Otto Saki

I am Zimbabwean, human rights, rule of law, democracy and governance practitioner and team leader. I have designed and implemented multi-year, multimillion-dollar projects in Zimbabwe and Uganda. I am excellent at integrating donor requirements with civil society needs gained through practical experience in working with civil society actors including Human Rights groups, trade unions, media organizations, youths, journalists, women’s organizations, faith and community based organizations. While at USAID in Zimbabwe, I managed, and helped design, the first of civil society strengthening program under a contract for the Democracy, Rights and Governance programs in Zimbabwe. I supervised a team during the implementation of a civil society programme with over 25 democracy and governance implementing partners. The programme focused on key national issues including constitutional, Parliamentary, and local government reform. While with Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), I supervised a 30-member staff compliment including setting up and managing two satellite offices in Bulawayo and Mutare. I have strong managerial skills and leadership strengths in programme design and implementation as well as capacity strengthening of civil society, as demonstrated by his management of more than US$ 60 million in program funds at USAID. During my tenure with USAID, I led the development of a civil society strengthening programming that targeted graduation of local organizations to be able to receive direct funds from USAID. This included mentoring of organizations applying organizational capacity assessments, applying an advocacy index, organizational network analysis. Five of the seven organizations became Grant Holders of USAID after three years of intense support and training. I have a proven track record in applying leadership’s skills and working within a team. In Zimbabwe, I contributed to donor coordination groups in relation to governance and civil society Zimbabwe, co-chaired, with the British Embassy, the media donor group, 2013 Member of the Human Rights and Governance donor group of which DFID is a member and 2013 Member of Election Donor Group chaired by DFID and then USAID. For Uganda, I led the recruitment and supervision of team members for the USAID Rights and Rule of Law project, including the conducting of rapid needs assessment for the judiciary on continuous professional development, access to justice for vulnerable groups (women, youths and persons with disabilities, issues of sexual orientation and gender identity), ethics, integrity, investigative reporting on human rights and marginalized groups. The USAID Rights and Rule of Law project is an $8 million-5 year project working with the judiciary, media and civil society, focusing on cross cutting issues of increase knowledge on human rights and access to justice for communities. Under the USAID Rights and Rule of Law project he supervises a staff compliment of 10 including two satellite offices