Welcome to the aid business!
26 June 2005
Behind the politicians and pop stars on display at the Gleneagles summit of the Group of Eight (G8) on 6-8 July, look out for another contingent of professionals: non-government organisations (NGOs).
The G8 summit: good for Africans?
10 July 2005
Is Africa better off after Gleneagles? The continent's profile is higher, debate about its crisis is better informed and more vigorous. That can only be a good thing.
Africa: celebrity and salvation
22 October 2006
More than twenty years ago Bob Geldof and I shared what turned out to be a case of wishful thinking. We believed that the millions of pounds raised by Band Aid in a response to the famine that was wracking Ethiopia would go towards ensuring that never again would we look at our television screens and see emaciated figures, the consequence of famine, dying.
Trees for Africa
16 December 2006
Imagine a timber investment bond that can help an African country resolve its growing fuel crisis, which can offset the global warming impact of your holiday flight, and which indirectly assists a fledgling eco-tourism scheme.
'The Soul of the White Ant', Eugène Marais
19 February 2007
It was a sunny day in Rhodesia when the men came to kill the queen. I was 5 years old, and allowed to watch. The gang wielded pick-heads that sliced deep into the soil, just next to the wall of our house, in the small Midlands town of Gwelo.