St Helena : Ann Muir Returns to St Helena as The Social Development Planner
Submitted by Saint Helena Herald (Juanita Brock) 11.02.2008 (Article Archived on 25.02.2008)
Back on the Island is St Helena’s newly appointed Social Development Planner, Ann Muir.
Ann Muir Returns to St Helena as The Social Development Planner
Back on the Island is St Helena’s newly appointed Social Development Planner, Ann Muir.
Ann is delighted to be back on St Helena and said, “I have developed an interest in St Helena over the last few years, particularly with regard to the Island’s social development. Considering social impact is so important and I am looking forward to addressing this vital component of St Helena’s development.”
Ann has previous experience working with the St Helena Government. In 2005, she was awarded a consultancy contract with the Department For International Development as a Social Analysis and Development Planner. In this role she was on Island, analysing the impacts increased and easier access might have on St Helena. She also looked at how St Helena should approach social development planning and how the Island could conduct social impact assessments. Then, in 2007 she was awarded a second contract, this time as the interim Social Development Planner for a period of four months. During this time, Ann’s work built on St Helena’s Sustainable Development Plan. She focused on reviewing employment legislation, the social impact of Air Access related proposals, and the social and economic interests of low-income households. All of Ann’s work is interrelated, and her 2005 work will serve as the groundwork for St Helena’s Social Development Plan.
In her new post, Ann will develop a five year social development plan for St Helena, based on the Sustainable Development Plan, and she will also do some work towards ensuring that this is implemented and monitored. To this effect, she will work closely with Heads of Department, Legislative Council, and other key stakeholders. Ann will also conduct social impact analyses of various proposals and projects and will continue with her work on the Access Project. In addition, some of her time will be dedicated to training a local counterpart who will take on the post at the end of her two year contract.
Ann has worked for thirty years in social development, mainly for DFID and various non-governmental organizations in north-east, east and southern Africa. Much of Ann’s work has been looking at the impact of socio-economic change (for example as a result of economic growth) and promoting public engagement with the work of government. In addition, she has conducted social impact assessments of infrastructure projects in Botswana, Malawi and Uganda, and has looked at socio-economic change in Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe as a result of tourism. With respect to tourism, most of this work has been focused on locally owned, community based tourism.
Furthermore, Ann has worked on programmes relating to the changes in land use management and employment in rural economies of north east, east and southern Africa for DFID, the World Bank and Oxfam GB amongst others. She has worked on various natural resource management programmes and programmes strengthening engagement between civil society and government institutions in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Uganda. Ann has also reviewed DFID’s Civil Society Challenge Fund which supports UK based civil society organisations providing lasting benefits to poor communities and under-represented people in the developing world.
For eight years, until 2003, Ann worked in Consultancy Unit at the University of Edinburgh, where she had combined consultancy and applied research with a teaching workload. In addition, she has worked as a research manager at the University of Oxford.
Public Relations/Information Office
Office of the Chief Secretary
5 February 2008
|
