Profile

Sharmala Naidoo is the Director of Misuka Green Development Solutions, a boutique firm dedicated to green and equitable development. Misuka Green is an independent advisor on issues related to sustainable development and a range of international finance and development policy issues related to a green economy and low carbon growth and infrastructure, climate finance and development cooperation.

Sharmala worked at the National Treasury for ten years where she drove the change management of the International Economics Unit, leading it during South Africa’s chair of the G20. She also managed the first ever country-led assessment of Official Development Assistance to South Africa.

Her clients include governments, international agencies and global and local NGOs. Some of these are the OECD, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), the South African National Treasury and Department of Trade & Industry, the UN's FAO, UN ECOSOC and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) South Africa.

Leading organizations trust Misuka Green because Sharmala brings an extraordinary level of experience, commitment, analysis and intuition to every initiative.

Sharmala holds a Masters Degree in Sociology of Development (Essex, UK) and a second Masters degree in Environment and Development (Cantab, UK).

 

EXPERTISE

*International finance and development and sustainable development/ green economy

* Development cooperation

*Knowledge of priorities and systems of international finance and development cooperation partners (including multilateral development banks), NGO and Government sectors in South Africa

*Strategic planning, relationship management, monitoring and evaluation and program management 

TECHNICAL SKILLS

*Project and programme design and management
*Policy analysis
*Policy development
*International trend analysis
*Evaluation

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

i.MPhil Environment & Development, Cantab (University of Cambridge), UK 2002. Thesis: Patterns of HIV/AIDS prevalence in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

ii.MA Sociology of Development, University of Essex, UK 1992. Thesis: Sustainable development: possibilities in a post-apartheid South Africa (distinction)

iii.B Social Science, University of Natal (now University of KwaZulu-Natal), South Africa 1991 majors in Industrial Psychology and Sociology

NON-DEGREE COURSES

Cambridge Advanced Programme in Development Economics, July 2007

International Organization & Systems Development (Gestalt) Programme, 2005-2006 (18 month professionals program)

Applying the Cape Cod Model to Organizations, Gestalt International Study Centre, Cape Cod, USA (4 week program)

NETWORKS

Dr Simon Zadek
http://www.zadek.net

Maya Forstater
http://hiyamaya.wordpress.com

Econrise, Ms. Shirley Robinson
http://www.econrise.co.za

Paul Weinberg (Photographer)
Contribution of photos for this website
www.paulweinberg.co.za