Discussing anti-money laundering and banking regulation in Somaliland while in the field in Gadibley, scoping a water transmission site.

About

Rima das Pradhan-Blach is an international affairs specialist with over 25 years of field experience.She is of  Nepali origin, born in Darjeeling in India, a naturalised Australian and resident in Denmark.

Rima brings practical, context-specific solutions in complex situations, while understanding international and national political priorities.  Rima is skilled in translating political goals, to shape public policy internationally and nationally, and then designing and leading implementation of projects in complex environments.

Rima has a demonstrated track record in not only delivering at pace but also in multi-track diplomacy at international and national levels. She is  best at being a bridge between different worlds, bringing people together and thinking out of the box to deliver results.

Clients

She has been a Strategic and Senior Adviser to Heads of Governments, as well as senior diplomats and officials within a range of development finance institutions and  projects supported by them.   She does a mix of long-term and short-term assignments either as an individual, or  hired through International  Affairs and Legal Consulting (IALC).

Most recently, she was the Team Leader for the European Union (EU) Support to Inclusive Federalism (EUSIF), and was based in Surkhet, Karnali Province in Mid Western Nepal. This was a complementary project to the Nepal Government's flagship project, the Provincial and Local Governance Support Programme, also supported by the EU, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway and the Federal Government of Nepal. This project aimed to build the capacity of provincial and local governments in Karnali Province to strengthen inclusive service delivery, support evidence-based decision-making, build the capacity of the Karnali Provincial Training Academy, strengthen policy dialogues and create social accountability platforms. One of the outputs was to establish the Project Information Management System.

In Iraq, she worked with former combatants from the Yazidi community to help them reintegrate them into their communities in and around the Sinjar Valley which bore the brunt of the genocide committed by ISIS in 2014. Within a matter of two weeks, entire villages were wiped out, and more than  6,000 women and children were taken captive by ISIS and nearly 2,800 are still missing today. See the Policy Brief of the Community Security and Integration Project II  here.

She was the Team Leader for the European Union (EU) financed Territorial Integration and Planning Facility for the EU's Inclusive Local and Economic Development Programme in Somalia (Oover €100 million with Danish and Swedish Government contributions). This included identifying priorities across three Result areas:

i) Stabilisation and local governance

ii) Inclusive local economic development with the establishment of an investment facility, inclusive finance facility, resilient value chains facility, as well as a youth entrepreneurship facility

iii) Social Protection facility

The infrastructure facility is cross-cutting across the three result areas. 

Prior to that in 2018 and early 2019, she advised the Somaliland Government on a range of issues including completing a prioritisation process to identify infrastructure investment priorities to be financed by the SomalilaNd Development Fund (II) financed by the UK, Danish and the Netherlands. She also advised the Somaliland Government as well as the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (UK-FCDO) on the award-winning Energy Security and Resource Efficiency in Somaliland project. 

During this time, Rima also advised the African Development Bank, and the German Development Bank (KfW) on Technical and Vocation Education and Training related to infrastructure as well as infrastructure prioritisation and coordination in Somalia. 

As the Strategic Adviser on the innovative UK-FCDO financed Implementing Accountability in Action Project (AAAP) in Somalia, she played an important role in finding influencing spaces to share the findings of the various projects funded by IAAAP amongst donors, the UN as well as the Somali Government. During this time she organised the historic conference on urbanisation in Somalia in 2018 for different stakeholders to consider lessons learned to inform programming in Somalia - a country which faces one of the highest rates of urbanisation in the world.

Rima served as the Country Director for the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) in Somalia, leading a team delivering a complex portfolio of stipends payments to the Somali National Army, and Police, infrastructure planning and delivery, stabilisation, renewable energy, and shaped implementation by being deeply engaged in the strategic policy space.

Education

Being legally trained, underpinned by an undergraduate degree in human ecology, both from the Australian National University - Rima continued to use her extensive field experience in primarily Fragile and Conflicted Affected Countries (FCAS) to reflect on issues while completing  a  Masters in Policy Administration from Georgetown University, Public Policy Institute in 2003. The  focus of the Masters was very much about war to peace transitions.

Types of projects

Rima has provided technical advice, coached leaders across the board and led efforts on:

• Public administration reform, including public financial management, decentralisation and civil service reform
• Strengthening state institutions to strengthen basic service delivery in sectors such as health, education, water and infrastructure
• Infrastructure planning
• Sustainable development of productive sectors and creating enabling environments for private sector development particularly in FCAS settings
• Promotion of renewable energy and improving access to cheap and reliable energy to promote security, service delivery and economic development
• Justice sector and security sector reform, including improving access to justice and security
• Establishing accountable, flexible bi-lateteral and mulltilateral funds, including catalytic funds for all of the above
• Anti-corruption
• Stabilisation and durable solutions
• Youth employment and migration
• Working on innovative durable solutions to promote resilience to address long-term humanitarian issues

Countries of experience

Rima has worked in over 20 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, the Pacific, and the USA.

Most of all Rima is  an adventurer, with an indominatble curiousity about the world and people and finding the right solutions to address complex problems..

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