British Ambassador John Dennis bids farewell to Luanda, Angola
Ambassador Dennis welcomed UK’s partners to a Farewell Reception, to mark the 4 years he spent as British Ambassador to Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe.
HMA John Dennis
The reception on the 7th February was attended by over 150 key contacts from the Angolan government, business, academia and civil society, as well as by diplomatic partners.
Since his arrival in 2014 Ambassador Dennis has led successful and ongoing efforts to deepen cooperation between Angola and the UK in trade, defence, education and the environment. As well as on key global and regional issues. A bilateral Memorandum of Understanding was signed in 2016, institutional and people to people contacts are now thickening fast.
In his farewell speech, Ambassador Dennis said:
I knew I wanted to be Ambassador to Angola from the moment I first set foot here: three years before that wish came true. I was overwhelmed by people’s energy and determination to succeed.
The government of Angola is now responding with vigour to the economic challenges posed by the fall in the oil price. It has set in train a range of reforms- and new policies, designed, to diversify the economy by opening it to new, productive investment, both domestic and international. The UK is determined to engage and to help: to the benefit of all. We are doing a lot together already but there is still much more we can do.
It has been an honour and huge satisfaction to be involved in all of this, in bringing UK and Angolan players together and helping the potential turn into real outcomes.
Further information
Ambassador Dennis will return to London to take up a senior appointment in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. He will be replaced by Jessica Hand who has been appointed Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Angola and non-resident Ambassador to São Tomé and Príncipe. She will arrive in Luanda in March.