I joined DFID in 2010. I worked in the UN and Commonwealth Department before moving to DFID Ghana. I am now based in London, working in the Humanitarian Response Group - we manage the responses to crises and disasters across the world, and improve preparedness to be better able to respond when these events happen.
The helicopter banks down steeply to the left, and we’re approaching Akobo town; the miles of flat scrub land and acacia trees have given way to a scattering of huts and one-story, corrugated iron-roofed brick buildings. We hover over a …
The last time I flew into Tacloban was in the back of a British military Hercules (I wrote about it here). Boxes of high energy biscuits lined the runway and lifesaving relief supplies were unloaded from military planes from all …
The felled trees and fallen telegraphs poles have been cleared and electricity has been restored to the town of Roxas since the last time I was here, but the signs of Typhoon Haiyan are still everywhere to be seen. Back …
It was the images of utter devastation and destruction in Tacloban which put Typhoon Haiyan at the top of the news stories in the UK. A giant cargo ship hurled like a match box by the ferocious force of the …
The storm surge from Typhoon Haiyan completely washed away all of the houses facing onto the beach in Tanza – when we visited 12 days after, all that was left were a few concrete foundations, and haphazard piles of rubble, …
It was snowing heavily when I flew out of Ghana for the final time 6 months ago. I trekked across London in the only sweater I had with me, then laying shivering under the duvet wondering what I had let …
After 18 months my time in Ghana is up. In the frantic rush to pack up, leave and say goodbye I thought I would write down some final thoughts. Warmth – of the humid tropical sun, of stifling evenings – …
It’s an ingredient you’ve probably never heard of, but it features in thousands of everyday items – from biscuits to beauty products. Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil refined from the reddish fruit of palm trees which originated in West …
Late on Sunday evening, something happened for the first time ever. Whilst the UK public was frantically voting on X Factor, Ghanaians had been taking part in a democratic exercise of their own. All day Friday, and on Saturday in some delayed …
For once the streets of Accra were deserted when I drove through them early on Friday morning, the rush hour traffic – blaring horns, crowded tro-tros and overloaded lorries - had dissipated; everybody was voting. A long queue snaked round …
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