News >>SDDirect appoints first Chief Executive


First published: 2010-07-23

Sarah Maguire shares her vision and plans for SDDirect over the next decade.

Read interview with Sarah Maguire

"I am thrilled to take up the position of Chief Executive of SDDirect and proud to work for an organisation with such a reputation for excellence. I want to build on the strengths of the work that SDDirect has done in the past 10 years. I am ambitious about taking the organisation into its next decade. I look forward to establishing strong relationships with all our partners - existing and new.

Working with the Directors, my leadership of SDDirect will ensure that we remain focussed on the human rights of women, men and children in developing countries. These are difficult times for the world's poor. We have to be determined to ensure that they are not the casualties of the global financial crises.

As bilateral donor funding becomes more precarious, we all have to invest more in multilaterals, especially the United Nations. I intend for SDDirect to work more with the UN as well bilateral donors and our non-governmental colleagues. I also aim to build up our work with private industry - a still largely untapped resource for international development.

Over the next few months, we will be looking to expand our portfolio. We will build on our powerful record of work in our two main areas: voice and accountability and gender. In both areas, I am clear that SDDirect is well-placed to do more work on the rule of law, especially justice, in fragile states. As a lawyer with many years experience in conflict-affected and crisis-prone countries, I am acutely aware of the centrality of justice to the marginalised within communities and to the building of effective and responsive states. Civil society and justice will, therefore, constitute focus areas for our work on voice and accountability, while violence against women and maternal health will constitute focus areas for our work on gender. Conflict will form a key component of both areas.

I welcome the chance to discuss these ideas with organisational partners and with individuals. As well as the events that we will organise to present our work and hold informal discussions on today's pressing issues, I hope that people will feel able to contact us directly to explore new ideas or new approaches."

Sarah Maguire