Archive for February 2011
Hi – my name's Francesca, and I've just arrived in Afghanistan to work for DFID. Over the coming months, I want to share with you my thoughts on the country, on our work here and most importantly - what life is like for ordinary Afghans. As I stepped nervously off the plane, surrounded by the snow-capped [...]
Valentine's day, and yet another excuse to apply economics to daily life – yes you guessed it, a book called "Spousonomics". But despite my love of all-things-economics, this year I decided to gorge instead on a lovely box of chocolates, which my loving husband kindly gave me. As I worked my way through the box, [...]
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 three years ahead of me. DRC, a country of 67 million people, is 168th out of [...]
One of last week's editions of the Financial Times featured an article by John Kay, a top UK economist, saying that "clarity of thought and clarity of expression tend to go together". And he's right – presenting complexity in a simple way is powerful. I read Kay's article on my way to a conference where, [...]
As I walked to work today, two of my colleagues stopped me to comment on the rain. Not that unusual you’re probably thinking. In London, as I walk to work, the rain is more likely to solicit a quick one-liner from an oncoming stranger than anything else. But the difference is while us Brits would [...]
I've been working with two of our Asian country offices this week – Vietnam and Indonesia – helping them focus their programmes on low-carbon and climate-resilient growth. Travelling back and forth to the offices, I've noticed some sharp contrasts between the two's capital cities. Hanoi is full of hundreds of motorcycles, whizzing about and jam-parked [...]
