Governance and Economic Growth

Biography
Christian Arandel is a senior local governance specialist in RTI's International Development Group. He currently serves as chief of party for the Morocco Local Governance Project, a 3-year USAID-funded project aimed at improving transparency and local governance performance in three regions and ten municipalities in the country. Mr. Arandel has over 15 years of experience in the fields of urban management and planning through his work in the Middle East, North and West Africa, and the United States. He has worked on urban management issues with a special focus on improving local participatory governance and developing poverty-reduction frameworks at the municipal level. Before joining RTI, Mr. Arandel worked for 8 years as the regional manager for the MENA region for the Urban Management Programme, a United Nations program supporting local governments in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, and Morocco. Read More…

Biography

Gary Bland, PhD, Fellow in democratic governance, appointed April 2009, is a senior advisor and scholar of democratic institutional development. He specializes in decentralization and local governance and, geographically, in Latin America. His work has also involved legislative process, electoral systems, participatory governance, and democratic transitions. Dr. Bland's academic, policy, and programmatic expertise has informed development in many countries through multiple research and assistance projects. He directed RTI's Center for Democratic Governance for nearly five years. Dr. Bland was a Democracy Fellow at USAID and has consulted with various international organizations. Earlier, he was a senior associate at the Woodrow Wilson Center and legislative assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives. Dr. Bland is active in professional associations and has presented at numerous conferences. He has been an adjunct graduate professor of public policy at Georgetown University, and he most recently co-edited a volume on democratic deficits in the developing world.

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Biography
Robert Bodo is an expert in public finance and administration and has extensive experience managing large, complex projects in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Mr. Bodo currently serves as the chief of party for the USAID-funded Municipal Budget Reform project in Kyiv, Ukraine, and also served as chief of party for the Dissemination of Regional Offices for the Association of Ukrainian Cities project. In recognition of his work supporting development of local self-government in Ukraine, Mr. Bodo received the Order of the Silver Cross Award from the president of the Association of Ukrainian Cities and the Mayor of Kyiv. He is also an honorary member of the Association of Municipal Finance Officers in the Slovak Republic, a high-ranking award recognizing his leadership under the USAID municipal and economic development project. Mr. Bodo has traveled extensively throughout Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, and other Central and Eastern European countries. Read More…

Biography
Luis Crouch, PhD, is a vice president in RTI’s International Development Group (IDG). He supervises IDG programs in education, public finance and economic development, and information and communications technology. His areas of specialization include social sector finance, policy reform, and the political economy of social sector development, with a particular, current focus on education. He also has experience in demographic and agricultural policy analysis. He has worked on all aspects of policy analysis research and implementation -- from field surveys to quantitative and qualitative analysis to policy dialogue presentations at the Cabinet level in various countries. His interests include educational economics and planning, educational statistics, research and information use, and the presentation of research results for policy debate. He has experience in more than fifteen countries in all areas of the developing world, with a special focus on Latin America, South Africa, and Southeast Asia. Read More…

Biography
Myles Elledge has 20 years of experience in international development policy and planning. He has worked in the U.S.A. and in 17 developing countries on issues of economic and social development as well as environmental health. He has experience leading interdisciplinary studies and strategic program evaluations to improve public sector management and access to basic services, with such clients as the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and Japanese foreign aid agencies. Mr. Elledge is a member of the American Planning Association and the American Society for Public Administration. Read More…

Biography
Mr. Gerber is a senior international development specialist at RTI with more than 25 years' experience working on African development issues. Mr. Gerber has designed, implemented, and managed community development, decentralization, institutional strengthening, and relief projects and programs in various countries in Africa and the United States. He has successfully led teams in governance, health, agriculture, and relief program development and project implementation with paid and volunteer staff from many countries and cultures, including Angola, Benin, Central African Republic, Chad, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Haiti, and Jordan. Mr. Gerber has been actively engaged in promoting integrated and multisectoral approaches to addressing priority development needs in each of his overseas assignments. His democracy and governance program work has emphasized civil society strengthening, training of elected officials, local public–private partnership activities, media, advocacy, and coalition building. Read More…

Biography
Daniel Goetz is a senior public administration analyst with RTI's International Development Group and is currently the director for project development in the Europe and Eurasia region. He has 26 years of international experience in the design and implementation of governance projects that improve the management, finance, and service delivery systems at the local government level and the legal and regulatory framework for decentralization at the national level. During the past five years, Mr. Goetz has been the technical manager with overall responsibility for six major projects funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development in Ukraine, Armenia, Russia, Belarus, and Romania. He has worked in 26 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. In the United States, Mr. Goetz has designed and managed financial accountability and performance monitoring systems for public institutions at the local and state levels. Read More…

Biography

Ronald Johnson, PhD, is senior policy advisor for international development at RTI. He is an internationally recognized expert in governance strategies to stabilize post-conflict situations, urban infrastructure financing, and municipal finance decentralization policy and strategies. Dr. Johnson has designed financing systems and led institutional development efforts for municipal services financing mechanisms in Indonesia, Mexico, and Poland. In addition, he has analyzed financing systems and conducted local government finance studies in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Dr. Johnson has designed and implemented decentralization and local finance and management projects for the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. He has advised on issues of decentralization policy, revenue improvement, capital budgeting, municipal service performance improvement, and financial information systems for small municipalities and major cities of the world. Dr. Johnson is co-author of Public Budgeting Systems, now in its 8th edition, and author of numerous articles on decentralization, governance, and finance. Read More…

Biography
James McCullough, PhD, is a recognized expert with over 25 years of experience in the development of international programs to build local government capacity to manage and finance urban services. He has designed and directed field projects for the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank, as well as developing innovative approaches for local government financial analysis, professional training, and national policy formulation. Dr. McCullough has worked in over 20 countries in all regions of the developing world. His recent work has focused on issues of fiscal decentralization policy, reform of intergovernmental finance systems, and municipal enterprise restructuring, covering both the financial aspects and the legal and regulatory issues. Dr. McCullough also helps to design urban management training programs overseas. Read More…

Biography
Mr. Minis is a senior public finance and development planner. With 28 years of international development experience, Mr. Minis specializes in policy analysis and capacity building to support decentralization reform, improved governance and transparency, and improved municipal finance. He has led policy analyses and dialogue programs to introduce fiscal decentralization reform and improve municipal access to credit markets; assessed municipal management capacity and designed municipal strengthening programs; led anti-corruption programs that focus on introducing best practices in transparency; and evaluated local governance practices and designed citizen participation programs. He has worked in more than 20 countries in Sub-Saharan and North Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia. From 2001-2005, he led the U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Local Government Initiative, which assisted Bulgaria in building strong, open and accountable local governments during its transition to a democracy. Mr. Minis is one of the principal authors of a handbook on programming for democratic decentralization for USAID. Read More…

Biography
Mr. Miranda is a local governance and decentralization expert with over 23 years of international development experience. He is the regional representative for RTI El Salvador, overseeing business development and project implementation in the Latin America region. Mr. Miranda's areas of expertise include public-private partnerships, public service decentralization, and local economic development. He currently serves as chief of party for the U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Crime and Violence Prevention Project in El Salvador (2008-2010). He has previously served as interim chief of party for the Democratic Local Governance program in Guatemala, and the Strategic Alliances for Social Investment program in Nicaragua. Mr. Miranda also has experience in the management of private enterprises in the environmental, agricultural, and commercial sectors. Read More…

Biography
Henri (Harry) Roovers is a senior project manager and local governance expert with more than 20 years' experience implementing urban development, local governance, and poverty reduction projects in Asia and West Africa. He has prepared participatory development plans and investment programs for infrastructure and services, and capacity building and training programs for local governments in Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sierra Leone. From 1998 to 2006, Mr. Roovers directed RTI's regional office in Indonesia, supporting the acquisition of new projects and the financial and administrative management of program implementation. Mr. Roovers has managed large interdisciplinary project teams for the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Asian Development Bank. He is currently chief of party of the USAID-funded Local Governance for Health project in the Philippines, a 5-year program to strengthen the management and delivery of basic health services in over 550 local governments. Read More…

Biography
Alan Wyatt is an environmental engineer and manager with over 25 years of experience in international development assistance programs and projects. He has worked extensively on projects in the areas of water supply and sanitation, urban environmental management, and renewable energy in the U.S., Europe, and 15 other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, Central America, and Asia. He has authored over 50 technical publications. Most recently he has been managing technical assistance and training programs in water supply and sanitation, local environmental management, municipal management, and infrastructure project finance. He currently serves as Director of Business Development for the International Development Group at RTI International. Read More…