Ir Dick Commandeur

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Dick Commandeur, with studies in Animal Husbandry, Development Economics and Rural Sociology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, is a well-connected expert within entrepreneurial and international development cooperation circles related with agriculture and commerce. Dick has lived and worked in Europe, Central and South America and Africa, with international and local businesses organizations, universities and other public institutions. He did specializations in Microeconomics of Competitiveness (methodology of the Harvard Business Institute), Marketing Management and Quality Management.

For 30 years he was advisor to development, producer and government organizations and manager of different development programs, focusing on economic themes, private sector and producer organization business development, public policy definition and implementation, and inclusive public procurement. He led and participated in the writing, negotiation and implementation of various rural and business development projects, in collaboration with other local and international experts. 

Some of the highlights of Dick’s career are:

  • For more than 5 years he has been active as entrepreneur and facilitator of collaboration among private and public sector stakeholders in his current residence in Sucre, Bolivia.

  • In 2016 and 2017, he developed a capacity strengthening strategy for local economic producer organizations and meso-level development partners for Helvetas (Guatemala), with the aim to enhance their role in specific market systems, for the Rural Territorial Economic Development Project (PRODERT). Alongside this, he supported a new $18 million proposal for the continuation of the project, that became awarded.

  • From 2010 to 2016, he wrote a $5 million project proposal for SNV Netherlands Development Organization, on procurement governance for Home Grown School Feeding programs, awarded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Afterwards, he became the senior technical advisor to the project, achieving giving access to 25,000 smallholder farmers in Kenya, Ghana and Mali to the supply chains to local and national school feeding programs and food buying companies.

  • In this same period, he did technical missions and supported proposal writing initiatives for SNV in Mali, Burkina Faso and Ethiopia, related with rural cooperatives and value chains as food grains, fruits and other commodities.

  • He lectured at the Andean University Simon Bolivar and the San Francisco Xavier University, both in Sucre, Bolivia for virtual master courses on rural development and value chain development and for a course and municipal development planning.

  • From 2009 and 2012, he was coordinator for the set-up and implementation of an e-learning program “Value Chain Development” for the advisors and consultants related with SNV in Central and West Africa.

  • From 2004 to 2007 he was thematic leader of SNV in Bolivia for economic development and part of the Latin-American expert team on the same topic.

  • Between 1988 and 2010, he advised and led different NGOs, producer organizations and SNV advisory teams in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ghana on topics related with rural development, producer organization strengthening and value chain development. Among the value chains he directly dealt with are milk, pineapple, mango and wheat.

  • He participated and presented at international conferences of SEEP, IPPC, George Washington University, AGRA, GCNF, IDB, ECLAC.

  • He has 14 publications as author or co-author, mostly on topics related with rural and economic development and associated with the previous activities.

ExpertTom Chantactive