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    DfID appoints economic development head

    The U.K. Department for International Development has appointed its first head of economic development, cementing its growing focuses on creating jobs and boosting growth in partner countries. A Devex analysis.

    By Jenny Lei Ravelo // 26 May 2014
    David Kennedy, chief executive at the U.K. Committee on Climate Change, will head the Department for International Development’s economic development department. Photo by: personal collection

    The U.K. Department for International Development has appointed its first head of economic development, cementing its growing focuses on creating jobs and boosting growth in partner countries.

    The position will be held by David Kennedy, the current chair of the U.K. Committee on Climate Change. He has done strategy and investment work at multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. In 2012, Kennedy was seen as a strong contender to lead the country’s energy and climate change department, a position he didn’t end up getting.

    Now, his economic and business skills — as well as management expertise — will be put to the test as he takes on the role of director-general for economic development at DfID on June 16. He is expected to, among other things, scale up the agency’s work in this area and bring coherence and some form of structure across the different departments handling private sector work. In a recent review, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact noted how difficult it is to trace DfID’s private sector spending because of how spread-out it is across departments. For instance, while the agency has a private sector department, some programs aimed at business environment reform are under the Growth and Resilience Department.

    Kennedy’s appointment is timely as the aid agency plans to increase its spending on economic development to 1.8 billion pounds ($3.03 billion) by 2015-16. Together with Kennedy, DfID will welcome a new set of business advisers and development experts from big consultancy firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers and SGV, a member firm of Ernst & Young Global, could help by providing their expertise.

    In its review, ICAI suggested that while DfID has added private sector advisers lately, most of them do “not have the appropriate type of skill sets and experience to advise on current and future challenges.”

    Read more development aid news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive top international development headlines from the world’s leading donors, news sources and opinion leaders — emailed to you FREE every business day.

    See more:

    ICAI to DfID: Manage expectations on private sector engagement
    Top DfID private sector implementers: A primer

    • Economic Development
    • Private Sector
    Printing articles to share with others is a breach of our terms and conditions and copyright policy. Please use the sharing options on the left side of the article. Devex Pro members may share up to 10 articles per month using the Pro share tool ( ).

    About the author

    • Jenny Lei Ravelo

      Jenny Lei Ravelo@JennyLeiRavelo

      Jenny Lei Ravelo is a Devex Senior Reporter based in Manila. She covers global health, with a particular focus on the World Health Organization, and other development and humanitarian aid trends in Asia Pacific. Prior to Devex, she wrote for ABS-CBN, one of the largest broadcasting networks in the Philippines, and was a copy editor for various international scientific journals. She received her journalism degree from the University of Santo Tomas.

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