Samuel Rosenow

Country: Mexico

Organization: FINCA Mexico

Samuel Rosenow designed, managed and implemented a nation-wide evaluation of FINCA Mexico’s social performance. In his capacity as Survey Manager, he completed a randomized and clustered sampling plan and established a field visitation schedule while hiring, training, and managing a team of 7 enumerators as they conducted 798 face-to-face interviews with clients across Mexico. He was responsible for the compilation, cleaning, and analysis of survey data, and prepared tools for econometric impact assessment as well as poverty targeting.

Samuel: “My work stint reaffirmed for me the importance of evidence-based policymaking to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty. Heading a nation-wide impact study not only reined my skills in program management and evaluation but also enriched my understanding of the opportunities and limitations of other micro-based development policy interventions, such as in health or education.”

Keith Mangam

Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Organization: FINCA International

Keith Mangam’s worked as part of FINCA’s Client Research Fellows Program, helping FINCA to measure and manage its social performance throughout the world. His main task was to act as the Survey Manager, leading a comprehensive survey of 439 households throughout the DRC branches. He helped to recruit and train local surveyors and staff in the use of smartphones as a tool for facilitating data collection.

Keith : “I believe that this experience has given me first hand experiences with cultures in conflict and has given me a more realistic expectations of how societies react in post-conflict settings. I gained good insights into the world of micro-finance, both the perspectives of those offering the services as well as the beneficiaries of those services.”

Julia Leis

Country: Burkina Faso
Organization: Millennium Challenge Corporation

Julia Leis was selected to work on the Diversified Agriculture Activity, a $30 million project of the $490 million Millennium Challenge Compact with Burkina Faso, designed to increase rural incomes and employment and to enhance the competitiveness of the rural economies in the Sourou Valley and the Comoe Basin. She completed an extensive value chain analysis of the project’s deliverables, synthesizing different activities along the supply chain within certain sectors, providing insight on the multitude of interventions taking place in the regions over the past few years.

Julia: “Working with MCC and Burkinabé colleagues was an incredible experience. I gained an understanding of the complexity of contract management and program implementation in the field. While I have studied international development during my undergraduate years and now graduate school, it was incredibly valuable to see how complex projects are managed and implemented on the ground, and learn about the importance of partnerships with local communities. I now feel more prepared and committed to pursuing a career in development in West Africa and I’m very grateful to have had this opportunity.”

Aditya Ashok Kumar

Country: Nigeria
Organization: The Tony Elemelu Foundation (TEF)

Aditya Ashok Kumar worked with the Tony Elemelu Foundation to help African entrepreneurs scale-up and improve competitiveness. He was selected to create products and services fir a struggling financial services company (Financial Trust Company) based in Lagos. Aditya interviewed capital market participants, competitors and regulators to understand the pulse of the industry, conducted primary market research, and held discussions with the Securities and Exchange Commissions for product approvals. His work led to the creation of the FTB Balanced Agricultural Fund, a close-ended NGN 1 Billion fund that invests in agriculture ventures in Nigeria, due to launch early next year.

Aditya: “My objectives for the summer were met and I am lucky I got to do what I wanted. This opportunity helped clearly define and refine both my long term professional and personal goals.”

Tommy Galloway

Country: Myanmar
Organization: MasterCard, MDRI-CESD (Myanmar Development Resource Institute, Center for Economic and Social Development)

Tommy Galloway travelled to Myanmar with the goal of identifying lessons about the financial habits of rural and urban communities in Myanmar that could aid in developing better financial tools to improve Myanmar citizens’ financial stability. He partnered with MasterCard to co-author a report that identified ways in which these lessons could be developed into points of market entry as well as ways that MasterCard could contribute to ongoing reform in the region.

Tommy’s research team was able to successfully reach a range of communities in Myanmar, helping to create important connections amongst local organizations that work on social and financial reform. In his second partnership with MDRI-CESD he developed qualitative survey questions and conducted interviews to identify themes about the financial habits and needs of Myanmar’s communities.

Tommy: “Given my abiding interest in Myanmar before arriving at Fletcher, and my intention to focus on the crossroads of development economics and business while there, this summer work was perfectly situated to allow me to step closer to my long term career goals.”

Chuck Dokmo

Country: Chad
Organization: Enterprise for Vocational Development (ENVODEV)

Chuck Dokmo acted as a market researcher, networker, strategist, project Designer & Manager for ENVODEV, a small start-up NGO with vocational and energy projects in southern Chad. He was responsible for growing a network of contacts within N’Djamena, conducting market research on charcoal in the region and assessing the sustainability and scalability of ENVODEV’s charcoal project. His findings helped to determine the course of ENVODEV’s future strategies for meeting urban demand.

Chuck also led a team of 5 to develop two new models of clean, efficient cookstoves, and worked with the International Director to explore several new partnerships.

Chuck: “This internship was a landmark experience in my life. It pushed me well outside of my comfort zone, and I enjoyed the numerous challenges we faced. Most of all, I thoroughly enjoyed the people with whom I worked.”

Dhriti Bhatta

Country: Uganda
Organization: FIT-Uganda Pvt. Ltd: an agro-consulting firm in Kampala

Dhriti Bhatta worked as a member of the consulting team at FIT, developing a rollout strategy for FIT’s latest product, FARMIS (Farmer’s Record Management System). She conducted value chain analysis for the coffee sub-sector, wrote proposals for consultancy projects, and conducted analysis for FIT’s trademark product, the Market Analysis Report (MAR) 2013, a comprehensive collection of price information of over 40 commodities from over 35 markets in Uganda.

Dhriti: “This experience was important for me, as I got a a sense of how rural Uganda still is and how difficult it is to operate businesses there. I was pleasantly surprised by the farmers’ groups we came across there. The leaders of these organizations seemed quite entrepreneurial and were excited to test out a product like FARMIS. Overall, my experience in FIT Uganda was quite important to my academic and intellectual interests. I learnt a lot more about how the agriculture sector works, specifically in East Africa. Also visiting a growing East African country gave me a sense of how those markets are expanding and increasingly becoming more important globally.”

Mari Kenton Wright

Country: Malawi
Organization: Population Services International (PSI)

Mari Kenton Wright worked in an M&E manager capacity with responsibility in the Reproductive Health Department for the launch of a family planning social franchise network, SafePlan. She also worked with the Malaria/Child Health team to develop policy and program documents. During her fellowship, she conducted baseline assessments at 30 health clinics, participated in high level policy meetings, and presented policy work to members of Malawi’s parliament.

Mari: “My fellowship experience at PSI greatly re-inforced many of my career goals while helping to refine others. The fellowship allowed me to strengthen my skills in program design, monitoring, and evaluation.”

Katie Walsh

Country: China
Organization: China Sustainable Energy Program (CSEP)

Katie Walsh’s responsibilities ranged from working on research and grant reporting in Beijing to participating in site visits to southern China relating to urban planning practices and opportunities

Katie: “The experience provided me with insight into the realities of urban planning and successful efforts in supporting sustainable development in China… and will help me make informed decisions about my next steps.”

Nate Stell

Country: India
Organization: PCI

Nate Stell carried out an evaluation of the OVC team’s vocational training model which provides services (skills, education, microfinance and life skills eduation) to street children, Orphans and Vulnerable Children through interviews with prior participants and key staff to determine if the processes being used are being optimized for success.

Nate: “One key attraction was that the focus of my internship was on designing and implementing an evaluation of a well regarded vocational training program. I was interested in developing a skill set in program evaluation because I am planning my career in the nonprofit management field.”

Hannah Schiff

Country: India
Organization: Start Up! India

Hannah Schiff’s work included in-person interviews with villagers, experts in the field, and other social entrepreneurs as well as exposure to a wide variety of social enterprise models. She gained experience helping social enterprises define smart business strategies and processes and created questionnaires, guides and other content for Start Up! India’s Incubation Tool Kit.

Hannah : “This was a powerful internship through which I gained many insights that will be useful in my academic and career decisions going forward. The experience helped me to refine my idea of what I am looking for in a future work environment.”

Sarah Ryan

Country: Paraguay
Organization: ACCION MFI partner Fundacion Paraguaya

Sarah Ryan focused on the Fundacion’s reading glasses microfranchise and investigated new microfranchise opportunities for FP. She was able to meet with microfranchises, loan officers, and potential suppliers. Her business plan suggesting strategic changes in order to grow sales and expand the number of vendors was presented to the directors.

Sarah: “It was extremely useful to get on-the-ground experience in a developing country… and to understand the cultural differences which impact the speed and implementation of new operational models.”

Kyle Muther

Country: Indonesia and Uganda
Organization: Mercy Corps

Kyle Muther conducted a value chain analysis of four selected commodities in Uganda and Indonesia to identify market opportunities for bundling farm and crop management tools and financial services on mobile platforms. He attended meetings of the Indonesia World Economic Forum working group on Maize.

Kyle: “The internship was very useful for my career development… with a lot of interaction with high level MercyCorps staff. My main accomplishment during the summer was getting exposure to an exciting field – mobile agriculture information services and mobile money/banking.”

Max Mattern

Country: Jordan
Organization: FINCA

Max Mattern had responsibility for implementation of a survey of FINCA Jordan clients. FINCA is an international microfinance institution with a mission to provide financial services to the world’s lowest income entrepreneurs and so they can create jobs, build assets and improve their standard of living.

In this capacity Max designed the sample and survey strategy, hired trained and managed a team of five surveyors located throughout Jordan. He performed an analysis of the social performance indicators and wrote a report and presented his findings to the CEO of FINCA. The findings will be used to set poverty outreach targets and improve products and services.

Max: “Overall, the internship was an invaluable experience that will surely advance my career goals. I can confidently say that have experience managing a complex proess that employed logistical and analytical skills, as well as personnel management. …I now feel confident that I have the knowledge and skills necessary to begin a successful career in microfinance after graduation.”

Liz Henry

Country: Ecuador
Organization: Root Capital

Liz Henry was assigned by Root Capital’s office in Lima, Peru to investigate and formulate a plan for expanding its loan activity into Ecuador. Using her Spanish language she was able to engage with diverse stakeholders, include personnel international: agencies such as USAID and NGOs such as Catholic Relief Services, directors at the Inter-American Development Bank, representatives from commodity trading firms, employees and consultants at Ecuadorian government ministries, CEOs of SMEs and rural cacao and coffee farmers.

Liz: “Working for Root Capital in Ecuador was a perfect fit for my Blakeley Fellowship. I now recognize the crucial role of the agricultural sector and SMEs within development, as well as the importance of promoting access to finance for such businesses.”

Bernardo Goriupp

Country: Uganda

Organization: MAPLE (Microdevelopment for the Alleviation of Poverty through Learning and Entrepreneurship), an Oregon based NGO operating in Uganda

Bernardo Goriupp worked as Project Manager, responsible for design to implementation of a small scale fish farm. This included everything from technical and business modeling to investigating potential sources of funding to developing a business plan to be used for grant applications and for expansion.

“What makes me proud is that I left behind something that did not exist before… it may well be one the the things of greatest significance I have ever done. The whole experience was also very useful in serving my own careet objectives. I have a profound interest in the synergies between development objectives and business, in particular the role that the private sector can undertake to promote sustainable and long-lasting social progress.”

— Bernardo

Elena Fiekowsky

Country: Vietnam

Elana Fiekowsky worked as an impact evaluation specialist at VinaCapital Foundation the summer of 2011. VinaCapital Foundation (VCF) is the corporate foundation for VinaCapital, the largest Vietnamese investment firm. VCF focuses on providing heart surgery to children who would not be able to afford them otherwise, HeartBeat Vietnam, and improving the cardiac healthcare system in Vietnam. VCF also provides a seven year scholarship to ethnic minority girls to ensure that these girls can go finish high school and college, and go on to become role models within their communities’, Brighter Path program.

As an impact evaluation specialist, Elana designed, implemented and analyzed evaluations for their HeartBeat Vietnam and Brighter Path project. To do this work, Elana worked with the program teams to learn what indicators to measure and helped train the team to run and then understand the findings after the evaluations were done. Additionally, Elana helped design program changes in order to increase the rigor and information gathering for these projects.

Michelle

Country: Uganda

Michelle worked with two Kiva microfinance partners, BRAC Uganda and Pearl Microfinance Limited. Her goal as a Fellow was to ensure that each institution accurately represented Kiva and was utilizing Kiva funds efficiently. She saw how Kiva’s mission came together in the field and had significant involvement with top management at both MFIs.

The Fellowship reiterated my previously held belief that microfinance alone cannot solve problems in development, and that access to health systems, education, and good governance among other things, is needed for change to be sustainable.

Evelyn

Country: India

Evelyn conducted field research with World Health Partners in rural India, in support of the social franchise’s efforts to improve access to healthcare using local market forces and cutting-edge technology. Her work in Bihar focused on understanding the organic network of Bihari health providers before the WHP network was to be started. She conducted a baseline survey of existing providers to find out how they were connected to one another, including doctors, pathological labs, pharmaceutical distributors and supply chain components. The goal was to see what gaps, bottlenecks or roadblocks existed. Data included referral practices, impact on patient in terms of cost and patient travel time, cost to patient for four priority diseases so that WHP’s franchise could be as efficient and effective as possible.

Arielle

Country: Thailand

Arielle worked at Population and Community Development Association (PDA) in Bangkok, Thailand where she designed a Community Development Program to target the specific needs of migrants in Thailand. This entailed creating assessment guidelines, conducting numerous interviews and researching the social, political, and economic factors at play in these communities in order to improve Thai-migrant relations.

Stephanie spent nearly three months interning at the Population and Community Development Association (PDA), a Thai NGO founded by Mechai Viravaidya in 1974. Having worked in international development before attending The Fletcher School, she was particularly eager to learn about PDA’s innovative approach to development. The organization is renowned for its out-of-the-box thinking, which has led it to partner with diverse entities (including corporations) and to engage in successful revenue-generating “social business” activities. After only ten days in Bangkok, I had the privilege of traveling to PDA’s rural office near the capital city and then to a sister project in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Being able to juxtapose PDA’s operations in Thailand and Cambodia, as well as its rural and urban offices, was an invaluable opportunity. With this experiential knowledge of PDA, Stephanie designed a community development project for Burmese migrants in Thailand, leveraging the NGO’s core competencies and comprehensively addressing the crucial needs of this marginalized, often exploited population. Inspired by what she learned with PDA, she is taking a course on Forced Migration and Human Rights this semester and will be writing a term paper on refugees’ right to work, using Burmese in Thailand as a case study.