Mike Albu is a specialist in market-system analysis and private-sector development, with 30 years’ experience of project design, strategic management and policy research for international NGOs and donor agencies in Africa and south Asia. As lead author of the EMMA Toolkit, Mike first convened the Markets in Crises Community of Practice (MiC) on D-Groups in 2012. Today, Mike works with the Secretariat of the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) and runs the BEAM Exchange, a global platform for knowledge exchange and learning about using the market systems approach to promote inclusive growth and livelihood opportunities for people in poverty.
Laila is the Market, Economic Recovery and Growth (MERG) Sector Lead for Mercy Corps Lebanon. She is an experienced program manager with over 14 years of international livelihood experience in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia in emergency, recovery and development contexts. In recent years, her focus has been on employment programs and on how to adapt market systems tools, methods, and approaches to the labor market system.
Benson is a Technical Coordinator with the Economic Recovery & Development Programme at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), South Sudan Country Programme, where he covers projects countrywide. Benson also doubles as the IRC South Sudan’s country Emergency Team Leader, supporting emergency responses countrywide. In South Sudan, Benson also Co-chairs the Agriculture Technical Working Group (ATWG), led by FAO and OCHA. He has over 10 years of experience in designing and implementing cash and voucher assistance (CVA), Agricultural Livelihoods and Value Chain and Markets Development, Enterprise Development and Employment (especially for women and youths’), and has worked with conflict, marginalized and disaster-affected communities in East Africa.
Karri Byrne brings over 25 years of programme management experience from both emergency and development contexts. She has worked extensively on market systems and livelihoods programming, helps teams apply adaptive management practices to their work. Karri supported the SEEP Network with the update of the Minimum Economic Recovery Standards and serves as a Facilitator of the MERS Focal Point Program, and she is keen to see more collaboration between the private sector and the humanitarian community.
Chris Paci is the Global Cash and Markets Assessment Specialist with IMPACT Initiatives, which encompasses projects conducted under the names of REACH, AGORA, PANDA, and IMPACT itself. Chris is the organization’s main technical specialist focusing on humanitarian cash and markets assessments, providing technical and surge support to all REACH missions globally on market monitoring, market assessments, cash feasibility studies, thematic assessments touching on CVA, and many other types of projects. Currently based in Kampala, Uganda, Chris has previously worked in humanitarian and development contexts in the Middle East, North Africa, and the post-Soviet republics.
Economist. Master in Humanitarian Action. Cash and Market programming specialist with more than 15 years of experience in development and humanitarian programming with governments, UN agencies, and non-governmental organizations. Working experience in many countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Philippines, Panamá, Central America, Nigeria, Spain, Mali, Ecuador, Bangladesh, Uganda, Colombia; and roles (operational, technical, and strategic). In the last 6 years, I have focused on coordination and collaborative ways of working for improving effectiveness in humanitarian responses and supporting strategic decision-making efforts in displacement and refugee contexts.
Louisa is an independent consultant with 15 years of humanitarian experience. She currently engages in technical support and learning on market-based approaches, cash assistance, livelihoods, safety nets, and people-centred aid with a range of humanitarian and social protection actors, including the IFRC, CDAC, the Norwegian Refugee Council, CERF, and Mercy Corps. She began her career supporting community-led returns in Northern Uganda with the AVSI Foundation and then designed market-based responses for the Darfur Community Peace and Stability Fund with INTERSOS. She worked with the Danish Refugee Council for over 7 years, leading DRC’s work globally on cash and economic recovery programming from 2015 to 2018, and went on to manage the Cash Barometer initiative at Ground Truth Solutions.
Corrie has 9 years of experience in humanitarian food security, cash and markets programming and is a Technical Advisor in Catholic Relief Services’ Market Based Response Team. She has also worked for other Tearfund and Oxfam managing market-based interventions in DR Congo, Mali, Guinea, Iraq, Greece, Niger, South Sudan and Bangladesh. She holds a Masters from the London School of Oriental and African Studies and is based in Oxford, England.
Jo Zaremba is an experienced facilitator of multi-stakeholder processes, partnerships and programmes. She has worked in a range of humanitarian, development and environmental contexts for the past 25 years, where she held technical, advisory and managerial roles with NGOs, the UN and with the private sector. She founded BlueLemur to promote participatory approaches to facilitation, learning and running events that deliver locally informed and contextually relevant strategies, policies and programmes. Her technical specialty lies in Food Security and Livelihoods, and applying market systems approaches to a wide range of sectors and contexts. Jo has lived and worked in Nairobi (covering the Horn, East and Central Africa as a Regional Adviser), India and Indonesia and experience working in over 30 countries globally. She combines her commitment to community based and participatory approaches with her love for cycling and the outdoors, and has travelled extensively by bike in Asia and Africa.
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