Adopted Scot wins top diplomatic post after honing skills in East Kilbride
An adopted Scot who rose to prominence in the Civil Service in Scotland has been appointed the UK's High Commissioner to Jamaica.
Diplomat Alicia Herbert won praise for her roles in war-torn Sudan, taking on terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria and combating an AIDS epidemic in Mozambique.
Trinidad and Tobago born Alicia won the big promotion after heading the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's joint HQ in East Kilbride since 2016.
She was waved off by Foreign Secretary David Lammy, pledging that she would seek to draw Scotland's 'shared history with Jamaica to develop relations with the UK.
Herbert, 57, is the UK's first Head of Mission deployed to a Caribbean post to have been born in the Caribbean.
She was in charge of almost 1,000 FCDO staff in Scotland and also served as the UK's special envoy for gender equality.
She said: 'I feel like my life's gone full circle. There aren't many roles could have persuaded me to leave Scotland but having first come to the UK on a scholarship, I simply couldn't resist going back to the region of my birth to represent the UK as High Commissioner to Jamaica.
'It's been such a joy to work and live in Scotland. I will of course draw on Scotland and Jamaica's shared history.
'Lots of my colleagues have been joking that I'll miss the Scottish rain, but while Kingston's a lot sunnier than East Kilbride, I've not had to worry about hurricanes much working there.
'The Caribbean is a part of the world where the climate crisis is acute with the frequency and intensity of hurricanes increasing. A huge focus of my job will be how the UK partners with the Caribbean to address how climate change is affecting the region.'
Herbert acknowledged the way her job had taken her top some of the most dangerous places in the world.
She said: 'I think my dear mum when she was alive did worry and ask 'You're going where?'
'I have not come under direct threat, but that threat has been there. I lived in Sudan for three years from 2006 and there was always war. A US diplomat was assassinated not too far from my house on New Year's Eve.
'I was in Nigeria when Boko Haram was just seeding and by the time I left, they had become quite a force. Boko Haram literally means 'Western education is forbidden'.
'I had colleagues working in the UN compound where 13 people were killed in a Boko Haram bomb attack in Abuja in 2011. I remember frantically sending in drivers to get our people out when they attacked Kano the same year.'
Herbert said she was proud to strike a blow for women, after entering the civil service as black, female immigrant back in 1999.
She said: 'Quite often I was the only woman in the room, and almost certainly, the only person of colour. Now 40 per cent of our Heads of Mission are female.
'While my appointment shows that things are heading in the right direction, there is still much to do. For example, black staff are still underrepresented at senior levels. We want people from all walks of life representing the UK internationally.'
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