Head of section OPSYS contract management

I am a Programme Officer to the EU Delegation in Benin in charge of Energy and Environment. I also have a strong interest for Rural Development and Infrastructures in general. I have been working for the European Commission since September 2005.

Mr. Nnamdi Anene has been working in the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development of the Federal Republic of Nigeria since 2008 as a geologist deployed to the Artisanal and Small-scale Mining Department. His roles focus on assisting the Ministry in formulating and implementing policies for the effective development and regulation of the Artisanal and Small-scale Mining sub-sector. Prior to joining the public service, Mr. Anene had a brief stint in the private sector working with a water borehole construction company. He also participated in various geological investigations whilst undergoing the National Youth Service Corps programme at the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency. Mr. Anene has a degree in Geological Sciences. He also obtained a postgraduate diploma in Environmental Management from the Centre for International Postgraduate Studies of Environmental Management at TUD Dresden and a Master of Technology in Environmental Management from the Federal University of Technology Minna, Nigeria.

Programme Manager. Resilience and Climate Change.
Delegation of the European Union to Zimbabwe

Giacomo Rambaldi is an independent consultant in the domains of digitalisation for agriculture participatory mapping and enterprise development. He has 41 years of professional experience in Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean where he worked for various international organizations including the Technical Centre for Agricultural & Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), FAO and as long-term consultant on projects funded by the Italian Aid to Development and the European Commission. He holds an honours degree in agricultural sciences from the State University of Milan, Italy.

He worked for 17 years at CTA as a member of the Digitalisation for Agriculture (D4Ag) team where he coordinated and administered a stream of activities related to the deployment of D4Ag in Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

Joaquin, director of To the core of things, is a monitoring, evaluation, researcher and programme manager of multimillion regional programmes and projects specialised in human rights, media, gender, community tourism and children/youth.

As the director and principal consultant of To the core of things consultancy firm, I bring over two decades of experience in results-based management, monitoring, and evaluation of international development programs, with a deep familiarity with EU and UNEG norms and standards. Throughout my career, I have developed and refined evaluation systems, policies, and related guidance for various DGs, national authorities, international NGOs and UN agencies. My work spans multiple regions, including Africa, Latin America, and Asia, focusing on human rights, media, gender, and education and youth programs. Notably, I have led strategic consultancies for different EU instruments including EIDHR, the EU social fund and also outside the EU for UNESCO and OHCHR. These consultancies focused on monitoring, evaluation, and reporting functions of international organizations including the assessment of these functions of UN agencies, OECD, the Council of Europe and the European Union.

My methodological expertise includes mixed-methods approaches and quasi-experimental designs that emphasise client and partner ownership, coherence with learning curves, and pragmatic solutions. These tools, developed under the Creative Commons IP from To the Core of Things, include research guidelines, organisational capacity assessment, modular reconstruction and adaptation of theories of change, stakeholder network maps methodologies, case study guidelines and approaches, outcome harvesting through Most Significant Change stories and implementation of machine learning approaches to development cooperation programmes.

The principles I apply in all my works are ownership of the works and the processes by the client and partners (through a strong participatory approach); alignment with latest trends in the field (including ICT4D, statistical techniques and humanistic considerations); coherence with the learning curve of the clients, and; pragmatism, proposing solutions in line with the interests, philosophy and capacities of the clients and its partners.

Key relevant work that reflects this range of skills and passions include ROM reviews for multi-country EU programmes, consultancies for UNESCO (evaluaitons, periodic reporting consultancies or MEAL system TA). Also for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) I have developed as well another strategic consultancy assessing their in-house monitoring and reporting function plus other programme and country evaluations. Other donors, include USAID, with consultancies carried for US Internews setting up the methodologies, managing seven multicultural teams and producing seven research products for their Rooted in Trust programme and leading several programme evaluations. Some other relevant examples of my works are the evaluation of an agriculture cooperative based project in Ethiopia funded by NORAD, the evaluation of a community radios programme in Zambia funded by the Netherlands; the research manager position for ECORYS and also academic publications in the Journal of Multidisciplinary Evaluation.

For more information visit https://tothecoreofthings.consulting; check our track of projects.