Part of Parliamentary Candidates: Barriers for Women – in Westminster Hall at 5:09 pm on 13 September 2017.
I thank my hon. Friend for putting the name of David Hope-Jones on the record, and I apologise for my omission.
The British Council Scotland has worked closely with colleagues in Malawi on the Future News Worldwide programme—a journalism and media-training project, conceived in 2014. Recently, two young Malawian journalists were selected out of almost 2,000 applicants to attend the annual Future News Worldwide conference, held in the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh in July of this year. There, they received exclusive training from some of the world’s leading media organisations, including Reuters, CNN, Facebook, the BBC and Google News Lab, and connected with 100 young journalists from across the globe.
The Scottish Government launched a new international development strategy last autumn, focusing on a small number of key countries: Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia and Pakistan. The Scotland Malawi Partnership helps to ensure that Malawi has a continued high profile in Scotland, particularly in schools and among youth organisations. According to the University of Edinburgh, more than 94,000 Scots are actively involved in links with Malawi each year. Separate research suggests that an estimated 46% of Scots now personally know someone with a connection to Malawi—whether a parent with a church link, a child involved in a school partnership, or a friend active in linked communities.
It could be argued that this relationship is mutually beneficial. More than 300,000 Scots benefit from it, not least through the 160 school-to-school links, which are now an integral part of the educational experience for young Scots. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views on that issue, which has been a running theme throughout the speeches and interventions in this debate.