Peter Sijbrandij

Since 1980 a Master of Socio Cultural Sciences specialized in rural sociology, economics, cooperative and rural credit, adult education and since 1976 a BA in Cultural Anthropology with social psychology, pedagogy and social history of Latin America. Both from the Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Mr. Sijbrandij has a total of 35 years’ experience in development cooperation with focus on (the design of) project management, planning and MEL related to themes of VET and non-formal adult community education. He has worked 17 years in long-term projects in Honduras and Guatemala with Dutch development organizations, NGOs or the UN system (ILO, FAO, UNESCO) as well as for the Belgian Development Cooperation, national Ministries or a local municipality. Since 1995 he has realized in Latin America and the Caribbean a variety of short-term consultancies (33), mostly for the EU. He has worked with and for the community, indigenous peoples or peasant groups in the design of contents and methodologies as well as providing training to rural promoters or public employees in social research methods and participatory planning in order to identify their realities and find solutions, for instance in the form of curriculum reform, implementation of micro projects for agricultural production or other community development related initiatives. During his LT involvement with projects in Central America, the leitmotif was institutional strengthening, organizational development and contribute to the development of public policies through the development and implementation of the approach of Education for Work, often within the VET institutions, NGOs and relevant ministries. He is familiar with regional TVET systems from within: in 1985 he started as coordinator of IHDER, an NGO in Honduras, working in the banana belt of Honduras’ north coast, followed by a position as director of a Municipal Functional Education project in the Merendón mountain area of the Municipality San Pedro Sula and later from the POCET Project in Comayagua and as a ministerial adviser SECPLAN / SETCO in Honduras or CEO within the BEZACHI in Guatemala. Since his POCET and SECPLAN (Honduras) and later in Guatemala through the BEZACHI project he has consistently contributed through studies, training, systematizing and courses to strengthen project & ministerial capacities, organizational development and capacity building of TVET systems with vocational training institutions and / or Ministries of Education and NGOs. Mr. Sijbrandij manages in a seasoned way the project cycle and the logical or change theory framework (analysis, assessments and courses related) according to the EU, ILO, UNESCO or DANIDA and has a sound management of the latest Practical Guide to EU contractual procedures, In particular, he has a vast experience (9 times) in the EU Call for Proposal rounds by assessing the quality of synthesis documents and complete project proposals, in particular made by Non-State Actors and Local Authorities for Development and DEAR. From his experience of professional long-term projects in combination with numerous short missions, Mr. Sijbrandij is considered an expert in institutional strengthening for management, planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning initiatives within Education for Work and TVET, in non-formal adult education or community development. Keywords: research, planning and (non-formal) education participatory assessment, methods and techniques of design, management and evaluation of projects, capacity building in education (teacher training, design of P2P education, etc.), organizational, institutional development, TVET, local development and different modalities of international aid.