Innovative Public Policy, Finance, and Development

Four others and I facilitate three-day strategic thinking and scenario-planning workshops for selected staff within the AU. I guide a group of 25 from various different organs of the organization through the conversation model designed by Clem Sunter and Chantell Illbury (leading international business strategists and scenario planners, and colleagues). This involves extensive interpersonal, facilitation, and strategy development skills. Groups have explored the future of Education in the African context from the perspective of the AU, the future of African peace and security, the impacts, challenges, and the benefits of the AfCFTA. I guide these groups while they create four different scenarios of how the future of education etc might pan out, assigning approximate probabilities to each scenario. This process has given and continues to give me invaluable experience in facilitating sustained strategic conversations and developing actionable strategies from them. Additionally, I developed professional relationships with multiple different stakeholders within the AU who have access to extensive networks in countries throughout the continent.

I consult on multiple projects across our three different portfolios: Agribusiness, Private Sector Development and Regional Integration. My primary portfolio is Regional Integration. My role includes management, research, and consulting activities on projects involving qualitative and quantitative research and analysis, report writing, stakeholder engagement, communicating and presenting ideas, and business development for clients in the public and private sector, and the international donor community. Completed work spans a wide range of contexts (including Eastern and Southern Africa), industries (including agriculture, international trade, CSO/PSO, manufacturing, transport, IGOs, and aquaculture) and subjects (including strategy and policy development, gap analysis, private sector development, value/supply chain analysis, trade capacity building programme design, measurement and elimination of NTBs, trade facilitation, and political economy analysis). Recently I was part of a team of four experts who developed SADC’s Vision and Mission 2050 and its Regional Indicative Strategy Development Plan 2020-30. Most recently I was the principal author and co-project director of a rapid COVID-19 review of the FCO’s Trade Forward Southern Africa Programme. Currently, I am a lead assessor in the EU funded - Kenya AgriFI - a challenge fund focused on developing agribusinesses in Kenya and incorporating SHFs into Agri-value chains.

I was contracted by the South African BRICS Business Council to update, research, and re-write the annual country investment guides, which the Council produces for its members, these are on average 12500-word documents which are closely scrutinized by each member country. Additionally, a colleague and I were responsible for moving the annual report of the council from its 2nd draft to its fourth and final draft. This process included incorporating each member country’s comments and input into the annual report in such a way as to ensure consensus among the parties. We did this successfully and set a precedent, as the annual report in the last two years has not been signed, and all member countries signed the annual report which my colleague and edited and wrote. Beyond co-creating the central content of the annual meeting I was responsible for the project management of the conference venue and the gala dinner. My Colleague and I led many cross-functional meetings and oversaw and managed a team of 40 volunteering students from UKZN and I also chaired weekly project management meetings. The team I was part of moved to Durban for six weeks and worked intensely and with impetus to create and facilitate what was widely viewed as one of the most successful BRICS Business Council annual meetings since its inception in 2013. I acquired many additional skills during this time and strengthened existing ones. Additionally, during this time I developed a professional and reliable network in both Cape Town and Durban (South Africa) given that the team was based in both locations during the project.

I completed my MSocSci (summa cum laude) in International Relations and Political Economy, whilst also working as a senior teaching assistant for UCT for three years. My master's thesis entitled, "Continuity and Legitimacy in the Horn: a conceptual critique of Alex de Waal's political marketplace", was very well received and has been entered into Leiden University's Africa Thesis Award 2019. For a more detailed description of my thesis please see my personal summary.

I managed ALPS Resilience's existing resources, acquired local and international funding and advanced the organization's financial sustainability.

I worked as a parliamentary monitor, which involved attending parliamentary committee meetings every week and taking minutes. I would then transcribe these minutes and the discussion, whilst also adding a summary and putting it all together to create a report. These reports were anywhere between six and twenty five page long and I would do this within in 48 hours of the adjournment of the meeting. Reference 20geelhout@gmail.com (Rashaad Ali -Project Manager).

I am responsible for managing and marketing SPACMG (Strategic Public Affairs and Consultant Management Group) in South Africa. This entails identifying and procuring funding for NGOs and NPOs that are making an impact in SA, as well as launching platforms and initiatives to encourage millennials to engage with the social, political and economic issues currently facing SA in an innovative, accurate and authentic way. In conjunction with this it is my responsibility to contextualize SPACMG's vision, strategic thinking and problem solving in the South African context and thus assist and empower local and African businesses, organizations and civil society groups.

I lead overland trips into Southern Africa; Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. I usually lead two or three trucks through these areas having to take responsibility for the clients and there safety as well as their personal finance throughout the trip. It also my job to ensure that we stay on time during the entire journey, whilst simultaneously creating an atmosphere within which the clients can relax and have fun.

I am part of a team of other students who run a project named Sitsaba. It is a program that is run in the Nyanga township in Durban and the mandate of our project is to develop future leaders, via the means of education, social skills and providing the necessary resources to the children. My mandate as participant coordinator is to look after the children when we go and see them twice a week and to make sure that there is consistent progression in the child's education process and relevant documents. It is up to me to add any events or changes to the child's file as well as inform the relevant authorities and volunteers who end up dealing with the child.

http://za.redfrogs.com/matric-holiday/im-a-volunteer/plettenberg-bay

http://za.redfrogs.com/matric-holiday/im-a-volunteer/plettenberg-bay

I am the sole marketer and distributer meaning; that outside of the farm itself and two other locations I am the only one who supplies the coffee. So my mandate is to market the product in the Cape Town and Durban area and to distribute it in each location accordingly.