Herve Nicolle

Hervé has more than 20 years of international experience managing research projects, conducting sector assessments and evaluations in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East for a wide range of donors, UN agencies, international organisations, NGOs, and businesses. As a founder and senior economist of Samuel Hall, Hervé's research focuses on gender, climate change and urban issues in contexts affected by displacement and migration. In this role, his work in urban and rural settings has focused on three key areas: economic integration of migrants, gender relations, urban vulnerabilities, social protection, and skill development/education. Hervé’s research in Samuel Hall enacts its ethos by focusing on people’s aspirations, decisions, and actions over purely rational and economic approaches, and enhancing learning dynamics within organisations, and contributing to the global learning agenda. Adopting a range of quantitative and qualitative approaches, including large-scale surveys and advanced statistical analysis, his research has extended to economic surveys and labour market assessments, multi-dimensional analyses of wellbeing, and economic understanding of vulnerabilities with a focus on gender as well as support to community-based approaches. Hervé has extensive experience in managing multijurisdictional and region-wide projects, for a value of up to £3M. He has drawn on his expertise across these fields to develop indicators and a resilience index that was adopted by the EU to monitor project outcomes. As author or co-author, Hervé has contributed to more than 80 academic papers, studies, reports, and policy documents for UN agencies, donors, NGOs, and academic partners; most documents are available upon request. Previously based in Kabul where Samuel Hall was founded, Hervé is now living in Nairobi. Besides the work at Samuel Hall, Hervé is currently pursuing a PhD in philosophy, and teaches philosophy and economics to university students in France, and at the Alliance Française in Nairobi. He holds an MBA from Cornell University, three Masters degrees in Economics, Literature, and Philosophy from the Sorbonne, and graduated from the French Ecole Normale Supérieure.