I visited many places and learned so much on this trip. All these experiences are now part of me. But I also have the desire for more! On my next trip, I will definitely include a visit to Cartagena and the Galapagos. I’m immensely thankful to everybody who welcomed me during these two weeks and [...]
Continue Reading →Arriving in Caracas
Arriving in Venezuela was very different. My flight landed in the early hours of the morning, the temperature in Caracas is much higher than in the other places I had visited, I was unable to change money, and the airport has no proper taxi service.
Politics
Any social conversation – even conversations [...]
Continue Reading →Since 2009, the world has been witnessing an unexpected tussle between the government and civil society activists in Russia, a country that typically doesn’t allow its citizens much say in issues of public development. Thousands of people have been protesting against the razing of large parts of the Khimki forest to build an US$8 billion [...]
Continue Reading →Currency
The Ecuadorian currency is the US dollar, ever since an economic reform carried out in 2000. The previous currency was called the Sucre, in homage to a Venezuelan marshal. Sucre is also the name of the future, common currency that the following countries want to adopt: Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, and four Central American [...]
Continue Reading →Bogota – a blend of dynamism and contradictions
My first stop is Bogota, the capital of Colombia. It is a city with roughly 7 million inhabitants, located in the central range of the Andes, 2600 meters above sea level. Bogota is dynamic and contradictory. The north has plenty of luxurious international brands at the exclusive [...]
Continue Reading →First stop: Lima
Lima is my first stop. The city has something for everyone: archaeological sites, shiny casinos with well-dressed doormen, paragliding (yes, people jump in the central neighborhood of Miraflores during business hours!)…. I found out that although it doesn’t look like it, Lima is built on a desert. In fact, it is the [...]
Continue Reading →I would like to tell you a little bit about how my trip and the special series came about. I am an associate at Baird’s CMC and also run my own consulting agency, Fundamento, which is based out of Brazil. A few months ago, we realized that we have been coordinating international communications projects in [...]
Continue Reading →A few years ago, an American pharmaceutical company approached Baird’s CMC with a problem. The company had begun spending US$ 5 million each year on a massive corporate PR programme in their African markets because they were convinced that civil society groups and leaders saw them as much worse than their competitors. “They were afraid [...]
Continue Reading →Seven years ago, Paul Dillon, associate at Baird’s CMC, co-founded a small aid organisation: Two Coats. Two Coats is based out of Greystones, a little village parish just outside Dublin. The parishioners, through various donations, generate a fund that enables Two Coats to form direct relationships with small-scale overseas development projects. Since its inception, the [...]
Continue Reading →“The Conversation Behind Closed Doors” – an inside-the-boardroom survey of attitudes toward corporate investment in Africa among leading U.S. corporations.
The two-part, qualitative survey was conducted by Baird’s CMC in partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The information was gathered between January and November 2008 in a series of closed door interviews with senior [...]
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