Department for International Development

The Department for International Development (DfID) is a United Kingdom government department responsible for administering overseas aid. The goal of the department is "to promote sustainable development and eliminate world poverty". The Secretary of State for International Development is Justine Greening. In a 2010 report by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), DfID was described as "an international development leader in times of global crisis". The UK aid logo is often used to publicly acknowledge DfID's development programmes are funded by UK taxpayers.

DfID's main programme areas of work are Education, Health, Social Services, Water Supply and Sanitation, Government and Civil Society, Economic Sector (including Infrastructure, Production Sectors and Developing Planning), Environment Protection, Research, and Humanitarian Assistance.

In 2009/10 DfID’s Gross Public Expenditure on Development was £6.65bn. Of this £3.96bn was spent on Bilateral Aid (including debt relief, humanitarian assistance and project funding) and £2.46bn was spent on Multilateral Aid (including support to the EU, World Bank, UN and other related agencies). Although the Department for International Development’s foreign aid budget was not affected by the cuts outlined by the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s 2010 spending review, DfID will see their administration budgets slashed by approximately 19 percent over the next four years. This would mean a reduction in back-office costs to account for only 2 percent of their total spend by 2015.

International development

International development or global development is a wide concept concerning level of development on an international scale. It is the basis for international classifications such as developed country, developing country and least developed country. There are however many schools of thought and conventions regarding, which are the exact features constituting development of a country.

Historically it has been largely synonymous with economic development. Recently it is also often used in a holistic and multi-disciplinary context of human development as well as other concepts like competitiveness, quality of life or subjective well-being.

International development is different from simple development in that it is specifically composed of institutions and policies that arose after the Second World War. These institutions focus on alleviating poverty and improving living conditions in previously colonised countries.

History

Although international relations and international trade have existed for many hundreds of years, it is only in the past century that international development theory emerged as a separate body of ideas. More specifically, it has been suggested that 'the theory and practice of development is inherently technocratic, and remains rooted in the high modernist period of political thought that existed in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War'. Throughout the 20th century, before the concept of international development became a common word, four aspects were used to describe the idea:

Melinda Gates

Melinda Ann Gates (née French; born August 15, 1964) is an American businesswoman and philanthropist.

She is the wife of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and the co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She worked at Microsoft, where she was project manager for Microsoft Bob, Microsoft Encarta and Expedia.

Early life and education

Melinda Ann French was born on August 15, 1964 in Dallas, Texas. She is the second of four children to Raymond Joseph French Jr., an aerospace engineer, and Elaine Agnes Amerland, a homemaker. French has an older sister and two younger brothers.

French, a Roman Catholic, attended St. Monica Catholic School, where she was the top student in her class year. French graduated as valedictorian from Ursuline Academy of Dallas in 1982. She earned a bachelor's degree in computer science and economics from Duke University in 1986 and an MBA from Duke's Fuqua School of Business in 1987. At Duke, French was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, Beta Rho Chapter.