HARARE – A former school teacher who spent a year working in Zimbabwe is returning as the United Kingdom’s new ambassador in September.
Peter Vowles will replace Melanie Robinson who has been the UK’s top diplomat in Harare since 2019.
“Mr Peter Vowles has been appointed to be His Majesty’s ambassador to Zimbabwe in succession to Ms Melanie Robinson CMG. Mr Vowles will take up his appointment in September 2023,” the UK foreign office said in a statement Thursday.
Speaking during celebrations to mark King Charles’ coronation at the embassy in May, Robinson said: “I arrived in Zimbabwe with my husband and our two daughters in January 2019. While I’ve been lucky enough to extend my posting beyond the limits most ambassadors enjoy, those daughters have grown fast, Lucas and I have got a bit greyer, and in September our time will sadly come to leave.”
Vowles is currently the transformation director for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
Between 2020 and 2021, Vowles was the British embassy head of mission in Myanmar.
His posting to Zimbabwe is not the first time to Africa as he previously worked as the Department for International Development (DFID) director in Nairobi and Kinshasa.
He was employed by the ministry of education in Zimbabwe as a teacher between 1992 and 1993, according to the UK foreign ministry.
Ambassador Vowles’ deployment comes as Zimbabwe is making attempts to rejoin the Commonwealth following its suspension in 2002 over rights abuses. Then President Robert Mugabe abruptly pulled the country out of the grouping of former British colonies in 2003 when the suspension was not lifted.
