The Directorate of Democratic Citizenship and Participation supports member States’ efforts to foster democratic participation and citizenship by developing education and youth policies, implementing capacity-building programmes, and by providing vehicles for member States and specialist representative bodies, notably in Youth, to jointly discuss and determine policies and practices. Matthew, who has been Director since February 2016, previously worked for the UK Government in a range of foreign policy fields, in London, South Africa, Japan, Ghana, at the UN in New York and in Strasbourg. He also worked at No 10 Downing Street on a range of domestic and economic issues.