Archive for 'poverty reduction'
Around International Women’s Day recently, the PRT here had a number of female-focussed visits, including Baroness Warsi and the NATO Secretary General’s wife. Earlier in the same week, Justine Greening, the DFID Secretary of State gave a speech on the importance of tackling violence against women and girls in Afghanistan. Sat at my desk in the Helmand PRT [...]
About a year ago, I experienced one of the hardest working days of my life. It was the first day I chaired a meeting of a new 20-ish person taskforce on green growth and poverty reduction. It sounds odd and a little laughable now, especially now that a year has passed and that the group [...]
In Zambia one in four people live in slums. Finding regular work is really difficult and many families are forced to go hungry. Parents often can't send their children to school because there's not enough money to put food on the table, let alone buy uniforms and school books. In fact, when I recently visited [...]
If a week is a long time in politics, how long is 10 years in development? Back in 2010, Government and development partners agreed that Ghana should be aiming to no longer need aid by 2020. In the last few weeks we've been thinking about how realistic that is, and what we need to do [...]
Every morning for the past three months, I've been saying a little mantra to myself when I wake up: "I am a marathoner". I've been training for my first marathon and ten days ago I finally did it! It was pretty hard, but an amazing experience. And looking back on it, having my mantra was crucial. It [...]
Hands up who thought slavery and the slave trade was abolished years ago? Perhaps even centuries ago? In fact, despite being illegal in almost every country on earth, slavery exists nearly everywhere, and in staggering numbers. The International Labour Organisation estimates that nearly 21 million people are forced to live in slavery today. That's around the [...]
James is a brave man. Amongst the hubbub of hundreds of mothers and babies gossiping and laughing as they wait to see the family planning nurses, James' is the only male face. Fortunately he seems unfazed by the whole thing, intrigued rather than embarrassed. Like James, I’ve come to Twifu Hemang, in Ghana's Central Region, [...]
Hi, I am Alex, and I have recently joined DFID to work as the regional statistics and results adviser for DFID's programmes in Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Regional Asia programmes. I am based in London as part of the Western Asia team. I've worked for various Whitehall departments for a number of years on issues like [...]
One week left in Ouagadougou - a city that will remain close to my heart for years to come - and our workload appears to have tripled. Before I began my project with Tigoung Nonma, a co-operative dedicated to helping artisans with disabilities, I never expected to find the work quite so challenging. During our first [...]
Today I write this blog as Chief Executive of JITA - a globally groundbreaking Non-Governmental Organisation/private sector hybrid. However, my title wasn't always so business-like. I used to work for CARE International, in charge of Bangladesh's Rural Sales Programme (RSP). The RSP was born out of necessity, when we at CARE found ourselves in a [...]
