20 years ago I embarked on my first development job with Students Partnership Worldwide (SPW) - SPW has since changed its name to Restless Development and is leading the charge in youth-led development. As a naïve but an adventurous 18-year-old volunteer, …
Olympic fever is running high in the UK. London 2012 kicks off in late July, and the excitement is palpable, even from an Embassy a whole continent away from home. So it's no wonder that everything we do this year – …
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 …
A couple of weeks ago I found myself back in Bhubaneswar, the state capital of Orissa (see the Government of Orissa website), to attend a workshop convened by the state government as part of consultations about its Climate Change Action Plan(the …
Last week I wrote about the importance of protecting our forests. But earlier this week I heard one of the world’s leading development economists say that, “sometimes the right thing to do is to cut down a forest,” if it was essential for …
The build up to one of the big twice yearly policy discussions between the Ministry of Health and its partners was well underway last week. The policy dialogue, known as the CCS (the coordinating committee for health), will be held …
Kano does not get many tourists – visas are awkward to come by and the overland route north across the Sahara to Europe has been closed for years due to insecurity. Recently I headed across to Zinder in Niger, the francophone desert …
In time honoured fashion I managed to trick my kids to run out to see an imaginary friend on April Fools' morning - although I suspect when they get older I'll be on the receiving end. Skimming the Nigerian press, …
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