Mariam Umarji

Mariam is an international development consultant and has worked with the private and public sectors of Africa and Europe. A chartered accountant and a recognized expert in finance, management, and fiduciary risk with more than 15 years of experience in delivering high-level strategic policy advice and technical assistance. She has served as an Executive Director in several companies supervising the areas of Finance, Admin, HR, and Operations. She founded and managed several SMEs in a developing context. She is results-oriented and driven to control costs, maximize results and establish strategic mutually beneficial partnerships and relationships with users/clients, vendors, service providers, communities, parliamentarians, and governments. She established a track record in relationship building to achieve sustainable results in reform initiatives through dialogue, communication, and cooperation between national and international counterparts. Strong knowledge of the Mozambican (and of other Portuguese Speaking Countries and Sub-Saharan countries) legal and institutional framework and the political economy environment in which stakeholders operate in the country and the continent. She has a good domain of public policies and strategies for different sectors and understands the government's implementation and management tools well. She has experience in several sectors, from Health to Agriculture and passing through Industry and Trade, Education, and other sectors. She is adept at creating strategic alliances with and within organization leaders and staff to align with and support key business initiatives effectively. Excels at building and retaining high-performance teams by hiring, developing, and motivating skilled professionals and local talents. High-level project management competencies, M&E, and leadership experience in implementing technical assistance and reforms in multi-cultural environments. Considerable knowledge of the work of the ministries of finance/ministry of economy and ability to work smoothly together with Ministry officials and guide them. Strong expertise in capacity building, developing, and implementing comprehensive technical training campaigns, mentoring, and coaching to government, ministries, municipalities, companies, and civil society organizations, including the development of tailor-made training materials and manuals. She has developed many projects that include diagnosis, review and/or reform of financial and management systems; and design and implementation of financial and control systems (including financial, management and administration manuals, SOPs and establishing execution and reporting procedures). Her skills also include socio and economic appraisals, baselines, and feasibility studies; institutional and fiduciary assessment and strengthening; training and capacity building; project identification and design; project implementation; and project and program appraisals, reviews, and M&E. She can integrate and incorporate gender and other cross-cutting dimensions in her work; and does pro bono work in advancing women economic and financial rights in Mozambique since 2004. Mariam is also very good at developing communication in creating awareness around selected issues such as Gender, Food Security and Nutrition. She is experienced in facilitating participatory and consultative approaches to stakeholder involvement in dialogues and decision-making processes as part of single and multi-sectorial development activities. She supported the establishment and development of civil society platforms and worked with plan and budget committees in Parliaments in Sub Saharan Africa.