Harriet Lamb Interview Special

Better Angels with Sarah Brown

In this interview special Sarah Brown talks to CEO of International Alert Harriet Lamb about peacebuilding, and her longstanding career working for Fairtrade International, The Fairtrade Foundation and International Alert.

Harriet Lamb became CEO of International Alert in November 2015, a not-for-profit organisation that works to enable people to find peaceful solutions to conflict, believing ‘peace is within our power.’ Harriet leads peacebuilding activities around the world, overseeing programme implementation, strategy, fundraising, advocacy and outreach.

Before working with International Alert, Harriet was CEO of Fairtrade International and Executive Director of the UK-based Fairtrade Foundation. Sarah first met Harriet when approached with the challenge to make 10 Downing Street completely Fairtrade, which was achieved in 2009.

Under Harriet's leadership, Fairtrade products in the UK went from £30 million in her first year, to $1.3 billion in 2011. Harriet was awarded an OBE in 2006 in recognition of her work in growing Fairtrade in the UK.

Now with International Alert, Harriet's focus is firmly on peacebuilding processes, the role communities play, how to protect development and how to avoid abuse of human rights.

Listen to Sarah talk with Harriet about her long career and dig deeper into the role of peacebuilding and how and where it can be effective.