Maggie Black has worked as a writer and editor both within the UN system and as an independent consultant to its member organizations since 1977. Previously, she was an editor of New Internationalist magazine, and a Press and Public Relations Officer at Oxfam. She is the author of a number of books, including two histories of Unicef (The Children and the Nations, Macmillan, 1986, and Children First: The Story of UNICEF, Oxford University Press 1996); a history of Oxfam (A Cause for Our Times, OUP, 1992), and most recently, Water, A Matter of life and health (2004) on water supplies and sanitation in village India (OUP and Unicef). She has written or edited books or shorter publications for WHO, UNAIDS, ILO (IPEC), The Population Council, UNDP, the Global Water Partnership, Anti-Slavery International, the Innocenti Research Centre, and the Save the Children Alliance. She has also edited and/or worked on other major UN reports, including the World Commission on Dams Report 2001 and UNRISD’s Gender and Development Report of 2004. Independent books by her include The No-Nonsense Guide to International Development, and The No-Nonsense Guide to Water (NI and Verso, 2002 and 2004). She has acted as rapporteur at major seminars and meetings, written policy papers, conference reports, and handbooks. Her main subjects of expertise are water, sanitation, and children’s issues of all kinds.