Empowering Field Agents and Staff in the Face of Dynamic Change

Watch Recording View Presentation

This event was a session at the Food Security COVID-19 Learning Event.

COVID-19 required implementing partners to increasingly rely on the knowledge, skills, and decision-making of field-based staff, agents, and volunteers. Decentralized decision-making became a necessity to meet activity stakeholder needs, and implementing partners achieved this in different ways in different contexts. This session highlighted practical examples of activities encouraging staff for greater decision-making agency related to activity programming. After short presentations from East Africa and Southeast Asia, participants went into small groups and shared their own experiences of increased decision-making agency at the field level. 

Speakers

Hester Smidt, Program Quality Manager, Catholic Relief Services Indonesia

Hester Smidt is a Program Quality Manager for Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Indonesia. She has fifteen years of experience in international development in Indonesia, working both on program management and monitoring and evaluation. In her current role, Hester Smidt provides strategic direction and management oversight of the country program to assure the design of high-quality interventions to serve the poor and vulnerable.

Aldi Surya, Project Manager, Human Initiative’s Disaster Relief

Aldi Surya is a humanitarian practitioner who has worked with Human Initiative for 8 years. He has worked in diverse project management roles on issues ranging from emergency response, economic empowerment to child protection in Indonesia and abroad. In his current role as Human Initiative’s Disaster Relief Project Manager, Aldi Surya is leading capacity-building efforts for humanitarian and shelter practitioners across the country, and directing the organization's emergency response efforts.

Moffat Mtonga, Program Manager for the Transforming Household Resilience In Vulnerable Environment (THRIVE) Program at World Vision Zambia

Moffat Mtonga is a development expert with over thirteen years of work in Rural Community Development. He has extensive experience in designing, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development programs. He is Program Manager for the Transforming Household Resilience In Vulnerable Environment (THRIVE) Program at World Vision Zambia. He has played a pivotal role in providing strategic leadership on the development and implementation of THRIVE-BSL model. This includes strengthening of the forward and backward linkages for the program supported value chains.