Every child deserves to be looked after if they fall ill
Of all the things I thought I'd be doing when I got the chance to go to Africa and see Red Nose Day cash being spent - mixing cement wasn't one of them. After the years I spent working on …
Livelihoods on the edge
Over the Labour Day break I took a trip to Akagera National Park on the Eastern border of Rwanda, next to Tanzania. It is a large open expanse of savanna and woodland dotted with beautiful lakes. The wildlife is limited and rather hard …
Comic Relief Kilimanjaro climb
Nine celebrities arrived in Tanzania this weekend to climb Kilimanjaro for Comic Relief and I was lucky enough to be part of the welcome party! As well as being extremely excited to meet the idols of my teenage years (Gary …
Testing times
One of the events associated with World AIDS Day each year is the launch of the UNAIDS report on monitoring the global epidemic. In this report UNAIDS use all the available data to summarise trends in HIV prevalence throughout the …
Here comes the rain....
The 'short rains' have started and are here in force. As my first time living somewhere tropical, they are fascinating to me. Not the grey drizzle you get in the UK, but 'proper rain', 'really-coming-down-hard' rain, 'if-you-go-out-in-it-for-two-minutes-you-are-soaked-through' rain. This is …
Happy 2008 Africa Statistics Day!
Have you sent anyone a Happy African Statistics Day card yet? No thought not…but the 18th of November has been celebrated as "African Statistics Day" across the continent since the nineties. Its purpose is to increase public awareness about the …
Practising what we preach
I promised to talk more about the programme of support to statistics that I am working on at the moment. At the moment I am working with the Government, the World Bank and other Development Partners (DPs) to develop our …
Development partnerships
I have just got in after a training course into the weird and wonderful ways and workings of the ‘Development Partnership Group' (DPG). The purpose of the DPG, and its many underlying sector and cluster working groups, is to manage the …
Cycling proficiency
One of the things I miss about living in London is cycling to work. So once I realised that it would only take around 20 minutes to cycle to my new office in Dar Es Salaam, I was keen to …
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 …
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