Rob Varley is an economist  by discipline but also an MBA with a practical background , which he can apply to problem solving in finance, strategy and implementation of international projects, programs and policies.   He has long-term institutional experience and in-depth technical expertise in several sectors as well as thematic areas,  has held technical, management,  and advisory positions with 15 years of a 33 year career spent residing in developing countries.  His clients have included: 

i. Comprehensive Ministries: Finance, Planning, Home-Affairs, Interior Local Government (LG);

ii.  Line Agencies  : Tourism; Agriculture, Public Works, Irrigation ;

iii. Banks:  Micro, Retail-Commercial, Development, State, Provincial, Central;

iv. Utilities and Public Enterprises:  Water, Sanitation, Estate-Crop Processing;

v.  Private and Public  Sector Enterprises : Water and Sanitation Utilities, Hotels, Software;

vi. NGOs: managing USAID-sponsored activities, grant reviews and contributions to publications; vii. International development agencies: IBRD, ADB, IFC, DFID/ODA, EU, IDA, and USAID as an advisor in both staff consultant and subcontracting roles.

Rob specializes in policies, strategy and evaluation,  building on  extensive practical institutional and technical experience, identifying the common themes that play out in successful examples of effective  interventions.   He places high value on verbal communication with a broad range of stakeholders,  field visits, rapid and participative evaluation techniques.  This is re-inforced by an analytic approach to bottom-up designs for interventions, using  simple economic, financial and institutional analysis to create incentives aligned with development goals, and conscious recognition of the need to employ rhetoric, advocacy and metaphor  to promote policies and strategies.

From 19877-85  as Senior Water Resources Economist at Hunting Technical Services (HTS) he established the M&E Unit and his portfolio included economic and financial  appraisal for surface and groundwater irrigation project, training, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), operation and supervision,  and implementation of computer systems. 

From 1985-87 he was Resident Coordinator of the Harrvard Institute for International Developmenty (HIID) – Ministry of Finance  “Center for Policy and Implementation Studies” (CPIS) in Jakarta,  a direct contract between the Government of Indonesia  and HIID.   CPIS used the feedback from field research to inform its sponsors (technocrat ministers), of the impact of government programs and how to improve them.  Initially these programs included primary school buildings, birth control, and agricultural intensification but eventually focused on large scale microfinance.    He liaised with senior officials and sometimes met with ministers, mentored Indonesian staff, placed them in US PhD courses, directed and participated in research studies, and administered the finances of CPIS.  When the successful work that CPIS had engaged on with Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI)  Micro-Banking Division transferred to a new TA Project  at BRI in 1988 he joined the  resident team of 3 advisors, and was responsible for savings products design- testing-monitoring, computerization, MIS and the impact of external subsidized credit programs (tree crops) on rural financial markets.  The project advised on strategy,  unit management and operations, design, testing,  accounting,  and roll-out of the main savings (SIMPEDES), loan (KUPEDES) products, computerization and streamlined MIS.  He visited over 300 unit banks throughout Indonesia on formal and informal survey and supervision exercises.  Current savings liabilities are  $3.0 billion, averaging about /$100 account, and the loan  assets   $1200 per loan,  half the funds available,  the balance earning interest by placement at the BRI.  This pre-eminent world renowned operation has maintained long-term loss ratios (amount paid over amount due)  below 4%,  over 23 years of sustained growth.  The 4000 units were profitablee through the 1998 crisis,  and a major factor allowing BRI to become the premier state bank and go public as a traded company. 

Rob joined RTI in 1993  moving to RIT and Washington DC to take up a position as Director of Economics for the WASH (Water and Sanitation for Health) Project, and  then   Director Financial and Private Sector Activities for the successor  Environmental Health Project(EHP.)   In these jobs he worked with USAID's Global Bureau of Health, directing and managing activities commissioned by missions,  as well as working on and directing those contributing to the  global health policy agenda :

1. assessing a role for micro-finance to facilitate investment in on-site water supply and sanitation;
2. evaluating the cost-effectiveness of water supply and sanitation  software to reduce infant disease burden from diarrhoeal diseases (published in the WHO Journal);
3. estimating the costs of coping with intermittent water supplies as a metaphor for the real prices paid, both by the poor and more well off  (these costs were shown to be consistent with CVM estimates); and
4. articulating a strategy for “poverty-targeted interventions" using design principles that recognized “demand, preferences and willingness to pay” as prime determinants of successful examples of peri-urban interventions to improve environmental health.

In 1997 he  returned to Indonesia for one year as a resident advisor and policy economist with CID (Consortium for International Development of  the Western US Universities) for the planning agency (BAPPENAS.)   The ADB TA ran multiple stakeholder fora as well as a national survey designed by Rob on the sustainability of irrigation, irrigation management, fiscal decentralization and institutional reform.  He was invited  by the US Department of the Interior to be a Keynote Speaker at the National Workshop on Water Conservation in South Africa,  in 1997.   While working for  RTI he was staff consultant to ADB and World Bank,  appraising banking mechanisms to replace the   Regional Development Account (RDA Indonesia) and support local government investment in infrastructure (mostly for water  supply).  Later when he became an independent,  he conducted the terminal evaluation of RDA, the conclusions  summarized in a 12-page paper presented to the joint WB/ADB seminar held in Jakarta in 2001.   

In 1998 he advised US companies on the localization and marketing of educational software for development bank financed projects, securing winning contracts for Turkish and US clients on the World Bank financed Turkey: Basic Education Project.   Between 1999 and 2004 his  World Bank  (Independent Evaluation Group) and Global Environment Facility contracts  included  Implementation Completion Reports (ICRs),  Country Assistance Evaluations (Sector, Program and Thematic),  in-country Project Performance Audit Reviews (PPAR)  and Executive Summary Reviews for final rating of over 100 ICRs.  In 1999 he was a member of the design team for a $600 mn Water Sector Adjustment Loan in Indonesia, and made trips to China  from 2002-4 for the China Country Assistance Evaluation (CAE) 1992-2002,  writing the background papers for water resources management, and environmental assistance.  For the East Asia Region he wrote the Philippines and East Asia Water Resouces Assistance Strategies, and a strategy document for Cambodia.  He also worked with IEG's Knowledge Management and Partnerships Division conducting a survey of international development evaluation training and writing abstracts for over 800 documents in the knowledge management database.  

His most recent assignments include studies of environmental impacts and water law for a proposed water pipeline in East Java (Umbulan),  governance and local government capacity in Indonesia,  private participation in water sector investment in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries,  and drafting regulations and guidelines for “project cycle” and “economic/financial appraisal” methodology and procedures for public sector investments in Azerbaijan.   At the December 2007 UNFCCC meeting on Climate Change in Bali he was was a delegate advisor to the President of the Islamic Development Bank's  (High Level Event on Climate Change organized for ministers and heads of international organization by the Indonesia Ministry of Finance.)  Download Resume