Roger Riddell

Biography

Roger Riddell is a development specialist with 30 years’ experience, most recently as International Director of Christian Aid, one of the UK’s largest relief and development agencies where he was in charge of all of Christian Aid’s international development and relief work. He led Christian Aid’s expansion into Central Asia, and has worked extensively in conflict countries such as Afghanistan, the Palestine Occupied Territories and Sierra Leone. From 1984-99 Roger was a Senior Research Fellow at ODI, where he coordinated the work of the international development group and undertook numerous policy research assignments, leading research and consultancy teams for many bilateral and multinational aid agencies. From 1981-83 he was Chief Economist for the Confederation of Zimbabwean Industries. He conducted the first poverty studies in urban Zimbabwe in the early 1970s. Roger has worked extensively on macro-economic development issues in sub-Saharan Africa, in particular in the manufacturing and mining sectors. He is also an authority on the impact of NGOs in development and on the impact of human rights projects in developing countries.

He has written extensively on foreign aid.  His most recent book Does Foreign Aid Really Work? was published in paperback by Oxford University Press in the summer of 2008.  In 2007, Roger was appointed a member of DFID’s Independent Advisory Committee on Development Impact (IACDI) and is overseeing a study on the quality of evaluation on behalf of the Committee.  In the autumn of 2008,  Roger gave the first King’s Lecture in Ethics at King’s College, University of London on the ethical challenges in providing aid to poor countries.