Judith Herbertson is the Deputy Director leading the Girls’ Education Department at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. In this role she sets global policy for UK support to girls’ education in developing partner countries to deliver on the government’s commitment to help provide 12 years of quality education for all girls globally. She oversees a wide-ranging portfolio of UK-funded interventions through global funds, multilateral channels, and UK-led and in-country bilateral programmes.

Judith has worked in international development for nearly 20 years having joined the former Department for International Development in 2003. She has served for 11 years overseas in Ethiopia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh in various policy and leadership roles. She has led UK-based policy departments on governance, open societies, and anti-corruption, and on UK relationships with the international financial institutions and the United Nations. She has also worked as a Ministerial Private Secretary and currently supports the work of the UK Special Envoy for Girls’ Education.

Prior to joining the civil service, Judith worked for 17 years in secondary education in the UK, in both maintained and private sectors, as a teacher of modern foreign languages and then in senior management roles.