Oxford Forum for International Development

Duncan Green is the author of From Poverty to Power and Oxfam GB’s Senior Strategic Adviser. He was Oxfam’s Head of Research from 2004-12. From Poverty to Power contains the accumulated knowledge of 25 years spent researching and writing about reducing poverty and combating injustice and, as he says, trying to “do justice to the complexity of the world, while still believing there is a story about how it can be changed for the better.” 

After graduation, Duncan travelled and worked extensively in Latin America for 15 years. He taught English in Argentina at the height of the military dictatorship, and worked as a journalist and writer during the civil war in El Salvador and the heyday of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. In 1997 he moved to CAFOD as Policy Analyst on Trade and Globalization, and in 2004 was seconded to the Department of International Development as a Senior Policy Adviser on Trade and Development, during which time his geographical focus has expanded to include Asia and Africa. 

With a background of management and communications in the corporate sector working for Nestle UK, Jan Grasty also represented the organisation in developing an economic renewal strategy for the borough of  Croydon   She went on to establish and run a public/private partnership to develop commercial investment in this area of London. Moving on to develop an independent consultancy she was also keen to become more involved in an organisation which provided equal opportunities and social justice for women and girls.  In 2004 as a volunteer she became a founder member of the London branch of UNIFEM (the United Nations Development Fund for Women) later joining the national board and becoming President in 2010.   The attraction of working for UNIFEM (now part of UN Women) was to see the interpretation of policy into practical long term solutions for women and girls giving hope and opportunity for a fulfilling future.  The launch of UN Women provides a moment of great hope for women and girls with the promise of greater resources and coordinated activity across the UN.

Jan has reshaped the organisation since taking over as President in 2009 and has provided a sharper focus by developing relationships with government, like minded NGOs and the corporate sector.  As part of a Global Coalition of 18 National Committees of UN Women which meets bi annually to review progress, best practice and innovative ideas Jan has chaired and facilitated business meetings and workshops in New York and Australia and regularly attends bi-annual UN Women meetings.   The increase in profile globally of UN Women has meant a greater call on the time of Jan and her team of experienced board members to represent UN Women at conferences and meetings.  During her time as President she has represented the UK NC at visits to Vienna, Australia and Kosovo. Jan is also a Rotarian and a trustee of the Croydon Music Festival.  She enjoys family time, painting and travelling.

Darryl has worked in the field of development and emergency relief since 1998. Joining Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in 2003, he served in various emergency management roles in logistics, field and capital coordination in Sierra Leone, Uganda, Colombia, Somalia and Pakistan. From October 2010 to December 2011 he was Head of Mission for MSF in Nigeria. In this capacity he was overall responsible for the agency's medical-humanitarian projects in Nigeria's troubled northwest, including MSF’s Zamfara Lead Poisoning response: an acute lead poisoning unprecedented in scale and probably MSF’s first response to an environmental emergency.

From 2009 to 2010 Darryl took a year away from aid work to pursue the MSc in Medical Anthropology at the University of Oxford. Returning to Oxford on a Commonwealth Scholarship, he is currently in the first year of his doctorate at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology. In this IID presentation Darryl will aim to give participants thumbnail history of medical humanitarianism, speak about his experiences in Nigeria and future challenges for practitioners in all sectors global health.

Firoz Patel has worked in the private, public and the third sectors including working for Local
Authorities, Department of Employment, London Underground, Housing Associations and
Charities.

He is the co-founder and CEO of Childreach International, a UK Registered charity.
Childreach International was established in 2004, by group of young individuals passionate
about supporting communities to develop themselves. Transforming from an entirely
voluntary organisation in 2004, with one project and an income of £10,000, to the
dynamic organisation today, with country offices in Tanzania, Nepal, Pakistan and India,
fundraising and advocacy offices in USA and Canada with additional projects in Bangladesh
and Cambodia, Childreach International has an annual turnover of £4 million. Childreach
International currently funds more than 40 projects in our 3 core areas of health, education,
and child rights and protection.

Firoz is also a parent governor of his local school and as a qualified ECB coach is also
involved with a local cricket team for young people in east London. When not working, he
likes to read, play Cricket and Golf but primarily spend time with his wife and two daughters
at home in London.

Phil Vernon provides leadership and oversight of International Alert’s programmes in Africa, Asia and the Caucasus, and of the Peacebuilding Issues Programme, which deals with cross-cutting issues of importance to peacebuilding, such as the economy, gender, and security, as well as Alert’s core learning and training functions. He also leads Alert’s advocacy on aid effectiveness, and in 2010 was the principal author of Working with the grain to change the grain: Moving beyond the MDGs, which called for a radical overhaul of the international aid system.

Phil joined Alert in September 2004, prior to which he had worked in development, humanitarian and peacebuilding in Africa since 1985, working specifically in Sudan, Rwanda, Lesotho, Mali, Ghana, Benin, Togo and Uganda. Initially a forester by training, with an MSc from the University of North Wales, his interest in conflict and peacebuilding was stimulated by the experience of living in Rwanda from 1992-94. From 2000-4 he was country director of CARE Uganda, and played an active role in research and advocacy on the Northern Uganda conflict, helping to establish and lead the Civil Society Organisations for Peace in Northern Uganda coalition. He is also a member of the Forum on Corporate Responsibility of mining company BHP Billiton, and a trustee of UK-based development NGO BuildAfrica.

Laura Rival is  Lecturer at Oxford University, where she teaches various courses relating to the Anthropology of Nature, Society and Development. Her research interests include Amerindian conceptualizations of nature and society; historical and political ecology; indigenous peoples, development, environmental and conservation policies in Latin America. She has written several books and numerous papers on these topics, including Trekking through History. The Huaorani of Amazonian Ecuador (Columbia University Press, 2002), Amazonian Historical Ecologies (JRAI, 2006), and Ecuador’s Yasuní-ITT Initiative (Ecological Economics, 2010). She is preparing a new book on recent theoretical developments in Amazonianist anthropology,  and one on agroecology movements in Latin America.

James Cohen is a project officer at Transparency International UK’s Defence and Security Programme (TI-DSP). His areas of responsibility include education & training, military liaison, police corruption, and defence and security in Africa.

Prior to working with TI-DSP, James worked for the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) in the International Security Sector Advisory Team (ISSAT), where he focused on knowledge management, assessment methodology, and supporting defence transformation programme design in South Sudan. He has also held positions in the Canadian government including the Canadian International Development Agency, where he worked on anti-corruption.

James holds a Bachelor Social Science from the University of Ottawa in political science and Masters of International Studies in political science from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, where he focused on police reform in transitioning democracies.

Rita Perakis is a program associate at the Center for Global Development working on aid effectiveness initiatives, including Cash on Delivery Aid and Development Impact Bonds. She is a co-author of the Quality of Official Development Assistance (QuODA) Asssessment. Previously, she served as a consultant for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, intern for the Education for Employment Foundation in Morocco, and held positions at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Carter Center. Perakis has a Master of Public Administration from Columbia University and BA in international studies from Emory University

Ben co-founded 80,000 Hours, a charity that shares evidence-based advice on ethical career choice, in 2011. As Executive Director, he led the organisation through a period of rapid growth from a student society to a charity with several full-time staff, national media coverage and a reach of tens of thousands of people. While studying Physics and Philosophy at Balliol, he also volunteered for Giving What We Can, an organisation that encourages using evidence to make charitable giving more effective. In his free time he has learned Chinese and kickboxed for Oxford.

Gavin Bate is a social entrepreneur who has set up a franchise of adventure travel companies in the name of Adventure Alternative in a number of developing countries and uses the profits to fund a number of non-profits he also set up called Moving Mountains. The companies challenge inequity in the tourism sector and the brand sets a high standard for employment rights, training and career development, while at the same time providing revenue streams and routes to market alongside capital investment for local communities and infrastructure. Gavin is a high altitude mountain guide, with six Everest expeditions to his name, carried the Olympic torch in 2012 and is currently planning a North Pole expedition. He campaigns actively on issues of financially and environmentally sustainable tourism and helped to set up Fair Trade Volunteering, and lectures regularly on management techniques, international development and social enterprise. He lives in London and has spent a lifetime travelling and guiding expeditions around the world.

Katherine is the founder of 2Way Development, a volunteering agency that places 100’s of volunteers overseas every year to work alongside international development charities. She is also a Special Advisor to the Lonely Planet on their Volunteering publications and a regular contributor to guardian careers on the topic of International Development. 

Jane has a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology from Oxford, an MA in International Politics from SOAS, and a DPhil in International Relations from Oxford. Whilst completing her studies she worked at the International Institute for Strategic Studies as a Research Associate, producing an Adelphi Paper on Security Sector Reform, and as a consultant for UNHCR. She has spent nearly a decade in the Middle East working with local charities, and as a consultant for Oxfam, the United Nations, and a Defence Research Establishment. Jane is currently Careers Team Leader at the University of Oxford, specialising in talking with students interested in working in International Development and Think Tanks.