About the speaker
Kathryn Llewelyn is from Swansea and the CEO of United Purpose, Wales’ largest international development agency. Kathryn spent her 20s actively campaigning in the trade union movement for human rights in South Africa and Zimbabwe (getting herself arrested by Mugabe in the process), as well as working with child soldiers in Liberia. Her previous roles include Executive Director of The GREAT Initiative (a gender rights charity), Acting CEO and International Director of Pump Aid (a water and sanitation NGO working in Zimbabwe, Liberia and Malawi), managing ‘Live Below the Line’ for the Global Poverty Project and working as International Development Director for The One Foundation. She actively campaigns that international aid could, and should, be done better – and how it’s end goal should always be ending the need for aid.
This session will talk about where next for international development. How a parent’s ability to feed, educate and keep their child healthy should never be dependent on benevolence, charity or aid, but always within their own control. How people in the Global South are all too often unfairly treated by entrenched global and local systems, which dictate the rules of the game and leave people living in extreme poverty and inequality. How traditional aid primarily responds by focusing on access to basic needs – and while sorely needed, it is not enough. How aid must also focus on the transferal of power, and enabling people to improve their lives themselves. And how when done right, aid can provide true independence to those living with poverty and inequality, and ultimately end the need for aid.
