Policy Voices
Ground Control: Making the grade in agriculture
8th July 2010Standards for agriculture – particularly horticulture – are exacting. European governments have devised regulations for imported crops. African governments which fail to impose necessary checks across the entire agricultural s...
Kenya's Flying Vegetables: Small farmers and the 'food miles' debate
1st July 2009In this highly personal and keenly argued commentary, James Gikunju Muuru makes the first detailed response by an African smallholder to the controversy over 'food miles'. His account describes the serial feats of coordination, discipline, productivi...
Nursing the Future: e-learning and clinical care, in Kenya
8th July 2009Few tests of the new methods of e-learning can be more exacting than to improve standards of clinical care by hard-pressed nurses in Kenya's busy hospitals and clinics. But such is the ambition whihc drives the country's first nationwide e-learning p...
Feeding Five Thousand: The case for indigenous crops, in Zimbabwe
17th December 2008About two thirds of Africa's population depend for their livelihood on primary crops. Agriculture is the continent's largest economic sector, far bigger than banking, brewing, mining or telecoms - all industries propelled by innovation and inve...
Think Small: The example of small grants, in Madagascar
17th December 2008In this Policy Voice, former British Ambassador to Madagascar Brian Donaldson argues that Britain should increase exisiting funding for small grants in developing countries, and commit to supporting independent small grants schemes in countries wh...
