Archive for 'empowering women'
Violence against women and girls is unacceptable, yet it's one of the most widespread violations of human rights worldwide. As many as one in three women experiences violence or abuse at some point in her life. The Coalition Government is committed to preventing and tackling this violence and, through UK aid, is changing lives by helping [...]
Population has become a dirty word. It is a word that many of my predecessors and counterparts have, some might say understandably, steered clear of for decades. That's because it is normally followed by words like 'control' and 'explosion'. It conjures images of forced euthanasia and sterilisation at one extreme or famine, poverty, disease and [...]
This month, the seven billionth human being will be born. It may be a baby boy or a baby girl, it will probably be born in the developing world, and chances are good that this baby's mother will suffer complications or even a severe birth injury like obstetric fistula. Up to 45,000 women do, every [...]
Later this year a baby will be born - probably on 31 October - and the birth will mark the moment when the world's population reaches seven billion. The birthday may be emblematic, but the demographic marker it symbolises is startlingly real - there are now twice as many people alive on earth as there were [...]
I've been reflecting on the changes to people's lives in Afghanistan, particularly women, over the last ten years of UK involvement there. In the UK, women take it for granted that when we have a baby we will get good prenatal support, give birth in a clean hospital, that our baby will survive, and that we [...]
Before I went to Uganda, I felt a confused mixture of anticipation, excitement and fear. It was my first time visiting one of the projects that Comic Relief supports and I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I’ve watched Comic Relief for years and seen lots of its films, but it's hard to imagine [...]
A few days ago, a report by the UK’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), declared that over 5,000 women were missing from the top jobs in the UK. If you’re a development economist, you might recognise the language from Amartya Sen’s seminal piece, written over ten years ago, on the 100 million women missing in developing [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Recently I was in Helmand to help roll-out a programme on DFID's Bilateral Aid Review. As you might know from reading my last blog, my role here is to roll out key services for the Afghan population in the provinces, so a lot of my time will be spent out of the capital. It's in [...]
