Paul Kalu

I am an international development consultant with 20 years diverse work experience gained in a variety of sectors including agriculture, finance, ICT and general economic development especially from an M4P perspective. I also have extensive Monitoring & Results Measurement (DCED) and knowledge sharing experience. I have worked in various consulting capacities for donor organisations such as the World Bank, UNDP, IFC, DFID, SDC, USAID, SIDA, GIZ & The Rockefeller Foundation, all in developing countries.

Between 1995 and 2000, I worked in the financial services sector where I developed advanced financial & economic analysis skills, as well as experience of presentation and report writing, journalism and staff development. Since 2000, I have gained experience of monitoring & evaluating, evaluation of projects of various sizes and training project staff on effective day-to-day monitoring techniques. And since 2006 I have had the opportunity to refine my skills in monitoring & results measurement with training and practical exposure to the design of interventions, their attendant results chains and the monitoring of project progress along DCED guidelines.

I have worked full-time on two major rural development programmes in Africa. These programmes aimed to diversify and boost the production capacity of poor rural agrarian households through the introduction of improved information, technologies and techniques, better post-harvest handling, mobile-based information support, crop insurance and contracts with agro-processors. In all cases these innovations were delivered through existing market actors rather than directly by the programmes, in order to ensure sustainability after the end of the programme. Both these projects used the “Making Markets Work for the Poor” (M4P) approach to sustainable market development.