Listen to my Interview with Ambassador Daniel Mulhall on Ireland’s Soft Power

*Interview recorded on the 27 of February 2026, via Zoom.

Ambassador Daniel Mulhall is a retired Irish diplomat and author, born in Waterford, who joined Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs in 1978.

Over a 44-year diplomatic career, he served in New Delhi, Vienna, Brussels and Edinburgh, and later as Ambassador to Malaysia (also accredited to Thailand, Laos and Vietnam), Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States (2017–2022).

He held senior roles in Dublin as Press Spokesman and Director-General for European Affairs, and was part of the Irish Government delegation in the negotiations that culminated in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Alongside statecraft, Mulhall has consistently treated Irish writing as a tool of cultural diplomacy—profiling Ireland through writers such as W.B. Yeats and James Joyce in speeches, events and public engagements.

He has written and lectured widely on Irish literature, including Joyce-focused work shaped by his years of diplomatic travel, and has published two books, Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey (2022) and Pilgrim Soul: W.B. Yeats and the Ireland of his Time(2023).

International Women’s Day

Listen to my interview with Joanne Wilson, former Deputy to the Director, Radiocommunication Bureau, at the International Telecommunication Union, and a strong supporter of women in the sciences.

Joanne Wilson was Deputy to the Director of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, and one of the key figures helping steer global discussions on spectrum, satellite coordination and the governance frameworks that underpin modern communications.

At the ITU, she has also become a visible advocate for stronger participation by women in radiocommunications and STEM, arguing that the sector cannot afford to leave talent on the sidelines.

Joanne Wilson is an electrical engineer and was a senior leader at the International Telecommunication Union. She served as Deputy to the Director of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau and Chief of the Informatics, Administration and Publications Department, where she led preparations for major ITU radiocommunication conferences.

Her career spans more than 35 years in telecommunications, including over 30 years of engagement with the ITU system, and includes work at NASA, the U.S. space agency. Wilson was also the Executive and Plenary Secretary of the 2019 and 2023 World Radiocommunication Conferences.

She was the first woman engineer appointed as Deputy to the Director of the Radiocommunication Bureau. She has been an outspoken supporter of gender equality in science and engineering, calling attention to the underrepresentation of women in radiocommunications and backing initiatives and networks aimed at improving women’s participation in the field.

Wilson has played a central role in the technical and institutional architecture behind global spectrum policy. She has also emerged as a strong voice for women’s participation in STEM and radiocommunications, pressing for a more inclusive sector at a time of rapid technological change.

Nuclear Energy Summit to be Held in Paris

IAEA initiatives focus on women’s participation in the nuclear field

The second Nuclear Energy Summit will be held in Paris on the 10th March 2026, hosted by the Government of France in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). President Emmanuel Macron and Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will speak.

Ahead of the summit, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs is organizing a public-facing event on Sunday, 8 March, at the Cité des Sciences.

The ministry says the afternoon programme is designed to make nuclear issues more accessible to the public and, on International Women’s Day, to highlight the importance of gender parity in the sector.

The 8th March event also aligns with Rafael Grossi’s record on gender parity at the IAEA.

Upon taking office, Grossi introduced a policy aimed at achieving gender parity across the Agency’s Professional and higher categories by 2025, as the General Service category was already mostly staffed by women.

At the end of 2019, women represented 30.44% of staff in those categories and 31.25% of senior management. By the end of 2024, women had reached 50% of the Professional and higher categories and 48% of senior management positions.

Today that number stands at 52%. Talk about real, tangible, progress.

Rafael Grossi is the strongest candidate for the post of UN Secretary General. Those numbers, accomplished in record time, show real commitment to gender parity and equal pay in the slow moving UN. How many heads of agency can say the same?

Grossi also launched or backed several IAEA initiatives focused on women’s participation in the nuclear field. The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme, launched in 2020, had 760 fellows from 129 Member States by the end of 2024; 320 had completed their studies and 167 had progressed to internships facilitated by the Agency.

The Women in Nuclear Security Initiative was launched in March 2021. The Lise Meitner Programme, launched in 2023, had supported about 80 women from 38 countries by early March 2026. Women in Nuclear awarded him the 2025 Changemaker of Distinction Award.

The meeting comes as the IAEA says global momentum behind nuclear power continues to grow. In September 2025, the Agency raised its projections for nuclear expansion for the fifth consecutive year, estimating in its high-case scenario that global nuclear capacity could rise from 377 GW(e) at the end of 2024 to 992 GW(e) by 2050.

The Paris summit’s plenary discussions will focus on three core tracks: regional developments and strategies for nuclear energy, financing models for deployment at scale, and innovation in future nuclear technologies. The round tables will address tripling nuclear energy, global fuel-supply security, spent-fuel and waste management, and the development of supply chains and skills needed for safe construction and operation.

How to Achieve Gender Parity and Support Women’s Career Advancement?

Set a target, change recruitment measures, build a pipeline, support careers.

At the IAEA, Rafael Grossi did not treat gender parity as a side conversation for commemorative dates. Early in his tenure, he set a concrete objective: 50 per cent women and 50 per cent men in the Agency’s professional and higher categories by 2025. At that point, women represented less than 30 per cent of those posts. By September 2024, that share had climbed above 48 per cent, and IAEA achieved parity.

But the initiative was not only about staff gender parity in Vienna. In 2020, Grossi launched the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme to help more women enter nuclear science and technology through graduate scholarships and internship opportunities. It was designed to widen the pipeline into a field where women had long been underrepresented. By March 2026, the programme had supported 860 women from 135 Member States studying across 79 countries.

He then moved from entry to advancement. On 8 March 2023, Grossi launched the Lise Meitner Programme, aimed at early- and mid-career women professionals, with a focus on technical skills, leadership development and career progression. By March 2026, it had supported 80 women from 38 countries across six professional visits. The broader effort also extended into nuclear security through the Women in Nuclear Security Initiative, created to advance gender equality in that field and support women already working in it.

The story of Grossi’s gender parity agenda at the IAEA is therefore less about rhetoric than institutional design: set a target, change recruitment measures, build a pipeline, support careers, and make representation a measure of organizational strength rather than symbolism. That is the track record the IAEA itself now associates with his leadership.

#France #IAEA #RafaelGrossi #JoanneWilson #ITU #Paris #NuclearSummit

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theunbrief.substack.com/subscribe

Week Ahead: Macron and Rafael Grossi to Host Nuclear Energy Summit in Paris | Interview with Former Ambassador of Ireland to Washington