The audacity of hope and a trip to Geneva
I packed Barack Obama's autobiography ‘The audacity of hope' for a trip from Maputo to Geneva which I made this last week. What a great read! I am a bit of a nervous flyer - sweaty palms as soon as …
Africa
We work around Africa to increase access to basic services, help after humanitarian emergencies and empower girls and women, ultimately helping people lift themselves out of poverty. In these blogs country teams discuss their work and progress towards these and other goals.
Hizbaa Traffic Cops and Friday Prayers
Approaching 2pm on Friday, the next event on the road home was a much more welcome spectacle, Friday prayers. A predominately male crowd surge along the roadside towards the local mosque, most in Hausa robes, with some clasping prayer mats. …
The Deadly Roads of Nigeria
My work as education adviser involves frequent travel around the old northern region, principally to meetings with programme staff and representatives of State Ministries of Education, but whenever possible to schools. Road travel in the north of Nigeria initially seems …
Cutting sausages in CAR
Bangui in the Central African Republic has not got much in common with Hollywood, except the imposing sign on the hill above the city. City? Well, not really. 10 minutes of driving takes you from one edge to the other; …
A slice of life in N’Djamena
I am standing on the bridge over the Chari, the river which forms the border between Chad and Cameroon. I came here as a sort of a pilgrimage – one year ago today, this bridge was a jostling mass of …
Ian Attfield: An introduction
I joined DFID to work in Nigeria as the Education Adviser in the summer of 2007. Basically I oversee DFID's education projects and programmes in the Northern States, where the human development indicators, such as out of school children and infant …
When the aid provided leaves people divided
A few rapidly snatched possessions, some sketchy shelters made from branches and grass and barefoot children being herded out of sight by fearful parents. You have seen it before on TV: another population fleeing from a vicious low-level war. But …
How can civil society help shape health and HIV/AIDS policy in Mozambique?
I had a really interesting meeting at the end of last week on how we might increase the participation and voice of civil society in both health and HIV/AIDS policy in Mozambique. The meeting took place in the DFID office, the air-conditioning …
Pots, pans and protests: the fight for natural resources
Last Sunday morning, N'djamena city rang with the sound of thousands of clashing pots and pans. It was a few minutes of noisy defiance in Chad's capital, an indoor expression of rage. Indoors, because when women demonstrated in the streets …
The challenges of humanitarian work in Chad
The first time I visited Chad in February last year, I picked the wrong weekend. It was the weekend that the rebels reached N’djamena. The day had started normally enough – breakfast of dry pastries in the terrace restaurant overlooking …
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