DVC Consultants is an advisory firm based in the UK, with extensive experience working in development policy and practice globally. This incorporates project and programme management, and evaluation with organisations including IFC, OECD, Asian Development Bank, GIZ and the Netherlands Foreign Ministry. We also work extensively with the private sector where current and previous clients include Anglo American, Syngenta, Shell, Nestle, Vodafone, Gazprom and BP.
- Deep experience of development programming in the African Continent
- Mr Semega-Janneh served for 11 years as the Chairman of the Board of the Rural Foundation for West Africa (WARF). This rural development institution has a particular focus on Senegal, Mali, Guinea Bissau and The Gambia. Our team leader, Dr Stanbury has worked as team leader or as a senior adviser over more than two decades for a wide range of development programmes in Africa.
- Led a team to develop the post-Ebola economic reconstruction strategy for Sierra Leone. This included a focus on addressing the challenges which faced the country on issues such as education and healthcare provision.
- Political economy advisor to the Mafita project in northern Nigeria, which focused on education and skills training for marginalised communities such as the Almajiri in cities such as Kano, Kaduna and Maiduguri.
- Conflict advisor to the British Embassy in Cairo in relation to the instability posed to the country by the significant population growth, particularly in Upper Egypt. A key area of focus was to develop strategies to help the country’s education system cope with the huge increase in demand.
- Team leader for a DFID research project to recommend strategies for economic growth in Zimbabwe. This included examination the skills development needs for the country, and an assessment of the capabilities of local training institutions.
- Significant experience as an evaluator internationally, in particular in Africa.
Dr Stanbury also has more than two decades as an international evaluator. Experience relevant to this assignment include:
- Team leader of a series of evaluations of the GEMS programme in Nigeria. This included annual process evaluations, and an impact and summative post-completion evaluation at the end of the programme. This was also used to inform the next round of private sector development programming by key actors including DFID and IFC.
- Team leader of a process and impact evaluation of the Making Markets work for the Chars programme in Bangladesh. This involved looking at dynamic impacts of the programme beyond the logframe targets, focusing in particular on social and political changes engendered.
- Team leader of Shell International’s Liverwire skills development programme. This evaluation was global in scope, examining the projects work in 16 countries around the world, including Nigeria and South Africa.
- Advisor to an evaluation of the Education for Sustainable Development programme in East Africa. This was a process evaluation of a skills development project operating in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique
Why DVC?
There are a number of reasons why we believe that we are uniquely well-placed to perform evaluations. This is the result of the diversity of activities our consultants have been involved in over many years. For example.
- DVC’s core mission is to help organisations with complexity. We are, for example, currently working with clients to help them navigate the impacts of the Covid-19 outbreak. This appreciation of complexity is vital in any evaluation process given the range of interventions which may sit under any organisations banner.
- We have experience working throughout diverse regions and Continents, and so are familiar with how varied the issues may be.
- We are not just evaluators, but also have considerable experience in managing development programmes in Africa. We therefore understand the challenges facing operational programme staff, and of how recommendations from an evaluation need to be pitched and phrased to be of most use and relevance.
- We work, not just with development institutions, but with other actors including the private sector, national and local governments and with NGOs. We are thus well-placed to be able to explore how well any collaborative approach taken by our clients work in practice.
- Over the past few months we have become highly adept at managing the implications of Covid-19 for our modus operandi. As noted above, we are working with clients on this. However, from an evaluation perspective, we are now using remote data collection techniques and the use of local partners rather than the face-to-face approaches that would have been normal until the pandemic struck.
