Lyse Doucet

Lyse Doucet is an award winning Senior Presenter and Chief International Correspondent for BBC World News TV and BBC World Service radio who is often deployed to anchor special news coverage from the field and interview world leaders. She is a regular presenter of the World Service's flagship programme Newshour, and also reports across the BBC including for BBC Newsnight.

In her recent work, Lyse played a key role in the BBC's coverage of the "Arab Spring" across the Middle East and North Africa including rare access to visit Syria and an exclusive interview with Jordans King Abdullah which made headlines worldwide.

Lyse is a regular visitor to Afghanistan and Pakistan from where she has been reporting for the past two decades. Her acclaimed one hour film Afghanistan the Unknown Country was broadcast on BBC2 in the UK and globally on BBC World.

Her work has also focused on major natural disasters including the Indian Ocean tsunami, and the Pakistan floods.

Before joining the BBCs team of presenters in 1999, Lyse spent 15 years as a BBC foreign correspondent with postings in Jerusalem, Amman, Kabul, Islamabad, Tehran, and Abidjan.

Last year, Lyse was nominated for two Emmy awards in the United States, and she has received a Peabody and a David Bloom Award for her television films from Afghanistan, and was named Radio News journalist of the Year at the Sony Radio Academy Awards in the UK. Newshour also won the Gold Sony award for current affairs radio programme of the year in 2010.

Born in eastern Canada, Lyse has four honorary doctorates from leading Canadian Universities including University of Toronto, Kings College Halifax, University of New Brunswick and Universite de Moncton. She also has an honorary doctorate from York University in Britain. She has a Masters degree in International Relations from the University of Toronto and a BA Hons from Queen's University at Kingston.

Lyse is a Council Member of the International Council on Human Rights policy, a former Council Member of Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) an honorary patron of Canadian Crossroads International, and a member of Friends of Aschiana UK which supports working street children in Afghanistan.

Lyse is a trustee of Inter Mediate, an honorary patron of Canadian Crossroads International, and a member of Friends of Aschiana UK which supports working street children in Afghanistan. She is a founding member of the Marie Colvin Journalists’ Network and a Senior Fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto. She is a Trustee of the Frontline Club for Journalists and a member of the Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma.

She was nominated to the Order of Canada in 2018 and received an OBE in the Queen’s Honours list in 2014 for services to broadcasting. Other recent awards include the 2018 Trailblazer Award from the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, a 2016 Columbia School of Journalism Award for exceptional journalist achievement, and an Emmy award in 2014 for her team’s reporting from Syria.