Deputy Secretary-General presents inaugural Arts and Culture award
Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba last night presented Observer journalist Tim Adams with the Foreign Press Association’s (FPA) inaugural Arts and Culture award at a ceremony in London.
The annual event, at which foreign journalists honour their UK colleagues, was attended by 350 guests at the Park Lane Hotel in Mayfair.
Rwandan Deputy High Commissioner to the UK, Linda Kalimba, presented the award for Travel and Tourism, won by Colin Barraclough, from Conde Nast Traveler (US).
In June this year, the Commonwealth Secretariat partnered with the London-based FPA to mark the 2011 Commonwealth theme ‘Women as Agents of Change’. The day-long symposium included politicians, academics, businesswomen, journalists and activists from around the world. The keynote address was given by Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen.
Announcing the Deputy Secretary-General, broadcaster and comedian Sandi Toksvig said that the FPA’s collaboration with the Commonwealth would continue next year with another symposium in June. It is fitting that this new award for Arts and Culture Story of the Year reflected the Commonwealth’s 2012 theme, ‘Connecting Cultures’, she said.