‘Don’t be fooled by Juba, Hamish. The real South Sudan lies outside… you’ll see.’ In my first week, virtually everyone I met offered me this advice, and it sparked my interest in life beyond the capital. Just days later I was in the north of the country, enduring a bone-jarring journey on the recently refurbished […]
I stepped from the aeroplane into a thick haze of humidity. Its warmth enveloped me in greeting, rich with the scent of the wet season. Heavy, grey clouds lounged low in the sky, soon to deluge the city of Juba with its daily downpour. ‘Welcome to our new country!’ beamed the customs officer, reaching over […]
What led you to become a part of Wasafiri?Four reasons led me to joining Wasafiri: firstly, I had a passion and I found people with a kindred spirit who shared the same passion. The passion was about generating action to help people living in poverty to get dignified lifestyles.
The way in which aid is delivered is critical to its impact on reducing poverty and increasing poor people’s access to services. Aid is more effective when the development of policies, plans and their implementation, and budgets are led by the partner country not the donor. This strengthens ownership, the first principle of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.
2009 was a bad year for natural disasters in the Asia-Pacific. Cyclones in Burma and the Phillipines, floods in Vietnam and volcanic eruptions in Indonesia stretched the capacity and willingness of neighbouring nations to come to the aid of millions affected. Such regional goodwill was further tested by outbreaks of conflict in Papua New-Guinea, the […]
I sit with my young Afghan interpreter by the swollen Helmand river watching fish leap out of the fast moving current. “My family thinks I work in Herat. Only my brother knows that I am here…” he tells me, as the icy water swirls past. “In this job it is safer if our friends, our […]
2014 will soon be with us. Over the next two years, international forces are expected to draw down, offering ‘strategic overwatch’ as Afghan government and security forces take the reins. Some argue that it is not soon enough, others that a few short years offers too little time to build the institutions that will be […]
The following article is reproduced from People in Aid’s Emergency Capacity Building Project “Case Study of Good Practice” 1. Introduction The continuing conflict in Afghanistan is described as the British Government’s most important foreign priority. Ten years since war first broke out, and with 2014 looming as the anticipated date for transition to full Afghan […]
Last month, the Feinstein International Centre published an excellent report examining the relationship between aid and security in Afghanistan (Winning Hearts and Minds? http://tinyurl.com/46qpnkw) It presents a rather bleak conclusion; that little evidence exists to support the assumption that aid results in improved stabilisation or security. The report goes on to highlight the root causes […]
