Archive for 'poverty reduction'
One of my roles working for DFID is to explore ways in which the UK and China can work together to promote development in Africa. We discuss these issues in big international meetings. We have started to do this in African capitals. We have even started some China-UK-Africa projects on rural roads in DRC, UN [...]
Last week I was out on 'representational duty', attending a poverty summit held in Kano's neighbouring State, Jigawa, to listen to progress on impacting on poverty. What difference can a year make?
Jigawa State with 4.3m people is not only as populous as a small African country it is also poor, one of the poorest in Nigeria’s [...]
After 6 years of living in China, I continue to be impressed by the entrepreneurialism, energy and commitment of its people. For young, especially urban middle-class Chinese, their life experience has been overwhelmingly positive. In 1979, per capita income was estimated at $210. 30 years of often double-digit growth has increased that to $3,315 in [...]
If someone had suggested to me six or seven years ago that I would end up working on climate change, I would have taken it with a pinch of salt. If I thought much about the issue at all I would probably have been in the Bjorn Lomborg camp – the lauded and vilified (in [...]
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 [...]
The airport advertising boards declare that Rwanda is ‘The Land of a Thousand Hills’, and that’s just what it looked like from the plane as I descended into Kigali, the capital city.
I could see green hills dotted with numerous small communities, sliced by rivers winding down to Lake Victoria, and the occasional flash of the [...]
