There is never a quiet moment in development, but the last nine months in DFID have been particularly intense. As will be apparent to anyone who reads the UK's Bilateral and Multilateral Aid Reviews, the amount of work that these …
Mother's Day is usually a joyous occasion — and this year we have even more reason to celebrate. Mothers and their children are surviving today at higher rates than at any other point in history. In fact, just since 1990, …
When we are confronted by the image of a child trapped in the rubble of an earthquake, or of a family clinging to the roof of a flooded home, we don’t so much commit to help, as feel committed to …
There's nothing quite like a drive in the country to understand the scale of a country's development needs. Whether in an armoured vehicle back in Helmand, on a field trip in Zambia in a previous role to see what scope …
The Department for International Development is already the most respected of the country-to-country development agencies. But in the past it has been distracted by extraneous domestic political interests. In Andrew Mitchell, the department has a Secretary of State who is …
It's a big week of change for DFID this week. Despite apparently being in the "sexiest" department in Whitehall (according to the London Evening Standard at least!) we're all actually reeling from the news that our fantastic Permanent Secretary Minouche Shafik …
Hello from Kinshasa – or, I should say, mboté or perhaps bonjour! I have just moved to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to take up my new post as Infrastructure and Environment Adviser. I have a fascinating and challenging …
It was fantastic to have the opportunity to visit Manica province recently, and to see the hard work being undertaken by dedicated health workers in a number of different health centres. So, to help celebrate World AIDS 2010 I am …
A couple of weeks ago I attended a number of fascinating sessions at the International Growth Centre’s Growth Week. One event that particularly stuck in my mind focused on the role China is playing in Africa. At the UN Millennium …
One early July day, I made my first flight to Africa, was delivered with my blue rucksack to a guest house on Ngong Road in Nairobi, and enjoyed my first encounter with a noisy Mynah bird, singing loudly outside my …
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