Archive for April 2011
Maintaining and restoring mangrove cover helps protect areas of coastline or shoreline from erosion. This is done by absorbing the increasing energy and force of waves, due to sea level rise or powerful tropical storms and hurricanes, that might otherwise cause tremendous loss of life, livelihoods and property. Special adaptive aerial roots and salt-filtering tap [...]
To get to the other side, of course. Think of a silverback gorilla and a comparison with a lollipop lady probably isn’t the first thing that springs to mind. But on a road I visited this week in eastern DRC, the silverbacks play exactly that role. In the Kahuzi-Biega National Park, humans and eastern lowland gorillas have [...]
As a child of Soweto - growing up in the sixties in apartheid divided South Africa - I have lived with inequality in all aspects of my life. But over the last six years, I have visited all corners of Africa and discovered that there is an apartheid of ill health. Poor men, women and children [...]
Most week days, I wake up at around 6.30am to go for a run, do some yoga or go to the gym. It makes me feel alive and ready for the day, and I am usually more productive and focused at work as a result. Over time, it also ensures I look healthy and hopefully [...]
I have just returned from another stint in Helmand. Whilst for many, Helmand might evoke images of warfare as seen through news reports back in the UK, I was left with an indelible impression of courage and fortitude as demonstrated by three female provincial councillors. I met them whilst in Lashkar Gah where I attended [...]
First of all, let me apologise for the inordinate delay since my last blog on this site. One of my excuses is that during this period DFID India, along with other DFID offices across the world, has been busily engaged in drawing up new business plans for the next four years. We in India have also [...]
There is never a quiet moment in development, but the last nine months in DFID have been particularly intense. As will be apparent to anyone who reads the UK's Bilateral and Multilateral Aid Reviews, the amount of work that these represent has been staggering. However, given that together they form the basis on which we [...]
Spending so long in Africa and Asia (around 15 years and counting), it’s easy to lose touch of reforms and changes in education systems in Western countries. So I was very fortunate to support the Zimbabwean delegation at a training programme for senior African education policy makers, which combined the planning of school reforms with [...]
Yesterday, I played a "disaster game". It was part of an event organised by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), which has brought together development practitioners, students with unbelievable energy, and lawyers and economists that – like me – want to use our training innovatively to make a difference to people’s lives. Hence, the [...]
Mother's Day is usually a joyous occasion — and this year we have even more reason to celebrate. Mothers and their children are surviving today at higher rates than at any other point in history. In fact, just since 1990, the number of children who die before their fifth birthday has declined from more than [...]
