About us >>Meet our Directors >>Sue Phillips


You began in urban planning and moved on to social development. Why?

I began my working life in 1985 at Llewelyn Davies Planning. Having just completed a Masters in Urban Planning in Developing Countries, I was keen to work overseas. Llewelyn Davies gave me that opportunity. I worked in the Middle East on slum upgrading and on projects to improve conditions in refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza. After six years of this, I decided that I wanted to focus on the social aspects of urban and rural development.

So I joined a DFID programme, then known as the ODA, working with the tea-pickers of Sylhet in Bangladesh.

You were way ahead of your time then. Even now, corporate social responsibility is only just catching on in many sectors of the economy. Tell us about the experience.

The project I was working on way back in 1991 was aimed at improving the basic conditions of workers on tea estates in Bangladesh. Coincidentally, Granada TV had just done a big exposé on the appalling conditions which these workers faced. At that time there was no healthcare, water and sanitation facilities were lacking and education facilities were practically nonexistent. Children grew up and became tea workers - there were few alternatives for them.

After the war of independence in the 1970s, the infrastructure had been completely destroyed and the Pakistanis who had provided the management expertise had left. The tea-pickers were mostly Hindu, a religious minority in Bangladesh, and the managerial class which took over were Muslim. The majority of the Bangladeshis who now live in the UK came from Sylhet.

It was really challenging work because the tea industry was very resilient to change. Although this was almost 20 years ago, it is still extremely challenging working in this area today.

Do you see SDDirect taking on more corporate social responsibility work in the near future?

It is an emerging issue which more corporations are now aware of and there is tremendous potential. Companies, especially the multinationals, are interested in becoming more responsible in their employment policies in developing countries and the impact that they can have in the countries within which they operate. Working with the private sector you've got to understand the commercial context and find innovative social solutions that meet both ends. With the ODA project in Bangladesh, we found a way in through healthcare with our ultimate aim as empowerment for the tea-pickers and more ethical practices in the workplace. The private sector is a crucial force in development today. International aid to developing countries is dwarfed by the money going in from the multinationals. We are working with them more and more to make their investments socially rewarding. We are doing more work for the UN and would also like to work more with foundations. They are spending the money and able to make a difference. Our role as social development consultants is to maximise the benefits for poor people, to help identify the most excluded and vulnerable and to promote their visibility and voice in all initiatives.

SDDirect has celebrated its 10th anniversary. What plans for the next decade?

When we started SDDirect, the idea of a social development consultancy in its own right was very innovative. Both Allyson and I had found that working as the lone social development advisor in an urban planning team with engineers, architects or economists who were concerned with the technical and economic issues was challenging. We were responsible for asking the social questions and addressing the needs of local communities head on. Setting up SDDirect meant a team of social development professionals working together to address these needs.

Development is now a huge industry and a business. Several big players are involved for different reasons. We are still very clear about our reasons for being here: to reduce global poverty. Our first question is whether a project is interesting and can make a real difference. This is more important than the money.

We now have to look at what will be innovative as a company over the next 10 years.

Conflict-affected areas will be another area of focus as development professionals are needed at several levels. It would be extremely difficult but crucial to locate local gender expertise in Afghanistan and areas hit by political violence are unpredictable and fast moving. As far as we can though, we will continue to try to work with local experts as this is definitely the way forward for effective development.

We'd also like to do more urban work. This is where our roots are and it is an area which is still very neglected. Getting urban poverty reduction into the mainstream development agenda remains a challenge.

Read our recent report: Urbanisation and poverty - a social development perspective

Your experience in urban slums spans more than 20 years. Can you believe that Slumdog Millionaire was made by award-winning UK filmmakers only last year and enjoyed huge popularity this year. Why are slums a problem which just hasn't gone away?

Successful rural development programmes will not stop the tide of people moving to the cities. Nothing will. Urban centres are centres of growth and provide employment opportunities. Urban growth does benefit rural communities as workers in cities continue to remit money to their villages. Poor people will put up with appalling living conditions as long as there is work and they can get access to land and put up some sort of a dwelling.

Urban poverty isn't going away. Urbanisation is progressing faster and faster and many governments are not prepared for the resulting impact of this. It is important to realise that urban statistics on health, education and welfare can be totally distorted. For example, you could have a practically zero rate of neonatal death among the middle classes in a certain city but an extremely high rate among the poor who are living in slums in the same city. If you break down the statistics you will be startled at what you find: rates of poverty can be higher in the slums than in far-flung rural areas.

So what can be done?

Pilot projects at state level can make a difference and steer national programmes. In my early years at DFID, I worked as social development advisor in the urban poverty office in Delhi which was responsible for slum improvement across the country. Andhra Pradesh was an interesting case study where our team worked towards shifting the whole approach from local to state level. We worked on isolated pilot projects and then reproduced these in cities across the state. These were then brought into mainstream programmes. We got the first ever state level programme going. This was unique at the time.

Slum-dweller federations can also provide solutions. India has a history of strong local slum-dweller federations that have successfully pressurised government to provide housing and services for the urban poor. These people do after all provide the labour on which a city's economic growth is built.

There is much debate going on in developmental circles as to how urban poverty should be addressed.

Even after work you've been caught 'talking shop'. Tell us about the connection between art and development which you seem to have discovered after work.

Tasneem Salam, my colleague at La Fuente Foundation, and I worked together more than 20 years ago at Llewelyn Davies. We had a fantastic mentor who inspired and believed in us. In a way we'd like to do the same for young people through art. With La Fuente, Tas, who is now based in Barcelona, and I came together to try to work with young people and encourage them to think about the big issues facing the world through art. It is about communicating across boundaries. Art is a universal language. I have loved finding out more about art and discovering more about ideas I've been working with for years such as conflict and identity through the work of these very talented young individuals.

Last year's project involved young artists from two cities - London and Milan. We now want to replicate the project in Abuja, Moscow and Lima.

And for real relaxation?

I love going on holiday with my family. We just went to California and had a fantastic time exploring the big outdoors. I am definitely big on getting the work-life balance right.

Interview by Malini Tambyah