MDI-Ghana Faculty Bios

Prof. Michel Adjibodou - SNHU CED Program
Michel Adjibodou is currently the Director of the Community Economic Development Program, a partnership between Southern New Hampshire University and the Open University of Tanzania, offering a Master of Science in International Community Economic Development. Prior to joining Southern New Hampshire University in 2001, Michel taught Business Strategies, Ethics, Management in Community Mental Health, and Entrepreneurship at New England College, in New Hampshire.

In 1997, Michel started and coordinated the first Minnesota Early Learning Design (MELD), a Parenting Education Program for young fathers, under a partnership between Federated Dorchester and the Massachusetts Children’s Trust Fund. In conjunction with his work at MELD, Michel was a Research Assistant at the Africana Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts in Boston from 1997 to 2002. In the 1990s, Michel lectured extensively on “Vodun” as a traditional, cultural, and religious way of life in parts of Ghana, Togo, and Benin his home country. Such institutions include: Wayne State University and Marygrove College in Michigan; Roxbury Community College, Cambridge Center for Adult Education, Northeastern University, the University of Massachusetts (Boston), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Massachusetts.

Prior to coming to the United States, Michel worked at the West and Central African News Development Agency (WANAD) a UNESCO Project designed to train news agencies journalist. Currently, Michel is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Initiative for Regional and Community Transformation (IRCT) at Rutgers University. Michel received his Licence in Law, Judicial Matters and Business Law, from University Nationale du Benin, and his Master of Science in International Community Economic Development from New Hampshire College currently known as Southern New Hampshire University.

Mr. Hugh Allen – VSL Associates

Hugh Allen has worked in development since 1970, focusing for most of the last 15 years on microfinance and technology-focused market development activities. For 13 years he worked for CARE and was their Chief Technical Advisor for Small Economic Activity Development in Africa. It was during this time that he first came across the VS&L model and realized its potential.

These days he works exclusively to promote its adoption by multi-sectorial development agencies and southern NGOs. He is on the faculty of Southern New Hampshire’s Microenterprise Development Institute and the Boulder Microfinance Training program and is co-facilitator of the SEEP working group on Savings-led Financial Services. He has published books with ITDG on technology related activities and savings-led financial services.

Dr. David Obu Andah
Dr. Andah is an experienced banker with agricultural background. For 25 years, he worked with banks handling for the most part rural and micro finance schedules.  He has handled Credit Guarantee Schemes at the banks.  He has been used by the World Bank as resource person on regulation of micro finance institutions.  Retired as the Director of Non-Bank Financial Institutions Department of the Bank of Ghana.  He is now consulting in rural and micro finance.

Mr. Mark Kofi Fynn - GTZ
Mark Fynn holds an undergraduate degree in Agriculture with specialization in Economics, from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana. He also has an MSc degree in Environmental Change and Management from the Environmental Change Institute of the University of Oxford, UK. Mark worked for two years in the UK, first as an energy/climate change intern for Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future in London, and as a Sustainable Development Officer for a UK government institution (East Midlands Regional Assembly).

Since 2006, Mark has being working in Ghana as a value chain advisor for the German Technical Cooperation’s (GTZ) Market Oriented Agriculture Programme.  The role includes mainstreaming the value chain development approach with Ghana’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture. In addition, he carries out analytical work for the promotion of specific commodity value chains. The role also brings him in close contact with a wide range of stakeholders from policy makers to small holder farmers, helping to identify and overcome constraints and to take advantage of opportunities in agribusiness in Ghana

Mark is a passionate believer in pro-poor enterprise development as a sustainable approach to poverty reduction in developing countries.

Mr. William Harrington - MEDA
Bill Harrington is a senior investment advisor with specialties in capital-raising, business planning and governance issues.  He has almost twenty-five years of experience in business development including consulting with microfinance institutions in Latin America, Africa, Central Asia, South Asia and Eastern Europe.  He has been responsible for the identification of investment candidates including both microfinance institutions and operating companies, as well as due diligence evaluations and negotiation of investment terms and conditions.  Since 2003, he has worked for Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA).  MEDA is a faith-based, North American NGO which has developed business opportunities to create jobs and improve living conditions for the poor in developing countries for over 50 years.

During most of the 1990s, Mr. Harrington was executive vice president of a non-profit organization in the US that helps advanced technology businesses to start and grow.  In that position he had responsibility for five specialized investment funds with a portfolio of more than 200 companies.  He and his staff annually reviewed more than 250 business plans, conducted approximately 200 due diligence reviews and provided technical assistance to many of the portfolio companies.  Mr. Harrington has a degree in mechanical engineering from Lafayette College and a master’s degree in city planning from the University of Pennsylvania.  He has served as a judge of the business plan competition for the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania since its inception.  He is a co-facilitator of the Investment Readiness Working Group of the SEEP Network.

Dr. Linda Jones - Technical Consultant
Linda Jones is an independent consultant who specializes in capacity building and pro-poor development of enterprises, value chains and subsectors / industries. Linda’s technical expertise is in: private sector development; program strategy, design and planning; subsector and value chain analysis; programming for marginalized populations including low-income women; and the development and implementation of tools and techniques for effective market research and analysis.

Jones was previously Technical Director for MEDA, an International NGO, where she was responsible for new program development, industry trends, technical advice on program design and implementation, and training. Jones is the Pro-Poor Enterprise Development track coordinator for the Microenterprise Development Institute at Southern New Hampshire University, a member of the Editorial Board of the Enterprise Development and Microfinance Journal (formerly SED), the past Chair of the Board of Directors of the SEEP Network, and a regular contributor to conferences, seminars and workshops. Jones holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology, managed a university research centre, and was a successful entrepreneur for over ten years. Email: psdjones@gmail.com

Ruth Dueck Mbeba, Senior Microfinance Consultant, MEDA
Ms. Mbeba has over 20 years’ experience in accounting, in public accounting, as a controller, and as a practitioner and consultant in the field of microfinance. She was based in East Africa for 8 years, serving as a Finance and Training Specialist and Senior Consultant with MEDA. Ms. Dueck-Mbeba has extensive experience in building capacity at all levels of a micro-credit organization and in the development and implementation of appropriate systems and tools for best practices in microfinance.

She also has considerable experience in the design and delivery of microfinance training curriculum and workshops, particularly in the area of internal controls and internal audits. She has conducted training for the Boulder Institute (Turin and Chile), for the School of Applied Microfinance in Kenya and for MicroSave in India.

Her range of country experience includes Afghanistan, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Pakistan, Tanzania and Thailand. She has also served as the Facilitator of SEEP’s Financial Services Working Group. Ms. Dueck-Mbeba is a Certified General Accountant, holds a certificate in Adult Education and is a candidate for the Certified Internal Auditor designation.

Ms. Aba Amissah Quainoo
Ms. Quainoo is a Development Economist and Sociologist who has specialised in Rural Development, Private Sector Development, Financial Management, Entrepreneurship Development, Gender and Development Issues, Micro-Finance Delivery Mechanisms and micro-finance institutional development with over twelve years experience in working and rendering professional services in that field.

For five years, she designed and managed an innovative savings and credit facility targeted primarily at women, as part of the Women’s World Banking network in Ghana. Ms. Quainoo has also designed a micro-leasing scheme targeted at micro and small-scale enterprises for LEASAFRIC Ghana Limited, the largest Leasing Company in Ghana.

She was the lead consultant for the design of a national strategic framework for the microfinance sector in Ghana. Ms Quainoo was the lead consultant for the design of a microfinance fund to be accessed by Microfinance Institutions in Ghana (MFIs). The fund has a technical assistance window for the MFIs.

Ms. Quainoo has provided professional services in economic policy review, research, monitoring, evaluation of developmental programmes and training services for a variety of clients including the World Bank, the European Union (EU), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO).

Ms. Alexandra Snelgrove - MEDA
Alexandra joined MEDA’s Production and Marketing Linkages Group in 2004. In her current capacity as Senior Consultant/Project Manager, she contributes to projects focussed on enterprise development, sub-sector analysis, and value chain enhancement including a fruit and vegetable subsector development program in Ethiopia and Zambia and a project linking homebound rural embroiderers into higher value markets in Pakistan.

Alex also manages a project centered on technology dissemination for horticulture producers in Ethiopia and Zambia. Alex frequently consults with other organizations and institutions in the areas of private sector development, value chain and sub-sector analysis, and program design and development.

Before joining MEDA, Alexandra completed her Masters in Economic Development at Columbia University in New York City. Alexandra’s previous consulting experience includes analysis of the vegetable subsector and initial needs assessment in Cambodia, participation on a research team analyzing global cashew consumption and possible marketing strategies for cashew processors, and strategic planning for a start-up microenterprise development organization. Prior to entering the international development field, Alex worked in trade promotion in Malaysia in both the private and public sectors.

Prof. William Steel
William F. Steel retired in 2005 as Senior Adviser in the Africa Region Private Sector Group of the World Bank, where he worked since 1983, specializing in small enterprise development and microfinance.  He is currently based in Accra, Ghana, teaching Economics of Microfinance at the University of Ghana and consulting for the World Bank, GTZ, and others.

He co-authored the World Bank’s “Framework for the Development of Micro, Small Enterprise and Rural Finance in Sub-Saharan Africa” and “Rural Financial Services: Implementing the Bank’s Strategy to Reach the Rural Poor,” as well as studies of microfinance regulation in four African countries. He is part of World Bank/IFAD teams working on Rural Financial Services projects in Ghana and Uganda.

As Co-Chair of the Committee of Donor Agencies for Small Enterprise Development (1991-2004), he led the development of Guiding Principles for donor support both for microfinance (1995) and for business development services (2001).  He is one of the founders and a member of the Steering Committee of the international network on Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO)

He has published numerous studies, articles and books on small enterprise development, informal financial markets, microfinance regulation, employment of women, and industrial adjustment.  He previously taught economics at Vanderbilt University and the University of Ghana, and he has served as an Advisor in the African Development Bank and the Indonesia National Planning Agency.

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