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
CV: Mackenzie 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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