Barbara Schott

Barbara Schott has been working in international development for 20 years as project manager and technical expert with bi- and multilateral donors like EU, GIZ, DfID, DANIDA, and others in Africa, Asia and the Balkans. Her main areas of expertise are local economic development and responsible tourism planning and development. Since 2019, Barbara is based in Nairobi, Kenya and is running together with her Kenyan business partner a boutique consulting company, Tierranjani Africa Ltd (www.tierranjaniafrica.com). Tierranjani is focused on responsible and regenerative tourism approaches and sustainability solutions. Her recent assignments include capacity building of Tunisian tourism stakeholders in developing and marketing alternative tourism circuits. She is also engaged in a CBI-funded tourism development programme in Ethiopia with her tasks ranging from coaching and sensitising on sustainability certification, sustainable tourism and community-based tourism development both with private sector actors and national and regional government. As part of her work with Tierranjani, she's also been engaged in the development of a single destination brand for East Africa (GIZ/ EAC Secretariat) and capacity building on regional tourism development during COVID (trained 3,500 industry actors in 2.5 months). She worked in Myanmar from 2013 to 2018 in various roles and engaged with Myanmar civil society throughout. Barbara facilitated local economic development and community development processes mostly in ethnic minority areas and Self-Administered Zones (SAZ). These assignments involved also organisational development of CBOs in a post-conflict area, introducing amongst other simple reporting and monitoring tools to the members and building capacity from within. Her work included also a number of studies/ reports, including a white paper on CBT versus homestay, qualitative studies on the success and failure of Community-Based Tourism (CBT) in Shan State and marine tourism development in Tanintharyi in Southern Myanmar in collaboration with University of Brighton. Barbara is well acquainted with all aspects of PCM. Setting up monitoring mechanisms, evaluating project progress and building capacity with partner organisations have been an essential part of her work as project manager throughout her career. Coordinating and liaising with stakeholders, including government, civil society and private sector is one of her key strengths, including participatory approaches to regional economic development in various regions in Myanmar, particularly for ecotourism and community-based tourism development. Barbara is co-founder of the Myanmar Community-Based Tourism Network, in partnership with ActionAid Myanmar that aims to bring together Private Sector, Civil Society and communities by providing a learning and exchange platform. Integrating learning and knowledge management is fundamental for long-term empowerment and capacity building and helps to mitigate change. She is also co-founder of the grassroots movement Thant Myanmar, which actively supports awareness raising on the use of single-use plastic items, provides advisory on policy level and promotes a plastic free tourism industry.