Aid

Prime Minister, Congratulations on your appointment as Chair of the UN Panel on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  This reflects the progress of a decade and a half in which the UK has taken an increasingly forward position on international

Read the rest of The Millennium Development Goals – What next, Mr Cameron? – By Myles Wickstead »

For more from Mike visit his blog Former president of  Cape Verde, Pedro Pires, has won the 2011 Mo Ibrahim African Leadership Prize. The prize is given to African leaders who have voluntarily stepped down from power, and who have

Read the rest of Pedro Pires and the Mo Ibrahim African Leadership Prize – By Mike Jennings »

‘Also tonight,’ said Kirsty Wark in the opening link to Newsnight on BBC2 on August 4, ‘torture, rape and deliberate starvation.’  She promised that Newsnight’s ‘exclusive undercover investigation’ would reveal evidence that ‘the Ethiopian government used millions of pounds of

Read the rest of Ethiopia and the BBC: The politics of development assistance – By Peter Gill »

By the peaceful standards of modern Malawi, the 20th of July was a very bloody day indeed. At least 19 people were killed and many more were injured, in demonstrations against the Mutharika government that took place in and around the

Read the rest of Malawi: Bingu turns apocalyptic – By Nick Wright »

By Peter Gill International responsiveness to the food crisis in the Horn of Africa has relied again on the art of managing the headlines.  Sophisticated early warning systems that foresee the onset of famine have been in place for years,

Read the rest of Food Crisis in the Horn of Africa: International Response Driven By Image of Africa – By Peter Gill »

Gordon Brown spoke at the Royal African Society Business Breakfast with the drive of a man with much to say about Africa, the World and continuing inequalities within it. He delivered an impassioned barnstormer of a speech which belied the

Read the rest of Gordon Brown speaks at the Royal African Society »

By Myles Wickstead One of the remarkable side-effects of the focus on Africa and international development in the lead up to the Gleneagles Summit in 2005 was the commitment of all the major UK political parties to reach 0.7% of

Read the rest of UK coalition government stays strong on international development »

International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell recently set up an Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), aimed at overseeing whether UK aid is being spent sensibly, but the main question that may be lingering in the heads of most Africans is if the British government will be able to hold African leaders who misuse foreign aid to account. Continue reading →

Read the rest of Why foreign aid has failed to lift Africa out of poverty »

Is aid as bad as Greg Mills and Terence McNamee suggest? Is the facilitation of trade the simple answer to all of Africa’s woes? One would think so if one read the opinion editorial entitled “More Aid is not What

Read the rest of Advancing African Development: The Necessity for Aid and Trade »

The last ten years has been a remarkable experiment in using official development assistance (ODA) as a motor for development in Africa (and other developing countries too). It has been a bonanza for the aid industry and especially the favoured

Read the rest of The Beginning of the End for ODA? »