Mr. Warwick Thomson

Warwick is a company director and consultant to the development industry, Leadership and Management in Development Assistance. For the past 20 years his work has focused on the East Africa region. He has been a member of MFAT’s Design Services and Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) Panels.

Warwick has over 30 years of development industry experience, from some 17 countries, working with agriculture and agribusiness, private sector and trade development, post-conflict economic recovery and natural resource management. He has consulted for NZ MFAT, DFID, the World Bank, UNOPS, Danida, Finnida, Sida and private sector clients. He has 20 years of residential experience in The Philippines, Nepal, Eritrea and Uganda; as an advisor, programme manager, development partner representative, partner in policy dialogue, in governance roles, and as a consultant and practitioner. Warwick has well developed skills in:

• Diplomacy, policy development and management. Managing development assistance for aid-effectiveness.
• Leadership and management of economic development – small, large and complex – through all phases of the project cycle; from identification, and formulation to implementation, reviews and evaluations. Primarily agricultural and agribusiness development.
• Use of contemporary approaches and tools for project and programme identification, design, management and monitoring and evaluation. Results Management and learning.
• Applying Market Systems Development (MSD/M4P) and value-chain development methodologies. The DCED Standard.
• Organisational development, leadership and governance.
• Private sector-based approaches for trade, economic growth and employment – the enabling environment and building competitiveness to improve business and investment performance. Trade and export promotion and business partnerships.
• Financial services development and management. Partnerships for blended finance.
• Public policy and budget management. Public financial management.
• Economic development in fragile states and post conflict responses.
• Green-growth, equity and environmental issues in development. Socially responsible investment. Social performance management, measurement and reporting.

Warwick now consults from his home country, New Zealand.

Warwick was the original Founders Representative during the establishment of aBi, also serving on the aBi Finance and aBi Trust Boards from 2015 to September 2018. Since 2018, Warwick has served as Vice Chairperson of aBi Boards (aBi Finance and aBi Development) as well as Chairperson of the Procurement and Investment Committee to date.