About this blog
Welcome to my blog - I'm Charles Reed and I advise the Church of England on foreign policy issues.
This blog covers a variety of topics from US foreign policy to European politics and the Middle East - and whatever else happens to be in the news or catch my attention.
This is a conversational blog so please join in as your comments are an essential part of making the whole thing work.
My Books
Tag Archives: Department for International Development
Development Futures
How should Labour work with civil society, faith groups and others to deliver effective development? That was the question that I posted last week following a meeting of the Labour Party’s policy review group on international development. The little research … Continue reading
Helping Red Ed get it Right on International Development
Yesterday was a bit of a surreal day for me as I attended the first Expert Task Force meeting of the Labour Party’s Working Group on International Development. There are six Expert Task Forces that make up this Working Group, … Continue reading
Cardinal Keith O’Brien and Britain’s anti-Christian Foreign Policy
I’ve never had the privilege of meeting Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the Head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, but by all accounts he is a learned and spiritual man. His comments yesterday criticising British aid policy to Pakistan therefore … Continue reading
Assessing UK Aid: Changing Lives, Delivering Results
What is one to make of the results of Changing Lives, the Department for International Development’s (DfIDs) review exercise published yesterday? In the rush to delve into the report’s critical details, it is all too easy to overlook that the … Continue reading
General Synod: Doing Business with DfID and Andrew Mitchell
What can one say about Andrew Mitchell’s address to General Synod? Let’s take the question of style first. This was a very business like performance. There was none of the rabble rousing rhetoric used by Secretary of State’s of old. … Continue reading
Andrew Mitchell and the Road to Damascus
Andrew Mitchell, the Secretary of State for International Development, is due to address the General Synod, the Church’s Parliament, later this afternoon on the topic of Internationalising the Big Society. This could prove interesting given that Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, the … Continue reading
The General Synod and DfID – East Kilbride Reflections
Yesterday’s meeting with the DfID’s Civil Society Department in East Kilbride was a positive if tiring affair. The professionalism of staff was self-evident as was their willingness to engage in a frank conversation about the potential for collaboration around the faith … Continue reading
General Synod and the Night Train to DfID
A colleague and I are catching the sleeper – separate berths I should stress – to Glasgow tonight for a meeting tomorrow with Department for International Development officials ahead of Andrew Mitchell’s speech to the General Synod next month. This is a long way to … Continue reading
