Practitioners

Phone: +27848723067

Position: Consultant

Home Base: South Africa

Region of Speciality: South America, Africa

Countries of Expertise: Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Colombia, Zambia, Mozambique, Namibia, Malawi

Area of Speciality: Livelihoods restoration and human rights

Profile Summary: Alexandra is a social practitioner driven by solving the challenges brought about by climate and social change. She has 15 years of experience in designing and implementing socioeconomic development plans, and her expertise is land acquisition and livelihood restoration planning. Alexandra initiated her professional career working for Rio Tinto and Vale, managing local community relations and implementing a resettlement plan and livelihood restoration plan for a greenfield project in The Andes, South America. Since 2013 she has undertaken consulting assignments in the Southern Africa region to develop and monitor impact assessments, stakeholder engagement, social investment, human rights assessments, livelihood restoration plans and involuntary resettlement plans following IFC Standards. At CIG, Alexandra has significantly supported projects all over the world for different industries and clients. Her most recent work has involved developing monitoring frameworks for livelihood restoration and has participated in several due diligence processes driven by the international financial sector. As a livelihood restoration specialist, she has implemented a community-centered approach to planning with a strong emphasis on human rights. Alexandra has sought to improve the development and monitoring of World Bank/IFC-compliant livelihood restoration plans. Currently, Alexandra is based in Durban, South Africa where she is also a volunteer at the local Kloof Conservancy assisting the Molweni River health program. She is a native Spanish speaker, fluent in English and Portuguese, and has basic French.

Position: Director

Home Base: Netherlands

Region of Speciality: South America, Africa, Oceania, Europe

Countries of Expertise: Work experience in: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Greenland, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Finland, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Kenya, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mongolia, Mozambique, Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, Tanzania, Uganda, UK, Uruguay, USA

Area of Speciality: Social performance competency development Social and human rights impact assessment Livelihoods, socio-economic development and local content

Profile Summary: Ana Maria is founder of Community Insights Group. Her expertise lies in working out how energy, extractives and infrastructure projects can avoid harm and provide equitable benefits to local communities while respecting human rights. Ana Maria is driven by helping social performance professionals raise the bar in standards of practice and improve their influence within organisations. She works as a practitioner, executive coach and educator. Ana Maria has led the development of a competency framework for social practitioners on behalf of the Social Practice Forum, and CIG’s competency development assessment tool, SPGrow360. She is a Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Strathclyde. She established SIAhub (an online platform for the social impact assessment community of practice) and is co-author of the International Association for Impact Assessment’s Guidance (IAIA) for Social Impact Assessment. She is also past President of the board of the IAIA (2016-17) and current member of the Editorial Board for the Association’s Journal, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal. Ana Maria is an INSEAD-certified Executive Coach and graduate of the Company Directors Course of the Australian Institute for Company Directors. She holds an MBA from Melbourne Business School and PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Ana Maria is a native Portuguese speaker and has basic Dutch, Spanish and Afrikaans. Mozambique-born, she is now based in Groningen, the Netherlands.

Position: Consultant

Home Base: United Kingdom

Region of Speciality: Europe

Countries of Expertise: UK, USA, Canada, Portugal

Area of Speciality: The Graduation Approach, ESIAs, Livelihood Restoration Plans

Profile Summary: Ben is a social consultant who works for CIG following an internship as a research assistant in 2021. At CIG, Ben has worked on social & human rights impact assessments, evaluations of project stakeholder engagement (including with Indigenous & Land-Connected Peoples), a livelihood restoration plan for resettlement impacts, research into social development program best practice, and supported the development & delivery of CIG’s Social Impact Assessment online course. Prior to joining CIG, Ben worked as a caseworker and researcher in the Parliamentary & Constituency Offices of a British Member of Parliament and Shadow Paymaster General (Cabinet Office), Fleur Anderson. Ben also works in the charity sector as a Board Trustee for InterClimate Network, a charity focused on youth climate & environmental sustainability engagement. Previous charity work includes the Safe Passage Project, a non-profit legal services organization for refugee & immigrant children, and the Marmalade Trust, a loneliness awareness charity. Ben holds a First-Class Politics & International Relations BSc from the University of Bristol. This degree was oriented towards human rights-related issues, largely focused on Sub-Saharan Africa. His areas of interest include human rights, immigration and refugee rights, environmental sustainability, and diversity & inclusion.

Phone: 7787723125

Position: Senior Specialist, Community Engagement and Social Performance

Home Base: Canada

Region of Speciality: North America

Countries of Expertise: Canada, USA, Mexico, Australia, Indonesia, China, Singapore, South Korea, Brazil, Peru, Bahrain, Trinidad Tobago

Area of Speciality: Social Impact Assessment, Public Engagement, Indigenous Engagement, Local Participation, Social Impact Management

Profile Summary: Eleanor Gill is a Senior Specialist, Engagement and Social Performance, with more than 17 years’ experience in community relations and stakeholder engagement, Indigenous engagement, social impact assessment and management, local participation, and cultural mediation. She has experience developing and leading stakeholder and Indigenous engagement plans, social impact assessments, and social impact management plans that meet international standards in stakeholder engagement and social performance set by the International Finance Corporation as well Canadian regulatory agencies (IAA, BC EAO). Eleanor also develops local procurement, employment and training strategies for Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, recently for the EGP Tunnel Project in BC and Tlicho All Seasons Road Project in Northwest Territories. Eleanor is Engagement Lead for BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure’s Highway 1 Improvements Project 264th Street to Whatcom Road; recently led international ESIA scoping for Sun Cable's Australia-Asia Power Link Project; and is Social Lead for the Sangdong Tungsten Mining Project Due Diligence (ongoing Equator Principles monitoring) in South Korea. Eleanor has developed stakeholder and Indigenous engagement strategies, including for Goldcorp’s Century Gold Environmental Assessment and Permitting Project, BC Ministry of Energy and Mine’s Geotechnical Review of Dam Safety Inspections in BC, City of Nanaimo’s Nanaimo Dam Breach Assessment and Inundation Mapping Study, Vancouver Fraser Port Authority’s Lynnterm Expansion Project in BC, and Western Stevedoring’s Lynnterm Breakbulk Consolidated Project in BC. Eleanor has led social assessments of projects, including for Alaska’s Trust Land Office’s Icy Cape Gold and Industrial Heavy Metals Project, Rio Tinto Explorations FalCon Project in Saskatchewan, and Ontario Power Generation’s benchmarking of physical and cultural heritage cumulative effects assessments. Eleanor has developed environmental and social assessment and management plans that meet IFC Performance Standards for the Bahrain LNG Terminal Project. Eleanor also has extensive international experience, having worked on mining/metals and energy projects in Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Chile, Bahrain, Australia, Indonesia, China, South Korea, and Trinidad. Eleanor has a graduate degree in Asia Pacific Policy Studies from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and a Scottish Masters in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. She speaks Mandarin and French.

Phone: +31-631179966

Position: Professor of Cultural Geography (but with a primary interest in social impact assessment)

Home Base: Netherlands

Region of Speciality: South America, Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe

Countries of Expertise: I am a generalist

Area of Speciality: social impact assessment; social impact management; project induced displacement & resettlement; social licence to operate; extractive industries & society; business & human rights; human rights impact assessment; Indigenous rights; Free, Prior & Informed Consent (FPIC); benefit sharing; community engagement; public participation; avoiding the resource curse; corporate social responsibility; shared value; university social responsibility; sense of place; place attachment; endogenous regional development; rural communities; social aspects of climate change; social sustainability; applied social research

Profile Summary: Frank Vanclay holds the position of Professor and Head of the Department of Cultural Geography in the Faculty of Spatial Sciences at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, where he has been since July 2010. He was previously based in Australia. Prof Vanclay is an applied, inter-disciplinary/transdisciplinary social scientist who writes in the areas of: social impact assessment; the management of social issues associated with large projects (i.e. social performance); social licence to operate; business and human rights; extractive industries and society; project-induced displacement and resettlement; and avoiding the resource curse. He also has interests in the social impacts of tourism; social understandings of place; and the social aspects of natural resource management, farming and agriculture. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from Griffith University (Australia, 1981), a Master’s degree in social research methods from the University of Queensland (Australia, 1986), and a PhD in environmental sociology from Wageningen University (The Netherlands, 1994). Frank has been interested in the social impacts arising from projects and the management of these impacts, and thus the field of social impact assessment (SIA), for his whole life. He has become internationally acclaimed, for example, he was awarded the Individual Award from the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) in 2014 in recognition of his contribution to the advancement of the theory and practice of impact assessment. He has given keynote or invited addresses in many places around the world. He was the lead author of the guidance document, Social Impact Assessment: Guidance for Assessing and Managing the Social Impacts of Projects, published by IAIA in 2015 (LINK) – available in Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, and Traditional Chinese. Together with Dr Ana Maria Esteves (www.communityinsightsgroup.eu), he has provided training courses on SIA, e.g. Iran (2010), Finland (2011), Netherlands (2012), Brazil (2013), Scotland (2013, 2016), Angola (2014), Madagascar (2014), and Australia (2017). In conjunction with the World Bank Group and Community Insights Group, Intersocial Consulting and Frederic Giovannetti, he leads two week courses on Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Social Sustainability (LINK), which have been given in The Netherlands, Kenya, Mozambique, Georgia and Kazakhstan.

Position: Consultant

Home Base: Denmark

Region of Speciality: Europe

Countries of Expertise: Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Chile

Area of Speciality: ESIAs, Human Rights Impact Assessment, Human Rights Due Diligence, Stakeholder Engagement, Legal Research

Profile Summary: Francesco is a human rights specialist who works for CIG since September 2021. At CIG, Francesco has worked on social and human rights impact assessments, evaluation of corporate human rights plans and project stakeholder engagement (including with Indigenous and Land-Connected people) in the extractive and renewable sector, research into national ESIA regulatory system for the World Bank, contributed to the drafting of a guidance for stakeholder engagement and community consultation and supported the preparation & delivery of CIG’s Indigenous Peoples online course. Francesco holds a Law Degree from the University of Milan, is a member of the Italian bar, and has a Masters of Law in International Human Rights Law from Nottingham University (UK). His studies focused on the Business and Human Rights area, specifically on the indigenous peoples’ rights and the implementation of FPIC from the perspective of the UN Guiding Principles for Human Rights (UNGPs). He also took part in research projects led by his supervisor Professor Robert McCorquodale, including a submission to the European Commission on the proposed legislation on mandatory human rights due diligence for businesses, and a study on the applicability of human rights obligations to non-state actors in a context of conflict and humanitarian crisis. Before joining CIG, Francesco worked for a Brussels-based NGO operating in disability rights within the framework of European policies and gained several years of experience as a lawyer for various law firms where he worked on matters including workers' rights, diversity and inclusion. Francesco is a native Italian speaker, fluent in English and Spanish, and has a basic understanding of Portuguese and French.

Phone: +254721930086

Position: Consultant Socio Economist

Home Base: Kenya

Region of Speciality: Africa

Countries of Expertise: Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Rwanda , Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo

Area of Speciality: Social Impact Assessments, Resettlement Expert, TurnAround Strategies, ESDD, Vulnerable and Marginalised Community Management, Stakeholder Engagement ,

Profile Summary: Julius Barno is a Socio Economist/Social Safeguards Expert with more than 15 years of extensive experience in the Socio Economic Development (SOED) field providing consultancy services in: Social Management/ Safeguards Design and Management, Resettlement Action Planning, Impacts and Social Resilience, Gender in Development, Participatory Project Management, Development Research, Report Writing, Community Development, Policy Analysis, Strategic Planning and Management, Training; and Socio-Economic analysis of development projects. He has led Stakeholder Engagement, Community Liaison, Sustainable Community Support Activities and Communication He has demonstrated skills along his career in: RAP development and Management ,Social Safeguards Management, Community Engagement, Poverty alleviation, Employment creation, HIV/AIDS program mainstreaming, Mainstreaming gender, Ensuring and Managing Social safeguards, Poverty and Social Impact Assessment of Dam Projects, Irrigation Projects, Water Projects, Road Projects. He is also a Chartered Management Consultant with Legal Training as well as an Organizational Development Expert. He has executed Assignments in Kenya and other East African Countries

Phone: +61 428886168

Position: Senior consultant on local content and local suppliers development

Home Base: Australia

Region of Speciality: South America, Africa

Countries of Expertise: Peru, Ghana, Mexico, Argentina and Ecuador

Area of Speciality: Local content on mining supply chain Local suppliers development for mining companies

Profile Summary: I am an economist with 14 years of experience working on both, local content strategies and local suppliers development for mining companies. My expertise includes the design, implementation and assessment of projects focused on these topics. I have worked in South America and Africa.

Phone: +27720383227

Position: Environmental and social consultant

Home Base: South Africa

Region of Speciality: Africa

Countries of Expertise: In Country: Namibia, Mozambique, Malawi, South Africa Desktop: Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Peru, Portugal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sweden, USA, Vietnam

Area of Speciality: Livelihood Restoration Plans, Data Development, Management and Analysis, Stakeholder Engagement, Public Participation, ESIAs, Due Diligence, Field Staff Training and Capacity Building.

Profile Summary: Paige is an environmental and social consultant with over 8 years of experience. Environmental Manager and Scientist by training, Paige has found a deep passion for the fundamental link between environmental and social sciences. She has been applying her skills and expertise to the management of social aspects of industrial projects. Her experience includes socioeconomic impact assessments, human rights risk assessments, E&S due diligence, livelihood restoration and resettlement plans and stakeholder engagement. She has worked for mining, energy, telecommunications, and agricultural sector clients in Southern Africa and internationally. Paige is an experienced data manager with exposure to small and large datasets involving human rights indicators, social investment initiatives, qualitative and quantitative data sets from key informant interviews and large data sets from socioeconomic and livelihood information at the household level for projects ranging from 40 to 800 households. She is a competent user of survey software such as Fulcrum, to design and organize data collection exercises. She has trained field enumerators and managed the entire process from real-time supervision of data collection teams, to reviewing data quality, analysing data, reporting, and visualizing the findings. She was responsible for the methodology and implementation of a national public participation process in Namibia for a telecommunication ESIA. She conducted stakeholder analysis and social issues scoping studies to identify opportunities within communities to ensure the achievement of benefits and proactive measures to avoid conflict and build positive long-term relationships between the company and the community. She has been responsible for data management and analysis of large sets of household-level socioeconomic data for LRP monitoring, and evaluation against IFC PS5, and trained clients and field staff on data management platforms, data capturing and field tools.

Position: Environmental, Social & Governance Consultant

Home Base: Netherlands

Region of Speciality: South America, Africa, Asia, Europe

Countries of Expertise: Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Mexico, Curaçao, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, Vietnam, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Oman, Jerusalem, Portugal, Netherlands

Area of Speciality: Indigenous Peoples; Stakeholder Engagement; Public Participation; Free, Prior and Informed Consent; Environmental & Social Management Systems; Grievances Mechanisms; Traditional Communities; Artisanal Fishermen; Due-diligence

Profile Summary: Philippe is an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practitioner, researcher and lecturer with 15 years of experience. His professional background includes private sector, International Finance Institutions (IFIs), consultancy, NGOs and scientific research. Skilled in applying and verifying environmental & social safeguards and international benchmark standards in industries such as Renewable Energy, Agriculture, Mining, Logistics, Oil & Gas and Infrastructure. Experienced with International Financial Institutions compliance due-diligence; IFC Performance Standards on Environmental & Social Sustainability; Environmental & Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs); Stakeholder Engagement and Consultation; Resettlement Action Plans; Grievance Redress Mechanisms; Human Rights; Labour and Work Conditions, Occupational Health and Safety; Risk Identification and Risk Management. SA8000 Certified Auditor.

Position: CIG Associate / Invited Assistant Professor / Social psychologist

Home Base: Portugal

Region of Speciality: Europe

Countries of Expertise: Portugal

Area of Speciality: Social Impact Assessment, Project-Community Relations

Profile Summary: Sérgio Moreira is a psychologist with extensive experience in applying Social Psychology to improve Social Performance and Project-Community relations. He as worked in new development projects in the energy production, transportation, and extractive industries. He co-developed CIG’s social performance competency development instrument SPGrow360. He is an invited assistant professor at the FPUL, CLSBE, and Nova SBE where he teaches Applied Psychology, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Research Methods. He has published his work in outlets as Frontiers in Psychology, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, and The Extractive Industries and Society, with the most recent work resulting from collaborations with Frank Vanclay and Ana Maria Esteves. Sergio is from Portugal and currently lives traditional neighbourhood in Lisbon.

Position: Chief Operating Officer

Home Base: Germany

Region of Speciality: South America, Africa

Countries of Expertise: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Haiti, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, Namibia, Nicaragua, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, St. Lucia, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, United Kingdom and Zimbabwe.

Area of Speciality: Feasibility studies, due diligence, social impact assessments, social investment strategy, new country entry, programme design and sustainability reviews, economic analysis, community consultation, stakeholder engagement and performance monitoring and evaluation.

Profile Summary: Victoria is a development professional based in Stuttgart with over 25 years of experience in consulting for both the public and private sectors, advising how to navigate and balance community, rights and stakeholder expectations with business imperatives. Victoria is the COO of Community insights Group where she is responsible for human resource, contractual and financial management as well as for continuous quality improvement through the implementation of its QA system in line with CIG’s ISO 9001 certification. As a Senior Consultant of CIG, Victoria provides advisory services to clients on a variety of social performance issues. She assists companies in responding to community needs, government regulations, meeting international best practices (IFC Performance Standards, WB Safeguards, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights) and addressing corporate accountability issues. Her assignments have included: feasibility studies, due diligence, social impact assessments, social investment strategy, new country entry, programme design and sustainability reviews, economic analysis, community consultation, stakeholder engagement and performance monitoring and evaluation. Prior to joining CIG, Victoria was a Managing Director at Cardno Emerging Markets (formerly Emerging Markets Group) in Washington DC where she led a global Social and Environmental Impact Management (SEIM) team based in US, UK, Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, Kenya, Ecuador, Peru and Namibia. Victoria has worked in over 30 countries around the globe. She has a MA degree in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a BA in Diplomatic History at the University of Pennsylvania. Victoria is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. She is a native English speaker, speaks German and French and basic Italian.

Position: Consultant

Home Base: United States of America

Region of Speciality: North America, Africa, Asia, Europe

Countries of Expertise: tba

Area of Speciality: Social investment, local content, stakeholder engagement, social impact assessment, human rights impact assessment, E&S due diligence, training.

Profile Summary: Vera is a Senior Consultant at Community Insights Group (CIG). A native of Kyrgyzstan, Vera is currently based in Dallas, Texas. She has 20 years of experience in social performance assessment, management and monitoring for international financing institutions, energy and extractive companies, public utilities and other clients in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and the U.S. Her specific experience includes planning and management of stakeholder engagement, community investment, local content and CSR activities around energy, industrial and extractive projects; social risk assessment and due diligence against international standards, e.g. IFC, EBRD for various investment projects; human rights assessment; and development and delivery of training courses on sustainability and social risk management of investment projects. Vera co-authored IPIECA’s Local Content Guidance document, IPIECA’s Discussion Paper on Social Investment in Enterprise Development and Skills Building, and the World Bank’s study on the constraints and opportunities for Central Asian enterprises to engage with the mining sector supply chains. Previously, as a development specialist for Deloitte’s Emerging Markets UK, Vera undertook assignments for the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). As part of the Government and Public Relations team of Chevron in Russia, she worked with key local stakeholders in Kazakhstan and Russia in support of upstream and downstream projects. Vera is a graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London where she received an MSc in Development Studies with special reference to Central Asia. She also holds a graduate diploma in International Economics from Kyrgyz Russian Slavic University. She is fluent in Russian and English.