Professional Experience:
Mr. Eugene Cole is a highly experienced natural resource specialist with a career spanning 25 years, primarily focused on natural resource management (NRM) and rural development in West Africa. His expertise has been honed through his work on large, donor-funded programs, including those from USAID, GTZ/GIZ, DFID, and UNDP, positioning him as a leader in community-based NRM, livelihood security, and community empowerment across countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, and Sudan.
Mr. Cole has held technical and leadership roles throughout his career, providing him with a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities in NRM. His work consistently emphasizes sustainability, efficient resource use, and long-term impact, and he has significantly contributed to the region's biodiversity conservation. He is the Cross-Cutting Services Lead for the West Africa Biodiversity and Low Emissions Development (WABiLED) program. In this role, Mr. Cole focuses on enhancing project efficiency and ensuring sustainable outcomes while specializing in knowledge management, monitoring, evaluation, learning (MEL), gender integration, and natural resource governance.
Mr. Cole’s academic background includes a master’s in environmental biology and a bachelor’s in botany from the University of Sierra Leone, supplemented by extensive training in environmental assessments, project monitoring and evaluation, and capacity building for NGOs and governments. This broad knowledge base has enabled him to effectively lead teams, oversee technical operations, coordinate partnerships, and manage complex budgets and contracts.
One of Mr. Cole’s notable leadership roles was Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP) on USAID’s People, Rules, and Organizations Supporting the Protection of Ecosystem Resources (PROSPER) Project in Liberia. In this role, he provided technical and managerial oversight for a large team and 15 partner organizations, contributing to post-conflict community forest management in Liberia. His work involved policy reform on land tenure, forestry, and local governance and decentralizing forest law enforcement to community associations. A key achievement was his leadership in developing Liberia’s 9-step process toward Authorized Forest Community status, a government requirement that enabled communities to manage their forest resources.
As Cross-Cutting Services Lead for WABiLED, Mr. Cole improved coordination among key teams. He led efforts to update the MEL system, develop a Protected Areas Social Safeguard (PASS), and integrate gender and youth strategies into the program’s objectives. His leadership enhanced data quality, strengthened capacity, and produced communications recognized by USAID.
Previously, Mr. Cole served as the Knowledge Management and Learning (KML) Specialist for USAID’s West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA BiCC) program, where he led a team responsible for monitoring, evaluation, learning, and communications. His leadership has developed learning themes and created knowledge products that informed policy discussions and regional conferences across West Africa.
Before WA BiCC, Mr. Cole held a senior technical advisory role with USAID’s Feed the Future Ghana Agriculture and Natural Resource Management project. He provided technical support for integrating natural resource value chain strengthening, climate-smart agriculture, and biodiversity management into the project’s outcomes.
Throughout his career, Mr. Cole has built strong relationships with key stakeholders in West Africa, contributing to regional policy reform and capacity building, particularly in forest law enforcement. Fluent in English and conversational in French, Mr. Cole remains a committed leader in sustainable natural resource management and continues to shape the future of biodiversity conservation in West Africa.