Dr. Kevin McFarland

Kevin McFarland is a member of the GIDE Advisory Council and has been working in the areas of global poverty reduction and economic development at the local, regional and national policy level for more than 30 years. He served as Founder and CEO of Manna International Relief and Development Corporation for more than 20 years implementing humanitarian emergency response and comprehensive community based development initiatives in over 30 developing nations throughout Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. For the past 10 years as Founder and CEO of RCS International Consulting he has been advising NGOs, public sector entities, international institutions and major corporations in the areas non-profit/social enterprise strategy and leadership, global cross-sector partnerships, complex humanitarian emergency response and sustainable economic development. Key sectors for consultancy are micro-enterprise development, value-chain market based development, agricultural development, community based water and sanitation, public health, international education, SME aggregation and organization, participatory development, asset based community development, stakeholder relations, capacity building, civil society, monitoring and evaluation, leveraging evidence based solutions, social investment, social enterprise, base of the pyramid models, corporate social responsibility and corporate and foundation development. Recent emphasis has been on leveraging innovations in engineering, science and technology (i.e. ICT, mobile technologies, biotechnology and nanotechnology) and encouraging and catalyzing resilient public/private/NGO partnerships.