Rachel Norman

Rachel has over 20 years of professional experience with an appreciation of development priorities, procurement and contractual procedures, performance frameworks and associated quality assurance mechanisms of numerous international donors. Rachel is a monitoring and evaluation specialist, having a PhD from Cranfield University, with her Thesis of ‘Monitoring Global Water and Sanitation’. She is a competent project manager; familiar with “best practice” monitoring procedures for the start-up, implementation and close-down of contracted services.  Rachel has conducted various assignments across a range of sectors and countries (see CV for details), is a native English speaker and has developed strong communication skills during the last 20 years of educational and professional experience. Writing skills have been adapted to academic writing, corporate performance reporting and contract management responses.

Email: rachel.norman@thenrgroup.net

CV: R-Norman full CV

Country experience:

Catherine Mackenzie

Catherine is a multi-disciplinary development specialist, with degrees in social anthropology, forestry and zoology. She has over 35 years’ experience in rural development and natural resources management, particularly the social dimensions of forestry, biodiversity conservation, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The “development industry” threatens to turn Catherine into a grumpy old woman.  She has an aversion to quick fixes and box-tickers, and a specialty in telling people, especially managers, things they don’t want to hear.   But she remains highly committed to objectives of sustainable development and still seeks to inform and inspire her analysis through evidence from real field work, especially talking to people.  Her talents are best used in participatory and innovative planning and problem solving.  Some people do like working with her!

Her last major assignment before COVID-19 was with the EU’s Value Chain Analysis for Development https://europa.eu/capacity4dev/value-chain-analysis-for-development-vca4d. (VCA4D) study of palm oil in Indonesia.  As the sociologist on the team, she was responsible for examining issues of social sustainability (labour, land, gender, food and nutrition, living conditions and social capital), as well as contributing to stakeholder, governance and inclusivity analyses.  The study, which also examines economic and environmental sustainability,  aimed to help create a shared understanding between the EU and Indonesia on critical palm oil issues.

She also participated in the development of management plans for mangrove forest reserves in Guyana, under EU funding.

Since COVID, her only work has been with the UK’s Darwin Initiative, conducting a home-based mid-term review of a conservation project in Guinea Bissau, which included ecological and community-oriented interventions related to the recent discovery of leprosy in chimpanzees.

Prior to this, Catherine was involved on a part-time basis on two long-term German-funded (KfW) conservation projects in Indonesia:  Biodiversity Conservation and Climate Protection in the Gunung Leuser Ecosystem (Aceh, Sumatra) and Forest Programme III in Lore Lindu National Park (Central Sulawesi).

Other recent work has increasingly focused on climate change, including an analysis of the Theory of Change for REDD+ and Norway’s ICFI programme , the “real-time” evaluation of Norway’s ICFI country programme in Indonesia for Norad,  a review of  Social Standards and Safeguards for REDD+ http://www.fcmcglobal.org/documents/Safeguards_Paper.pdf for USAID, preparation of Vietnam’s REDD-Readiness PIN, planning for social dimensions of pioneering REDD+ projects, and backstopping CARE’s community-based adaptation programme in Mozambique.

Her participatory forest management inventory and planning work in Sierra Leone has resulted in the first two forest co-management agreements in that country. She has been involved in biodiversity conservation and protected areas management work for many years and in many countries: Ghana (bushmeat), Mongolia, Tibet, Guyana, Indonesia, Bolivia, Brazil, Tanzania, the Galapagos and the Caribbean. Her work on forest governance and illegal logging in Mozambique is well-known as the first study to document the role of the Chinese in exploiting Africa’s hardwoods.  She has worked on  FLEGT preparation projects for the EU in Indonesia (2003), and in Mozambique, Zambia and South Africa (2012).

In these assignments she applies core competencies in social/poverty/ policy/institutional analysis, conflict resolution, monitoring and evaluation, impact assessment, research and teaching. She has experience in all phases of the project management cycle (identification, preparation, appraisal, management, technical advice, monitoring, and evaluation), working with World Bank, ADB, FAO, GEF, EU, DFID, Norad, USAID, DGIS, IUCN, WWF, FFI, SNV, CARE and others. An enthusiastic team worker and effective communicator, she has been team leader on several long-term participatory forestry projects and research projects.  She is a skier and scuba-diver, plays tennis, rides motorcycles and bicycles, got her PPL, and speaks very good Indonesian and Portuguese and functional French and Spanish.

Email:  Cathy.Mackenzie@theNRgroup.net

CVMackenzie EU CV 2019 Mackenzie ADB CV Feb 17

Country Experience:   Indonesia (including Sulawesi, Sumatera, Kalimantan (E,W, S), Moluccas, W Papua), Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India (including Sikkim, Kerala, Karnataka), Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China (including Tibetan Areas of Qinghai and Sichuan, Guizhou, Hainan, Shanghai), Vietnam, Cambodia,  Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador (incl. Galapagos),  Guyana, Honduras, Belize, Mexico, Panama, Jamaica, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos, Barbados, St Lucia, Dominican Republic, Haiti.

Availability Catherine is currently UK-based and available for both short and long-term assignments.  

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Elizabeth Kiff

Liz Kiff

Elizabeth Kiff is a trained agriculturalist, natural resource manager and environmentalist, with over 30 years practical engagement at project and programme level. She has experience at all stages of programme formulation, implementation and monitoring and evaluation with specific inputs to project design, proposal preparation, programme implementation and results-based management. This has been with a range of clients including government, international donor organisations, NGOs, private consulting firms and research institutions. Experience with funders includes ADB, CONCERN, DfID, EU, FAO, FINNIDA, IFAD, OXFAM, UNDP, UNEP, WFP. Long-term assignments include agricultural extension in community development programmes, implementation of sustainable farming systems in watershed management project, research programme management, and the communication of outputs and training.  Recent assignments include integrating climate change mitigation priorities within agriculture and forestry projects, under GEF funding. With long-term overseas experience in the Philippines, Nepal, India and Ghana, she has particular experience of issues relating to climate change adaptation, livelihood enhancement, farm intensification, crop-livestock interactions, nutrient management, crop diversification and the farm-forest interface.

Email:   elizabeth.kiff@thenrgroup.net  

CV:        http://CVLiz_Kiff2020.pdf   http://EU_CVLiz Kiff2020.pdf

Country Experience:  Bhutan, Botswana, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, North Korea, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, Vietnam, Zambia,  Zimbabwe

Availability: Please enquire