As the largest country in Africa, and with 70% of the population living in poverty, Nigeria is critical for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Our team, DFID Nigeria, is working with government and other partners to tackle the major challenges which the country faces in relation to human development, growth and governance.
Regular readers might get the impression that there is only doom and gloom to emerge from Nigeria. Certainly the current violence in Jos with 100’s dead is deeply saddening. An earlier post after a visit I made to Jos between late …
An issue I’ve been struggling with in Nigeria for sometime is getting reliable information on how many children there actually are and, of course, how many go to school. Just before Xmas I was delighted to see the work underway …
‘Ooooh! That’s the wicked mother-in-law’. ‘And that’s the smooth talker, but who’s the other one? I’m sure I’ve seen him in one film or the other’. There were a lot of whispers as the actors and their friends walk into …
Kano does not get many tourists – visas are awkward to come by and the overland route north across the Sahara to Europe has been closed for years due to insecurity. Recently I headed across to Zinder in Niger, the francophone desert …
Last Thursday, at around 8.30am, I sat in the queue at the Sir Sanusi Hospital waiting to see the doctor. There were 15 of us in the women’s queue and about the same number in the men’s. Two men came …
Nigeria is currently going through its own mini World Cup fiesta. After many months of doubt, deliberation and dubious ‘readiness reports’ the FIFA Under 17 World Cup is on and much of this football crazy nation are intensively following the super …
Last week I was out on 'representational duty', attending a poverty summit held in Kano's neighbouring State, Jigawa, to listen to progress on impacting on poverty. What difference can a year make? Jigawa State with 4.3m people is not only as …
Awareness on climate change and the need for long term adaptation has been relatively slow to develop in Nigeria - 'Naija' in local slang - and with understandable reason. Some developing countries have never had major industrialisation or modern infrastructure, so the debate …
It’s just 7.15 am and it is already hot. Not from the morning sun (even though it's out and shining), but from the high overnight temperature that has not receded (talk about climate change!). It was a hot night and …
Baobab trees (genus Adansonia) are found in Africa and Australia, and have the ability to store literally tens of thousands of litres of water within their trunk giving them their distinctive shape. This gives rise to their informal name of 'bottle …
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