The studious root · 2012 – 2016
Laos
Vientiane
The laboratory of aid: building programmes for others by day, and studying it from the inside for my thesis.
Becoming an architect of projects.
It is in Laos that I become a full-time consultant - and that I take development aid as an object of study as much as a trade. Designing, writing and raising funds by day; analysing donor logics for my thesis by night.
What took root here
To design, and to understand
Consultancy
Building programmes
Proposals for the Red Cross, Save the Children, FAO and the University of Bern. Securing a EUR 2.4M EU DIPECHO consortium (Red Cross, Oxfam, CARE, Save the Children) and a national disaster-risk-reduction platform.
Research
The PhD fieldwork
Laos becomes the field for my doctorate in geography: the effectiveness of aid and national systems of development projects, seen from within. The material of a thesis defended in Geneva.
The seed moves on
Towards Myanmar
From Laos I move to the biggest undertaking of my life: leading OneMap Myanmar, and finishing there the thesis begun here.