About Us
Poverty-Wellbeing.net is financially supported by the Quality Assurance section of the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC). The thematic content is managed by a team of resource persons at HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation, who include an Editorial Board of specialists who are responsible for comment on current debates and issues.
The SDC Quality Assurance Section and QA Network seek to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of SDC projects and programmes. In addition to context-sensitive and targeted planning, all SDC projects undergo monitoring and evaluation, including result-oriented reporting. This fosters learning and enhances project steering within the Project Management Cycle, as well as making it possible to report reliably on project effectiveness. The Quality Assurance section formulates and develops the standards and instruments needed for such reporting, consolidates the training required, and coaches staff members as necessary.
For more information on the SDC Quality Assurance Section, please visit their website: http://www.sdc.admin.ch/en/Home/About_SDC/Organisation/Regional_Cooperation/Quality_Assurance_Section_and_Network
|
|
Laurent Ruedin |
Laurent Ruedin is a social anthropologist and physicist who joined SDC in 2003. He previously worked as a consultant, mainly in Mozambique on community development, empowerment and health promotion. Formerly an Adviser in the Social Development Division, Laurent is currently working as an Adviser in the Quality Assurance and Aid Effectiveness section of SDC, working on poverty and empowerment issues. Laurent's work focuses on ensuring that the result agenda in SDC's operations is oriented towards reducing poverty and inequalities while promoting empowerment.
This website is managed on behalf of SDC by HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation, one of the most experienced and largest development organizations in Switzerland. It came into existence in July 2011 through the merger of two organizations: Helvetas (founded in 1955) and Intercooperation (founded in 1982). For more information, please visit http://www.helvetas.org
Editorial Board
 |
Jane Carter HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Gender & Social Equity Coordinator Bern, Switzerland |
Jane Carter joined Intercooperation in 1997, and continues to work in this organisation since it merged with HELVETAS to form HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation in 2011. At the merger, she took up her current position of Coordinator, Gender and Social Equity, which entails guiding the mainstreaming of gender equality and social equity throughout the organisation through specific thematic inputs, distance coaching, and back-stopping missions to country programmes and individual projects.Having a background in participatory natural resource management, particularly community forestry, her main geographical experience lies in Asia (notably Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan), although she has now has a global geographical remit in her work. Jane has a first class Bachelor’s degree in agricultural and forest sciences from Oxford University, UK, and a doctorate in rural development forestry from the same university.
 |
Tania Rohrer |
Tania Rohrer joined HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Head Office in 2007 as Programme Coordinator for West Africa and subsequently South East Asia after having worked for seven years with GIZ in different Latin American countries on gender and governance issues. In 2011 she joined the HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation team in Afghanistan where she currently supports rural livelihood related activities as a programme advisor. Her special interests lie in sustainable livelihoods, economic development, governance, and gender and social inclusion. She holds an MSc in Geography and a Master’s degree in Governance and Human Development.
 |
Bernd Steimann HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Development Policy Coordinator Zürich, Switzerland |
Bernd Steimann works as a development policy coordinator at HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation. He received his PhD degree in geography at the University of Zürich in 2010. For his doctoral studies he based his field research in Kyrgyzstan, focussing on rural development and socio-economic disparities, the governance and management of alpine pastures, and processes of post-socialist transformation. From 2002 to 2005 he researched the relations between state and non-state actors in regard to forest management in Northern Pakistan. Before joining HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation he has worked as a research fellow at the Centre for Development and Environment, University of Berne.
Webmaster
 |
Robin Bartlett Rissi |
Robin Bartlett Rissi began working as a webmaster at HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation in the summer of 2012. She received her Master’s degree in political science and environmental studies at the University of Bern in 2009. Her master’s thesis was on the effect of party systems in Africa and Asia on the quality of democracy. Before joining HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation she worked as an intern and then political advisor at Peace Women Across the Globe, WWF Switzerland and Swiss BirdLife.
Webmaster
 |
Cesar Robles Barragan |
Cesar Robles Barragan joined HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation in 2012. He has a background in communications for development in Latin America and Southeast Asia, where he implemented strategies for social change through media and grass-root campaigns. As a BA in Communication Studies, he also collaborates with other organizations on marketing, PR and design. Cesar also worked as a communication specialist trainee for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research in Geneva.
