Welcome to The Diplomat’s Cabinet!

This is the first edition of a major rebranding and a new business strategy that I'm implementing in the newsletter. I've spent the first few months of 2025 (over)thinking and strategising about where I want to go next, and the train has already left the station. More information about what I'm doing will be shared here, on social media and on the website.

For my fellow gender detectives, worry not: The Gender Diplomat remains a center piece of The Diplomat’s Cabinet and the first episodes of the podcast are gender-related. The project is simply expanding, I’m broadening the scope of conversations and angles, and I'm reintroducing myself.

It's a pleasure to have you on The Cabinet!

The Gender Diplomat asks:
Is Feminist Foreign Policy built to last?

I recently sat down with Bruna Soares from OPEFI (Brazil's Feminist Foreign Policy Observatory) — who is a specialist in Feminist Foreign Policy, researcher at PUC-Rio and a good friend of mine — and here’s the uncomfortable truth: For all the talk about feminist foreign policy, most governments aren’t doing the hard work to make it stick.

The 1st wave of Feminist Foreign Policy came with Sweden launching the first-ever feminist lens within its foreign policy ecosystem 11 years ago. It was “simple” — put women’s rights and representation at the center of the country’s external action (easy, right?) — and France and Canada followed the same model (France even has planned out an International Strategy for Feminist Foreign Policy 2025-2030).

We can say the 2nd wave was introduced by Mexico, flipping the script. The Mexican approach entailed intersectionality — i.e. addressing not just gender but race, class, and colonial legacies. Countries like Chile and Colombia adopted similar frameworks, adding a critical lens on power and inequality.

By 2025, around 15 countries around the world share this commitment and all of them have pledged to make women's and girls' rights, and gender equality as a whole, a priority of their foreign policy. But Bruna doesn’t hold back: “Most action plans are surface-level,” she says. Latin American governments talk a good game about intersectionality, but they rarely go beyond symbolic commitments. The deeper structural problems — namely how colonisation and systemic racism shape foreign policy — stay untouched. From my point of view, it is important to note that debates about colonisation and racism in European foreign policy are not as much of a priority as they are in Latin America.

And when it comes to action? Bruna points out a hard truth: “They focus on making things look good, not fixing the roots of inequality.”

It is well known that human rights are never fully guaranteed, so here lies the biggest threat: Feminist Foreign Policy is fragile. When Sweden’s right-wing government took power, they quietly killed the agenda. Bruna warns the same could happen in Canada and Germany or any other countries where right-wing movements are actively working to dismantle gender-focused policies.

And Brazil? Despite hopes under Lula’s government, a feminist approach to foreign policy isn’t a priority. According to Bruna, leftist governments in Latin America often treat it as “too risky” — they fear backlash more than they value the feminist agenda itself. 

Interesting. It makes me wonder where equality really sits within the political spectrum…

Can civil society hold the line?

If governments won’t lead, who will? According to Bruna, the real fight happens outside official corridors: Civil society keeps the pressure on (without activists and independent institutions, feminist agendas disappear with a change of government) and narratives need to become political power. Bruna argues that feminist foreign policy won’t survive unless it moves from discourse to enforceable action. But even here, there’s a tension: Civil society pushes forward, but governments cherry-pick what’s politically convenient.

And... what happens when the media spotlight disappears? Or even when the media themselves bow to government pressure?

Without legal mechanisms to protect these agendas, Feminist Foreign Policy will remain what it is now — a political accessory that gets quietly shelved when the winds change.

[This is an excerpt. For the full conversation, make sure to follow The Diplomat’s Cabinet Podcast on your favourite platforms]

New podcast episode: Why aren’t there more women Ambassadors?

When it comes to the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, not all regions—and not all countries—move at the same pace. But some stand apart.

Did you know that only 21% of ambassadors worldwide are women? In some of the most influential centres of power – namely the G7, China and India – female representation remains particularly low. But why is that?

In this episode of The Diplomat's Cabinet Podcast, we break down the 2024 Women in Diplomacy Index with Dr. Sara J. Chehab, PhD, Senior Research Fellow at the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The Women in Diplomacy Index is an annual report that tracks the representation of women at ambassadorial level in 193 UN Member States, including data on more than 12,000 diplomatic posts around the world.

From The Career Diplomat’s Notebook

I’ve been thinking A LOT about how I make decisions because I desperately need to be more effective and pragmatic — especially as it pertains to the ones that feel too big to wrap my head around. I easily let my head spin and make up scenarios (especially worst-case scenarios), so a new tool was needed.

Earlier this year, when I was planning The Diplomat’s Cabinet and figuring out how it fits into my broader career, I relied on both gut feelings (sometimes things just have to make sense in your own eyes and you have to let yourself be delusional) and on weighted decision-making, which is a simple but structured way of assigning weights to what matters most. It forces us to be honest and overcome our own BS: What really matters? What is just noise?

Make a list of your priorities, objectives, plans and assign them scores. For me, the question wasn’t just “Is this a good idea?” or “Do I want this or that?” (the answer is I want EVERYTHING). The right question turned out to be “At this particular moment, does this move me closer to the life and career I want to build?” And when you break it down like that, the choices become clearer.

It’s not the most romantic way to make decisions, but I’ll take clarity over my brain’s guesswork any day… with the help of an Excel spreadsheet.

(With thanks to my good friend Sara for constantly saving my career from overthinking)

Toolkit for diplomats at heart

There's so much going on in the world that I've spent the last few months reading and reading and reading... Here are some resources that have fuelled my desire to be at the forefront of world affairs analysis.

• The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans @ The Atlantic is going straight into the history books. This would be hilarious if the consequences weren't disastrous.

• Another must read for very different reasons is Zelensky’s exclusive interview @ TIME on Trump, Putin, and the Endgame in Ukraine.

• Fancy an opportunity to report from @ EYE2025? There’s a grant for young journalists & content creators.

• A chilling warning from András Pethő, a Hungarian journalist who has watched American media head down a familiar path @ CJR.

• Trump, Europe, Ukraine and the uncertain world order with Ian Bremmer @ TED Talk. The MAGA administration has accelerated world events and it's difficult to follow everything on a daily basis, but we try.

• Questions to ask before it's too late: Have we now also left young men behind? (PS – If you can recommend a guest for a podcast on this topic, let me know). Sir Gareth Southgate says boys need role models, not gaming and porn @ BBC. The 2025 Lost Boys report is available here.