Project Management and Leadership

REJECT GREED, TREAD LIGHTLY, CONNECT WITH COMMUNITY, BUILD DEMOCRACY …

People first

  • powerful solutions for positive impactful change
  • a calm voice for the marginalized
  • with ethical independent clear and simple advice and support
  • and comprehensive customer communications

My philosophy is to undertake a diverse range of projects to develop expertise across nations, sectors, and industries in order to provide insightful and thoughtful support that benefits individuals, communities, projects, regions, and countries.

In summary, support for your consultancy requirements include the following experience and expertise:

  • 35 years’ experience
  • 39 countries
  • qualifications in education, English, communication, science, and mathematics
  • Chief of Party and Team Leader experience
  • extensive work in countries in conflict, post-conflict, emergent, and transitional
  • whole-of-government program evaluations
  • complex multi-donor, multi-agency, multi-country settings
  • project management, peace building and stabilization, performance monitoring and evaluation (M&E), education in crisis and conflict, countering violent extremism, health, governance, economic growth, capacity building, institutional strenghting, cost benefit analyses and economic rates of return, EMIS/HMIS and data quality, and corporate social responsibility
  • gender and social inclusion integration
  • workforce readiness and development
  • child labor and human trafficking
  • safe migration and migrant rights
  • at-risk and out-of-school youth, vulnerable, marginalized and minority groups
  • resource planning and financial modelling
  • research
  • experience in the complete aid cycle : humanitarian disaster relief to transitional governments to development

A British/Australian currently residing in Tbilisi, Georgia with an MSc, BEd, and DipT and over 35 years’ experience in education, with 20 years in monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of international projects, and 20 years’ experience in international development.

Leading projects and formative, summative, and ex-post evaluations in education, community and rural development, agriculture (economic growth), civil society for change, health, child protection, gender equity, democracy, peace building, and stabilization. My experience includes agribusiness (rural sector business development and financing models – such as cost-benefit analyses and economic rates of return – ERR), vocational education, and labor market needs assessments.

In-depth knowledge of evaluations includes evidence-based qualitative and quantitative approaches, survey questionnaires, baseline studies, longitudinal studies, performance and impact evaluations, midterm and final evaluations.

Experience with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), AusAID (DEFAT), Danida, DFID, European Union, International Labor Organization (ILO), Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), INTERPOL, UNESCO, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UNICEF, USAID, United States Department of Labor (USDOL), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), US Department of State (USDOS), and the World Bank.

Experience in countries in the Caucasus and Balkans, the Middle East, Africa, Asia (Central Asia, South Asia, and South-East Asia), and the Pacific.

Team Leader in many project and evaluation assignments.

Experience as Chief of Party in 5 assignments:

(1) 2017-2018 Kenya for the USAID Evaluation Services and Program Support covering health, governance, economic growth, countering violent extremism, and peace-building evaluations;

(2) 2010-2011 Georgia for the Georgia Monitoring Project for the United States Department of State’s Office of the Coordinator of US Assistance to Europe and Eurasia;

(3) 2010 Mongolia for the Competitive Grants Program in Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Project for the United States Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC);

(4) 2006 South Sudan for USAID’s EQIP2 Sudan Technical Advisors Project;

(5) 2001-2003 Pakistan for the World Bank’s Northern Education Project in Kashmir and the Asian Development Bank’s Girls Primary Education Development Project in Islamabad.

An example of a leadership consultancy:

2010-2011 Georgia – (USDOS) Georgia Monitoring Project

Managed a complex multi-agency and multi-partner project as Chief of Party for the $1 billion Georgia Monitoring Project (GMP) funded by the United States Department of State (USDOS) Office of the Coordinator of US Assistance to Europe and Eurasia.

Involved 17 United States Government (USG) agencies (such as USAID, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Justice), 43 implementing INGOs and local NGOs, and 291 projects (134 in progress) over four key sectors (humanitarian and social, democracy and governance, peace and stability, and economic growth).

Roles and responsibilities for GMP included donor coordination, USG liaison, and project management for the review of existing Implementing Partner and USG agency M&E systems to ensure consistency, standardization, clearly articulated interventions and mechanisms to achieve, monitor and report on project goals, as well as wider whole of-government targets and goals.

Reviewed M&E plans and provided technical assistance for indicator development, data collection, performance monitoring, impact assessment, and thematic reporting for complex multiple projects by multiple USG agencies.

Conducted a Data Quality Assessment (DQA), particularly data verification of databases, statistical information and donor reporting on refugees and internally displaced persons, as well as Performance Monitoring Plans (PMP) and Performance Indicator Reference Sheets (PIRS), and the relevance of indicators, baseline, monitoring, and reporting processes.

The GMP approach was ‘whole-of-government’ which referred to technical assistance and monitoring of all USG government agencies to determine whether the ‘whole combination of foreign assistance support’ – the ‘sum of the parts’ – was more impactful for the government of Georgia and its citizens than the parts (individual projects). Therefore the reporting to Congress was in the form of special thematic reports.

Conducted complex evaluative impact, performance, and thematic reports on internally displaced persons and refugees, civil society, psychosocial counseling, and maritime security. An example of the reports produced for the US Congress include:

  • Health and Social Infrastructure
  • Preliminary Review of USG Assistance in the Post-Conflict Area of Georgia [Shida Kartli]
  • Preliminary Review of Maritime Security in Georgia
  • 2010 Democracy Commission Small Grants Program in Georgia (FY09) Final Assessment (health, media, rural community development, leadership, economic development, tourism, agribusiness, and psychosocial support)
  • Georgia Institutional Support Program Interim Assessment
  • Efficiency Analysis of USG Cash Transfer Assistance in Georgia
  • Pre-Monitoring Review of IDP Data & Information in Georgia – Data Quality Assessment

Financing Models:

Designed and reviewed financial models, cost benefit analyses, cash transfer review, economic development models and accounting systems for universities and large organizations.

Developed Educational (and Health) Management Information Systems (EMIS/HMIS) databases in education and health projects, specifically for the South Sudan Ministry of Education.

Chief of Party and Senior Grants Manager in 2010 in Mongolia for the Millennium Challenge Corporation Technical Vocational Education and Training Project (Competitive Grants Program). Duties included the documentation of Financial and Contractual Guidelines for grantees.

Reported on expenditure, cost-per-student, and auditing of foreign assistance funding for women and girls across several projects, such as agriculture, education, and governance in 2009 for the USAID Assessment of Activities Attributed to FY2008 Women’s Earmarked Congressional Funding.

Pro-poor human rights programming in education and health to ensure accountability and transparency of financial data for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Sudan with the Ministry of Finance in the Red Sea State.

Responsible for reviewing resource utilization plans and budgets for all 11 donor countries, and producing a harmonized reporting system in Bangladesh for the Primary Education Development Program II (PEDP-II). Conducted a cost-per-student tracking system, as well as textbook production costing methods. The Sector-Wide Approach (SWAP) was adopted to ensure that external donor funding supported a single sector policy and expenditure program, under government leadership. Assistance to the 11 donor countries helped develop a more harmonized system such that government regulations could be followed. Harmonized and improved management, planning, accounting and reporting arrangements throughout PEDP-II enabled focused and coordinated interventions in the sector. For the EU, annual review missions (from 2007 to 2010) ensured project tracking, progress, funding expediency, educational outcomes, and student performance outcomes in Bangladesh for donor countries (such as USAID, AusAID, JICA, CIDA, SIDA, ADB, and World Bank).

Conducted a review of Economic Rates of Return (ERR) for project activities in Morocco in 2015 under the ex-post evaluation of the Fez Medina Functional Literacy and Vocational Training Activity, predominantly in agriculture, fisheries, and handicrafts, but also in vocational activity, disaggregated by location, activity, and gender.