We are a pool of workers that support DFID programmes when disasters or conflict strike. We assess the crisis areas and recommend which partners to work with and what projects to fund. We tend to zip around at short notice. Recently our bloggers have been to the Philippines, Central African Republic, Niger, Zimbabwe and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Amongst the snowstorm of information clogging the humanitarian wires (Alertnet, Reliefweb, etc) one little nugget, buried at the back of a WHO report caught my eye. ‘The airport is intermittently open and closed. In addition, supplies arriving into the country …
I had a feeling of déjà-vu this morning, as I drove to work in Jerusalem where I have been posted since August. The BBC reception is patchy here, but I could still make out the words: ‘Large-scale disaster… collapsed buildings…. …
I work in a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Helmand province, Afghanistan – part of the international mission to support the Government of Afghanistan and help Afghans govern their country for themselves. My job title is Economic Adviser. I work with …
Have you ever organised an event that flopped? In 1985 I was working for an international development NGO, and I organised a young people's fund raising event in a park in West London. It failed; few people came and even less …
Crossing the street the other morning to get through the front door of DFID’s London Headquarters, I was suddenly confronted with a new bunch of faces. Normally I do my hour and a half commute just concentrating on getting some work done …
Hundreds of people trudged up the long hill to Nyanza, many of them wearing something purple, a neckscarf, a wrap, even a purple wristband. The colour purple is the colour of mourning in Rwanda and yesterday, 7th April, was the 15th Anniversary …
Jeanne fiddled with the edge of her gitenge, tracing the pattern in the brown cloth with her finger again and again, telling me her experiences in the Rwandan genocide, and of the years after 1994. I sat in her small …
During the whole of my first week in Harare, I was busy attending meetings all day everyday with stakeholders in the humanitarian response - humanitarian agencies such as the committee of the International Red Cross (ICRC) and the World Food …
Do you know where swallows go to in the Winter? At least two of them come and sit on the ledge outside my bedroom window here in Kigali. When I saw them this morning I was immediately reminded of the children's …
The final leg of my journey into Zimbabwe was ahead of me. We left behind the shopping bazaars in Johannesburg's airport: duty-free shops piled high with chocolate, sweets, perfume, cigars, South African wine and matured whiskies and barrel aged brandies. The new …
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