finalisation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (the first multilateral agreement in 20 years in 2013), worth US$100 billion a year in reduced trade costs.
• Evaluated and improved the value for money and results of the UK’s £1.2 billion a year Aid for Trade initiatives in collaboration with DFID experts, BIS trade policy leads, and independent evaluators.

• Led a team of 3 programme managers, delivering governance reforms, humanitarian and post conflict reconstruction programmes in rural Afghanistan.
• Led a programme which resulted in more than 2 million Afghan women voting for the first time in recent Afghan history (2008/9), which contributed to progressing the women’s political and economic empowerment agenda.
• Led an initiative on de-mining (Halo Trust) which secured villages and farming land for hundreds of thousands of returning Afghan IDPs and refugees from Iran and Pakistan, improving local and regional livelihoods and trade.

• Led a team of 4 policy and programme managers to design (with experts/consultants) innovative finance facilities for health and infrastructure.
• Co-led with HMT to launch the 2nd bond from the International Finance Facility for Immunisation, increasing the GAVI’s budget by an extra US$223 million to support child vaccination in Africa (2007/8), working with London Stock Exchange, UBS Warburg, and the World Bank.
• Designed the £400 million Advanced Market Commitment in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies to expedite trials, testing and manufacturing of medicines to address Pneumococcal Disease (the first instrument of its kind in 2008, now being scoped for Covid application).

• Worked in a team of 6 technical and programme officers to manage economic reform partnerships with the Chinese governments.
• Contributed to state owned enterprise reform using UK experts (in Shenyang, China). Supporting mainly leather tanning, and manufacturing firms.
• Influenced the central policy department of the Chinese government on skills for entrepreneurship initiatives. Importantly to include marginalised groups such has HIV/Aids suffers. This programme became a nationwide policy and initiative.