Damian Rafferty

Damian Rafferty has been a music journalist and in 1995 he set up flyglobalmusic.com, one of the UK's first web-based music magazines. He has worked on digital projects for the BBC, the UK's Department of Culture Media and Sport, the Royal Opera House, Channel 4 and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. In 2009, he made a documentary with UNICEF in Mali on the subject of female circumcision.

A fair COP

The author prepares to attend the UN Climate Change Summit, COP17, in Durban, and wonders if there is any solution to this particular version of the Prisoner's Dilemma

By Damian Rafferty

/ 10 Nov 2011

Biker Africa: mobility doesn't just mean phones

In the past decade two inventions have dramatically altered life throughout the vast and diverse continent of Africa. The first is the mobile phone and the second (more rarely considered) is the motorbike.

By Damian Rafferty

/ 30 Oct 2011

Developing states need full powers to tax

Some of West Africa's poorest countries observed from the vantage point of a Chinese import motorcycle: State competence cannot be built without the ability to tax; aid agencies' emphasis on bringing down tariff barriers and inward investment by tax-dodging multinationals predictably weakens state

By Damian Rafferty

/ 23 Oct 2011