Jason Agar, (BA (hons) in Law, MBA, MA Development Studies) Managing Director and Consultant, with 35 years’ experience of private sector and 25 years of development work including 10 years living and working in Malawi and two years in Kenya. He joined Kadale having run his own successful UK consulting firm providing research, consultancy and training for private sector support organisations in the UK, Asia and East/Southern Africa.  Prior to that, he was Director of the Network Unit of the Small Business Centre at Durham University Business School.  He spent two years in Kenya, working for a microfinance organisation and nine years in the private sector, including for a major UK bank and two leading food manufacturers.  His areas of expertise include public-private (and policy) dialogue, market systems/making markets work for the poor (M4P), managing research processes, micro-finance, business development services, value-chain analysis and related problem-solving processes. He has been involved in the development of national policies, legislation and strategies for the private sector development in Malawi over the last twenty years.

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Yamikani Chabwera (BA in Public administration, MSc Biostats, pending) Research Consultant, is a multi-faceted Social Scientist, with over seven years’ experience in project baselines, monitoring and evaluations using mixed methods. He has been leading research teams at Kadale, including on research design and methodology (experimental and quasi-experimental), analysis planning, sampling, design and testing of research tools, computerised data collection (ODK/SurveyCTO), data management (including quality checking), data analysis (Advanced STATA/SPSS), reporting and presentation of findings. His experience includes successfully leading on; the review and/or analysis validation of data collected as part of the Final Evaluation Report for PCI Tanzania’s McGovern-Dole-funded Local Regional Procurement (LRP) project,    evaluations of the Malawi Oilseeds Sector Transformation (MOST) project funded by Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) (formerly DFID) using Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) standards, final evaluation and the mid-term evaluation of the USDA funded Malawi Strengthening Inclusive Markets for Agriculture (MSIKA) project which was implemented by Land O’Lakes Venture37, evaluation of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) funded Environmental and Natural Resources Management (ENRM) project as well as the Social and Gender Enhancement Fund (SGEF), embedded services assessment for GIZ-KULIMA MIERA, and Modern Cooking for Healthy Forests (MCHF) Baseline and Consumer Market Research (CMR) (funded by USAID/UKAid). In 2018, he managed (in country) and implemented a quasi-experimental research design and intervention approach for Gavi funded partnership with the Malawian Ministry of Health.

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Patience Mtembezeka (BA Public Administration) Research Manager, Patience is a Social Scientist who holds a BA in Public Administration (with Credit), from the University of Malawi, Chancellor College obtained in 2015. Patience also holds a certificate in Monitoring and Results Management from DevLearn Consulting obtained in 2021 and a certificate in Fundamentals of Data Analytics for Social Impact Programs from Data for Development Academy obtained in 2021. She has considerable practical management experience in both qualitative and quantitative research. Patience has been involved in many mid-line/end-line assignments covering a range of sectors, including agriculture, youth, education, environment and natural resource management, gender, and access to finance. This has included managing research projects from start to finish, that is, recruiting, training and managing field teams; research tool design and testing; conducting key informant interviews (KIIs); facilitating focus group discussions (FGDs); conducting qualitative and quantitative household interviews; live translation from Chichewa to English during KIIs or FGDs with various consultants; translation of data collection instruments from English to Chichewa; transcription of Chichewa interviews to English; qualitative data coding using NVivo; Open Data Kit (ODK) and Kobo Toolbox questionnaire programming, data analysis, indicator measurement and calculations, and report writing.

 

Toby Lewis-Donaldson (MSc Agricultural Economics), Consultant, is an agricultural economist with over five years’ experience in private sector development work. He lived and worked in Malawi as a consultant with Kadale for four years before relocating back to the UK in late 2019. From 2019 to 2021 he was the Deputy Team Leader for PROSER Markets, which was the private sector development component of an FCDO-funded climate change adaptation project in Malawi (BRACC). He previously held roles in finance and later in strategy with AB Sugar, one of the UK’s leading agri-businesses, during which time he also qualified as a chartered management accountant (CIMA). At AB Sugar he gained considerable experience in business finance and strategy development including assessing acquisition opportunities, development of financial and strategic five-year business plans and presenting on key strategic business issues at board level. He is currently working for FMO, the Dutch Development Finance Institution (DFI), providing technical assistance to their investees in the forestry and sustainable land use sector.

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McPherson Chatama, (Dip Community Development) Research Manager, is an highly experienced quantitative and qualitative researcher with experience in development of research methodologies, design of instruments, field research and managing field teams, data management, analysis and reporting.  His work has included studies relating to economics, agriculture, climate change, governance, nutrition and health, in which he played a range of roles. The roles included field team recruitment; field team training; field data collection supervision and coordination; research tool design and testing; translating tools from English to Chichewa; translating qualitative data from Chichewa to English; conducting key informant interviews (KIIs); facilitating focus group discussions (FGDs); conducting qualitative and quantitative household interviews; conducting community observations; transcription of Chichewa interviews to English; Open Data Kit (ODK) and Kobo Toolbox questionnaire programming; data entry, data cleaning; data analysis and report writing. McPherson has been trained and proficient in qualitative techniques and undertaken PRA assignments.

He drew his robust experience through involvement in studies relating to economics, agriculture, aquaculture, climate change, governance, nutrition, health and education, in which he played different roles from household to government level with different social groups ranging from children to cabinet officials.

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Abigail Mkwapatira (BA Social Sciences) Research Manager (Associate), earned her degree in Social Sciences in 2013, with a major in Sociology and minor in Strategic Management. She has extensive experience in social research, having been involved in various health, academic and social research projects. She also has experience in programme/ project management, monitoring and evaluation and technical support for local organisations. She worked for Kadale as Research Manager from 2014 to 2016 before taking a role as a Program Officer with DanChurchAid in Malawi, before rejoining Kadale in 2018 on an associate basis.

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We have a pool of tried and tested freelancer Malawian Researchers that we can contract from when needed.  This gives us the capacity to undertake large field-based research projects (1,000 respondents+) to a high standard at short notice in all the major local languages.  These researchers are trained in quantitative and qualitative methods, including tablet-based research (we have over 40 tablets available).

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Through our network, we can call upon other Associate Consultants with a diversity of experience in socio-economic development.