Paul Schoen is seasoned agricultural economist with over 29 years of international experience in development projects. After undertaking three university degrees (Hull University, London School of Economics (MSc International Relations, Law and Politics) and Wye College (MSc in Agricultural Economics), UK) he undertook various long and short term assignments in Papua New Guinea, Bangladesh, and other parts of Asia (South, South East, and Far East), all regions of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and CIS States. He is experienced in monitoring and evaluation (including mid-term, terminal and ex-post evaluations), economic and financial analysis, project identification, project-preparation, and appraisal and cost-benefit analysis. Evaluations have also utilized tools such as multiplier effects (employment generation and gross margin analysis across sectors analysed) and value chain analysis. He conducts studies as well as business planning and SME support. He has worked mainly on agricultural development programmes and projects including design of sector support initiatives and strategies for agrarian change such as trade, finance and investment options. In addition, he provides independent project monitoring and evaluation services to a wide range of organisations including development agencies, NGOs, corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes and charities. He has also lead a team on developing a portfolio to access climate change funds available worldwide for Nigerian agricultural development. Most of his missions have been undertaken for UNDP (he worked initially as a Junior Professional Officer when he first started in 1992), EC, FAO, DFID, LuxDev, IFAD, SNV, USAID and USDA, World Bank and numerous private sector corporations and foundations including Agha Khan and ACDI VOCA.
In recent years he has been asked to work on regional SME development (such as for SADC which covered 16 member states), value chain development and strategy formulation.
Other recent work has been supporting the complete overhaul of the Novi Sad Commodity Exchange (NSCOMEX – formerly Produktna Berza)) in Serbia where he is leading a small team of technology, trading and legal specialists) for GIZ and the Government of Serbia (Ministry ion Agriculture). He has also worked in Saudi Arabia in 2018 and 2019 on aquaculture Red Sea development and a global strategy formulation for the National Date Palm Centre.
Email: paul.schoen @ thenrgroup.net; paul_schoen@yahoo.com
CV: http://Paul Schoen CV (June 2020) (y).docx
Country Experience: Albania, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon, Chile, China, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, Hungary, India, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Laos, Liberia, Lithuania, Madagascar, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Moldova, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, PNG, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saudia Arabia, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, South Africa, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, the Gambia, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, UK, Ukraine, USA, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Zambia.
Availability: Please enquire.
Initially trained as a Cartographer and as a GIS scientist, Darren has over 12 years consultancy experience in the UK and overseas. He has worked on a variety of short (2-4 months) and longer term (18-21 months) projects in 4 distinct regions (Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia). Darren is able to apply his GIS skills to a variety of specialist fields ranging from Oil and Gas exploration, Fisheries management, Tourism, Environment monitoring, GPS/GIS training, Cartographic design and more recently, the important field of Humanitarian activities in post disaster scenarios via his voluntary involvement in www.mapaction.org. His leadership skills and flexible approach to problems enables him to see the answers to many technical and difficult problems.