Welcome to DFID Bloggers - staff blogs from the UK Department for International Development. Get real life perspectives from those working on the ground to fight poverty and join in the debate.

Active Authors

DFID Nigeria
Group blog

It’s (also) Grim Up North

Posted 29 June 2009 by Ian Attfield
Apologies for not writing recently, in particular to Iphie, Iyinoluwa, Yassin and Elizabeth who gave such informed and passionate responses on the situation in the Niger Delta that I raised in my post about the Maureen Matheny Academy in Bayelsa State.  You guys really helped me to understand new dimensions to the tragic situation there, as did Salisu's hard [...]

Neil Squires
Human Development Adviser, Mozambique

Raising money to improve health

Posted 29 June 2009
I have been eagerly awaiting this web link to the report of the Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems. One of the major outcomes of the UN Millennium Development Goal Call to Action, high level event held in New York in September 2008, was the announcement by Gordon Brown of the Taskforce on Innovative [...]

Sarah Sanyahumbi
Head of DFID Nepal

Waiting for the rains

Posted 26 June 2009
We Brits are famous for always talking about the weather, but people here in Nepal are doing that a lot too at the moment. But the different nationalities come at it from a rather different angle. In the UK we love it when the sun shines. In Nepal, it's the rains that make people happy! It [...]

Martin Leach
Head of DFID Rwanda and Burundi

Swallows & survival: Paying for healthcare

Posted 22 June 2009
OK, let's back to the Swallows - I've got to write about them first, as several people reading this blog have asked me how they are getting on.  Four weeks ago, the three baby swallows in the nest on my balcony fledged.   ie they came out of the nest and flew - up onto the [...]

Adam Smith
Business Alliances Policy Support Officer

Business acts to fight poverty

Posted 12 June 2009
Readers of my earlier blog will be familiar with the Business Call to Action (BCtA), a great initiative that aims to get business involved in the development agenda by thinking how, through their core business activities, they can have a positive impact on the lives of people in developing countries. Our team has been working hard alongside the [...]

Adam Jackson
Economic Advisor, DFID Bangladesh

A few days in the field

Posted 10 June 2009
I’m just back from a trip to the far north west of Bangladesh, near the Indian border. It was a very welcome, cool and quiet change from Dhaka. I first took part in a review of joint donor support to the health sector with colleagues from DFID, the World Health Organisation and the Government of [...]

Archived Authors

SimonDFID Representative, Iraq
Vicky SeymourDeputy Team Leader, Low Carbon Development Team
Dominic ParkerHumanitarian Adviser
Jason MontyDeployments Officer, Stabilisation Unit
Colum WilsonHumanitarian Adviser
Emily PoskettStatistics Advisor, DFID Tanzania
Howard TaylorHead of DFID Ethiopia