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SIDA Policy Committee

What is the SIDA Policy Committee?

The SIDA Policy Committee is a sub-group of our Board of Trustees. Membership of the committee is made up of a combination of individuals from our Board of Trustees and representatives from our wider membership.

The Committee meets to share policy and advocacy priorities, find ways to collaborate and steer SIDA’s policy work. The Committee also sets proactive policy priorities for SIDA, approve policy positions and deal reactively with emerging issues. The group meets a minimum of four times a year, and all previous minutes are available to members here

The Committee has Terms of Reference that are regularly reviewed and agreed by the Board of Trustees. 

Who sits on the Policy Committee?

Currently, there are 17 active members of the Committee:

  • Chris Hegarty, Individual Member (Co-Chair)
    Chris formerly led policy, advocacy, campaigning, education, media and communications work across Scotland for Christian Aid.
  • Chrissie Hirst, Corra Foundation (Co-Chair)
    Chrissie leads Corra’s international work, bringing to it experience gained from work with civil society, the UN and OSCE on grass-roots programmes and at the policy level on post-conflict development and peacebuilding, human and minority rights, democratic governance, and migration. 
  • Anne Callaghan, SCIAF 
    Anne is policy and public affairs officer at SCIAF, the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund.
  • Fatoumata Drammeh, UNICEF
  • Mark Barrell, CBM UK
    A lawyer by background, Mark has for the last 20 years been involved in CSO’s with a focus on justice issues in Uganda, the UK and most recently Mozambique, from where he returned to join CBM UK as Head of Advocacy and Influencing in 2021. 
  • Dorcas Pratt, Water Witness International 
    Dorcas is Deputy Director at Water Witness International 
  • Benjamin Carey, Carey Tourism
    Benjamin is an independent consultant with focus on tourism as driver of sustainable development and climate adaptation, especially in countries emerging from crisis and conflict.
  • Joanne O’Neill, ActionAid
    Joanne is Senior Advocacy Manager at ActionAid 
  • Calum Craig, The HALO Trust
    Calum is Policy & Advocacy Manage at The HALO Trust, a leading international humanitarian NGO working in 25 countries affected by conflict, instability and humanitarian crises. He is also an Honorary Fellow at the University of Manchester’s Humanitarian & Conflict Response Institute. 
  • Lewis Ryder Jones, Oxfam Scotland
  • Cathy Ratcliff, EMMS and Thrive
    Cathy is CEO of EMMS International and Director at Thrive. She has lived in Leningrad and Grenoble as part of an MA in French and Russian, taught in China, run Scottish European Aid’s Romania desk, managed Edinburgh’s One World Shop, lived and worked in Ethiopia, and since 1997 has led programmes departments in Mercy Corps, SCIAF and EMMS International.
  • Emma Gardner, IDEAS
  • Andrew Tomlinson, Christian Aid
  • Yulia Nesterova, University of Glasgow
  • Samantha Ross, Link Education
  • Rob Murray, British Red Cross
  • Becky Kenton-Lake, Stop Climate Chaos Scotland

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