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.
Two years have whizzed past since I first arrived to work in Tanzania and was sent straight down to the capital Dodoma to attend the Parliament (Bunge) budget debate. I’m now at the likely mid-point of my assignment, so it’s …
I'm in Rwanda for a 3 day visit and on arrival in Kigali yesterday morning, I went straight to the genocide memorial at Ntarama Church to lay a commemorative wreath for the Rwandans who lost their lives in 1994. Only …
In the spirit of the UK aid watchbody ICAI's recommendation to ramp up institutional learning within DFID, a welcome initiative for advisers like myself is to support programme design and review in other countries, promoting the sharing of experience and …
A couple of weekends ago, the Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang made his first ever trip to Africa, visiting Angola, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Kenya. This was a significant date. 50 years ago, the then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai made the …
A few days ago I had the great privilege of speaking at DFID Mozambique’s summit on ending Child and Early Forced Marriage (CEFM). Mozambique has one of the highest rates of CEFM in the world, with around 1 in 2 …
It always strikes me on my visits to Africa how imaginatively people use their mobile phones. Mobiles are not just for calls, texts or browsing the internet. Instead they are used to transfer money, like I saw on my last …
Nothing can quite prepare you for walking into Zimpeto market, the largest wholesale market in Mozambique. It is a hive of activity, colour and noise with stacks of fruit and vegetables piled high in great walls of produce. It is …
Designing a large performance or results based education financing programme in Tanzania has certainly been a challenge over the past months. In particular getting the indicators right: how they can realistically be linked to achievable targets that both stretch and …
A highly addictive substance with strong stimulant properties is being grown in the conflict torn hills of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Between 50 and 80% of the harvest is then smuggled by boat and by road across the …
Nelson Mandela's legacy in Tanzania is rapidly expanding, as I learnt just days after returning from Washington DC last December, where the White House flag was at half mast as a mark of respect. Nearly a decade after Mandela met …
Recent Comments