Drink more coffee
Nyiragongo Volcano looks just like a volcano should - smooth sides, a flat cone, and a trail of smoke wisping from the top. At night time you can even see a red glow reflected off the clouds from inside the …
Economic Development
Economic growth is the most important means of raising people’s incomes and reducing poverty in the developing world – it creates jobs and opportunities for poor people to support their families and build more stable futures. We work around the world with organisations and individuals to stimulate economic growth so people can lift themselves out of poverty.
Picks and Shovels
Just down the road from my house here in Kigali they are fixing the potholes. The holes have been growing bigger everyday as the heavy rains eat into them, and trucks grind away at the loosened tarmac. The workmen start …
The economic downturn and its impact on health
I have just spent the last 4 days in Brighton at a meeting which brought together the majority of DFID's health advisers for 4 days of discussion, strategy making and learning. Brighton was great, it was cold but there were …
Of money, mice and men in Paoua
We are in the shanty side-streets of Paoua, where crumbling buildings patched with tin crowd in on dusty alleys, and where skinny cats patrol. I am sitting with a group of thirty women, and their attention is focussed on two metal …
Not quite an Oscar...
In May last year the Prime Minster launched the Business Call to Action (BCtA), an initiative that encourages companies to think about new business ideas that can help to alleviate poverty in poorer countries. CEOs of some of the world's largest multinationals …
Who is Adam Smith?
No, not the Scot generally regarded as the father of economics, I'm talking about the Scot who works as a policy officer in DFID's Business Alliances Team (although working with a group of economists provides endless 'merriment' relating to me …
Finding employment for Iraqi youth in Basra
This week I went down town with our Youth Employment Adviser, Sue Lowman, and the DFID Regional Director covering Iraq, Sue Wardell, to the Basra Employment Centre, the Iraqi equivalent of a UK jobcentre. The purpose of the trip was …
The festive season in Afghanistan
Christmas Day on camp will mean roast turkey and all the trimmings, served by the civilians, officers and senior non-commissioned officers. There'll be a carol service in the chapel, touch rugby, Christmas films and of course the Queen's speech. I …
A formal approach to poverty?
In Tanzania, as in many African countries, there is evidence of the informal economy wherever you look. As you walk through the streets of Dar Es Salaam, there are small stalls everywhere, selling fruit and veg, plants, mobile phone sim …
That coffee, those roses... and the food miles dilemma
Ethiopian folklore has it that coffee was discovered in Ethiopia. A goatherd liked the taste and the feeling that followed when he plucked and ate some berries from what we now know as a coffee tree. Coincidentally, I have a coffee …
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