Reflections on four decades in International Development

In 2019, Paul retired as the international director of Christian Aid and worked in international development.   After three years in Kenya, he volunteered as a food security consultant, working with tribal minorities in the Philippines, after which he joined Oxfam as their country manager there. He moved to Oxford in 1993 as a regional manager for East Asia. After a restructuring, he spent a short year in India to reorganise Oxfam locally and then moved to the US with Oxfam America as global Vice President before coming back to the UK working for Christian Aid. For most of those years he felt lucky to be able to combine my passion for tackling poverty and exclusion with my work and despite the stress and occasional hardship, I did enjoy myself.

Now, 5 years since retiring, there is no denying that international development work has lost a bit of its shine. British government support has been decimated, public confidence was shaken by scandals and “decolonising aid” is now all the rage. Perhaps it is time to take stock and ask the question whether it was all worth it, and, looking back, what have has been learned?