Baku is a place where you see what happens if architects don’t have budget restrictions. The buildings are impressive, yet elegant and not disturbing the historic substance of the city. Still, challenges remain for the country between the Caucasus and Iran to tackle unemployment, economic and financial development and investment climate. Both, the actual and […]
I feared cold when headed to Minsk, Belarus, but it was surprisingly warm for December. The workshop’s participants engaged quickly and were not disturbed by a rather unconventional workshop-concept: Instead of presenting and discussing in plenary all the time, the client opted for an interactive format where we focused the discussions in small diverse groups. […]
Travelling to East/ Central Africa always comes with surprises. As for example that Ruanda’s plastic ban is really enforced. When the plane held in Kigali for a stop-over, the personnel reminded the deboarding passengers that it was strictly illegal to bring any sort of plastic bag into the country. From a European point of view, […]
Just back from Kampala, where the rain is still falling, even if rainy season is supposedly over. Luckily the stakeholder consultation I was helping to run was about application of renewable energy (for displaced persons), so hopefully it could make a (tiny) contribution to reducing future climate change, whilst giving energy to those who are […]
Super weather in both Yerevan and Kiev: October and sweating after a 20-minute walk from the hotel to the workshop location! And just as the climate is “improving”, so the opportunities for the “investment climate” are also getting better. In both countries, following the changes in government, reform plans that were previously off the agenda, […]
It was a pleasure again being with Thomas Fohgrub and friends in Geneva, discussing possible pathways for the transition for humanitarian agencies to use renewable energy to power their operations. Click on the image below to stay tuned:
Je viens de rentrer de Djibouti, ou j’ai animé l’atelier de cadrage pour la deuxième phase du projet Better Migration Management de l’Union Européenne. Etant un part essentiel du Khartoum Process, le programme vise à l’amélioration de la gestion des réfugiées dans la région, et notamment de soutenir les personnes dans le besoin et de […]
Last week was spent on Organisational Development work for a client that has just received additional tasks, and new personnel – and correspondingly needs to review internal roles and procedures. As part of this, there was a retreat in Landgut Stober. This had once been a “model farm” where an anti-Hitler group met to plan […]
We just ran a 2-day event for GIZ in Kachreti, Georgia, where participants from all 3 Southern Caucuses countries developed sustainable cross-border touristic products. Gold was a theme, as we Learnt of a trove of archaeological findings showing the region as a cradle of civilisation which then gave rise to the golden fleece myth; Discussed […]
Together with four of my colleagues am busy running a retreat for the 60 staff of Enterprise Georgia in Kachreti, a major wine producing region in the country. An enjoyable mixture of role-playing stakeholders, developing strategy and fantastic countryside!
Just facilitated a very interesting conference on “Energy for Displaced People: A Global Plan of Action for Sustainable Energy Solutions in Situations of Displacement”. Most striking: this is a clear reaffirmation that nobody should be left behind with regards to access to energy (as per SDG 7) – not even those displaced by conflict or […]
Just completed a two-day workshop which involved distance participation from Kabul. The technology worked really well on day one, and even in a highly-interactive workshop format (no powerpoints, no presentations, only joint work on pin-boards) they were really well involved (at one point, we were all standing, and so were they in front of the […]
