Roberto Palo

Roberto has more than 25 years of experience as a communication professional and senior trainer and consultant for NGOs, cooperatives, communities, for local government units, donor agencies and for small businesses.

As trainer-consultant, he has developed his expertise in the fields of enterprise development, strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation, financial management, value-links, and social marketing.

He has carried out assignments in the Philippines, Afghanistan, Australia, East Timor, Fiji, Geneva, Lebanon, Iraq, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Vietnam for various clients: GIZ, DKA-Austria, UN-IOM, BftW, ICRC, IFRC, JICA, WB and the EU.

Roberto is a founding member of NGO Management School in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2008-2009, he has conducted series of NGO management courses in Geneva with participants coming from both north and south NGOs and donor agencies. He is currently a faculty member of the management school.

Roberto’s previous work with the leading national NGO in Mindanao honed his competence in the areas of institution building along with the concerns for enterprise development. Being a senior international trainer and adviser of CEFE, he has further exposed himself in the rigorous approach of adult learning in the conduct of training and group facilitation.

Roberto is also involved in the conduct of external evaluation of NGOs and donors agencies with criteria based on results-based management, logical framework and the widely acceptable DAC criteria on relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability.

In addition, he has continued to update himself with the new technologies in development work and training, such as value chain and local/regional enterprise development training, and more recently, business continuity planning and management.

His areas of expertise are:

  • Capacity-building on Financial management, micro-finance, value chain, marketing and business continuity planning and management for MSMEs
  • Training and consultancy on value chain analysis on crops relating to rice, cacao, coffee, rubber, and vegetables
  • Customised design and curriculum development of management courses for NGOs and self-help organisations
  • Conduct of training and coaching of trainers on business planning courses utilising adult learning principles of CEFE methodology
  • Development of Business Plans for MSMEs with businesses relating to micro-finance, trading, agriculture, and service
  • Development and installation of operations and financial manuals for NGOs and self-help organisations
  • Conduct of external program and project assessment and evaluation of donor projects relating to disaster recovery, livelihood and resiliency

Please contact the associate for full CV.