After a brief stint at the UK Treasury, Margaret was selected as a UK participant in the World Bank’s annual trainee programme and stayed on as a member of staff in its Latin American Department. This included two years in Guatemala, initially as assistant to the Bank’s Resident Representatives and then later, after the Bank’s cancellation of the resident mission, as Technical Advisor to the Guatemalan National Planning Council. She then worked for the UN as member of a six-person delegation which was established to process the first project requests to be submitted to the UN Development Programme. After two years in London with the then Department of Technical Co-operation (subsequently the Ministry of Overseas Development), Margaret joined the OECD, initially in the Technical Assistance Department and later, as Head of the Population Research Unit at the OECD’s Development Centre.

Now retired, she has completed consultant assignments for the World Bank (public administration and the effectiveness of aid management), for the Ministry of Overseas Development on the usefulness of training provided by the UK under its Technical Assistance Programme, for the OECD and French academic research bodies. She also gives an annual series of lectures to the Population Studies Unit at the University of Cardiff.