Anti-poverty campaigner to lead NGO organisation Bond

Romilly Greenhill, the UK director of anti-poverty group The ONE Campaign, has been named as the next chief executive of international aid sector organisation Bond.

She takes up her role at Bond in November after six years at The One Campaign.

In addition to her role at the anti-poverty campaign she has held research roles at the Overseas Development Institute for the last 12 years.

She is also a former policy adviser at the defunct Department for International Development, which is now part of the government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Among her priorities are to support an international development sector amid cuts to the UK’s global aid budget.

In August charities including Christian Aid and Save the Children called for the government to restore the UK aid budget to 0.7% of gross national income after reducing it to 0.5%. They warned that women are being particularly hard hit through unsafe abortions and lack of support during pregnancy and childbirth.

Another priority is to encourage charities to decolonise their local operations to better tackle racism in the aid sector.

Last year Bond published a guide for international charities on ‘becoming locally led as an anti-racist practice’.

“This is a really exciting time for the sector, with new opportunities to advance our mission to help eradicate global poverty, inequality and injustice,” said Greenhill.

“I’m also really committed to continuing the great work that Bond has started to decolonise international development, and to promote anti-racist approaches across the sector.

"I’m a strong believer in the power of civil society to create real and lasting change, and so I couldn’t be more excited to be joining this strong and vibrant network hub.”

Greenhill replaces Stephanie Draper, who announced earlier this year she is to step down after four years leading Bond.

Bond chair Kate Sayer added: “We are excited to welcome Romilly to the team at Bond. Having just celebrated 30 years of achievements, we are looking forward to the future for the development sector and we are delighted that Romilly will be leading Bond through the next phase.”