Archive for December 2008
24 years ago, Irish singer Bob Geldof co-wrote 'Do they know it's Christmas?' to raise money for those affected by the famine in Ethiopia. The song has been re-released twice since then, each time with a new line-up of artists. As a teenager in 1984, I bought the record and sang the lyrics with a hairbrush microphone in front [...]
Christmas Day on camp will mean roast turkey and all the trimmings, served by the civilians, officers and senior non-commissioned officers. There'll be a carol service in the chapel, touch rugby, Christmas films and of course the Queen's speech. I won't be there - I'm quite sad to be missing it - but with a [...]
I have been incredibly busy in the two weeks following on from World AIDS Day. My DFID colleague Katie Bigmore and I and Mauricio Cysne from UNAIDS joined a team from the World Bank who were reviewing Mozambique’s World Bank MAP programme (Multi-country HIV/AIDS Programme for Africa). The MAP programme provides grant financing rather than [...]
As people around the world concentrate on HIV/AIDS - today is World AIDS Day - it's hard to know where to focus here in Afghanistan. We just don't know much at all about the scale of the problem. Data for health in general is very poor indeed, but in a highly conservative society it's still [...]
Mozambique is known as a 'donor darling', in that there are lots of agencies that flock to work here, which is a reflection of both the level of need and on good performance by the government improving the enabling environment for development. There is openness on the budget, and strengthened public financial management which allows [...]
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 world. This information is essential in order to understand the epidemic, where it is spreading [...]
On this World AIDS Day, I want to turn attention to the crucial role of donor funding in the fight against HIV/AIDS. In a previous post, I mentioned the pleasures of working in Mozambique including working with very committed people in Government. Diogo Milagre is one of those individuals. Diogo is the Deputy Executive Secretary [...]
