Professional Experience:
Charles Nornoo has a Master of Philosophy and a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics and additional fourteen professional certificates/diplomas obtained globally. He has over thirty years experience as a business and organizational development consultant, an economist, a researcher, an evaluator, a development practitioner, a farmer, a food processor, and a businessman – a blend of expertise, unique experiences, and leadership skills that account for the depth of ideas, solutions, results, and outcomes that Charles is noted for.
Charles began his professional career as an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Ghana in 1991; joined TechnoServe Ghana in 1993 as an Evaluation Specialist and rose in eight years to become the Ghana Country Programme Manager and the Lead Person for TechnoServe Inc. Monitoring and Evaluation Systems development & management.
After leaving TechnoServe, Charles has been instrumental in the establishment of West Africa Trade Hub 1 for the USAID West Africa Regional office in Accra; the Newmont External Affairs Monitoring and Evaluation Unit for Newmont Africa Limited; the Programs unit of Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency in Nigeria; the Agriculture Fast Track Facility for the G7 and the African Development Bank in la Cote d’Ivoire; among others. All these entities are operational and successful.
Charles has expertise and tremendous experience in resource and people management in Africa. Experience that transcends managing projects/programs; leading Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning assignments; negotiating deals, managing both private sector and civil society organizations, and advising on policy options. In his immediate past position as the Chief of Party for the USAID West Africa Analytical Support Services and Evaluations for Sustainable Systems Project, Charles led a team of 12 professionals to provide monitoring, evaluation, learning, and other support services to USAID/West Africa’s Regional Economic Growth Office, that has a portfolio which included programs in Agriculture, Trade, Environment, and Energy covering 21 countries.
He has extensive work experience with the Universities in Ghana and Nigeria. The most recent was an engagement by the Tony Blair Institute to lead the Ghana component of the Food System Transformative Integrated Policy project. This entailed working with the universities, NDPC, MMDAs, MDA, CSOs, and the private sector.
He also completed a 40-month consulting assignment for the Government of Ghana, managing two projects funded by the World Bank, USAID, and the Japan Social Development Fund – i.e., the US$200 million Ghana Commercial Agricultural Project and the US$2.8 million Ghana Peri-urban Vegetables Value Chain Project. He led a team of twenty professionals that turned selected Ghanaian farmers into astute investors practicing sustainable, inclusive, and climate-smart agriculture.
Charles has work experience in all fifteen ECOWAS countries, USA, Italy, France, Netherlands, UK and seven other countries in East and Southern Africa. Charles works well with people from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds and is at home interacting and working with the donor community and government employees. Essentially, his forte is in managing a multi-disciplinary and cultural team of experts.
Charles has served on boards for state institutions, private sector companies, and civil society organizations.