The Department for International Development (DFID) has set up a Private Sector Department to better collaborate with private sector companies. It is structured into four teams: infrastructure energy and basic services; investment and finance; business engagement; and policy management.

The department will be staffed by 25 people, most of whom have been appointed, and the head of department has been named as Gavin McGillivray. The new department is to publish details of how it intends to work with the private sector in May.

International development secretary Andrew Mitchell said: "I want this department to be the place that lives and breathes the new DFID culture of private sector-led development, an example for other development bodies to follow.

"I want DFID to learn from business. I want to explore how we might enrich DFID’s own talent pool with a series of short-term secondments from the private sector in order to inject new, business-savvy DNA into the department, devising bold and creative solutions to development challenges. That is, after all, what business does so very well.”

Written by CSW