Edwin Samuel

Edwin is visiting academic from the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office who specialises in the Gulf having just finished four years as Senior Adviser for the the Gulf for the UK Government.

As a diplomat, he has spent more than half working in the Middle East and North Africa. And as an accredited track two mediator, Edwin is interested in studying which kinds of formal and informal mediation and backchannels work best in MENA.

Edwin is also known as a soft-smart-power diplomat able to use both the power of attraction and deterrence to deliver policy in MENA. As UK Government Arabic Media Spokesperson, Edwin was asked to help generate an inter-faith narrative and training programmes for the Counter-Daesh Coalition to counter radicalising propaganda in the Islamic world.

He is a proponent of using open-source intelligence together with other sources to inform decision-making at a strategic level, and has advised companies how to operate and slowly disengage in Myanmar after a military coup.

During his time in the UK Diplomatic Service, Edwin has served in London, Berlin, Damascus, Brasilia and Riyadh. Edwin enjoys camping in the desert with Bedouin to practice his Arabic and enjoys classical music.