Jeff Dorsey

Jeff Dorsey did his graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where the study of institutional economics and land tenure are a legacy. Though studying Agricultural Economics, he worked at the Land Tenure Center (whose guidance and financial support is gratefully acknowledged) as a research assistant during most of his time at UW-Madison. His training at Wisconsin, reinforced by work in Chile, Bolivia and elsewhere in Latin America, provided Jeff with a good background in institutional economics, land tenure and related issues. He has brought this training and experience to bear in work around the world where institutional or tenure issues affect people’s abilities to develop their businesses and improve their families’ welfare. He applied this background and worked on a multi-country study of landless workers combining land access and employment issues. In Guyana, he prepared a program for conversion of land leases to freehold property, pointing out how such a program could be financed in its entirety by local financial institutions interested in land as collateral for mortgage finance of agriculture, which was severely limited under the prevail system of land leases.

His work in Kosovo showed how improving land tenure and property rights would increase the availability of finance for productive enterprises of all kinds. The Kyrgyzstan land redistribution fund survey which he directed focused on the costs and problems associated with land leasing, the difficulties faced in providing farmers with more secure forms of land tenure and the possible benefits of freehold tenure or long-term leases, as well as laying the ground work for legislation and implementing regulations to improve both leasing and property rights. He designed a system for managing land payments for a Millenium Challenge Corporation irrigation project providing small farmers with titles to their own land.

Various of Jeff's assignments have focused on the institutional and policy constraints to development, particularly of agricultural marketing and export trade in a variety of products. He has also studied large-scale land acquisitions in Ethiopia and Mali in terms of their impact on local farmers and indigenous people.

August to December 2012
Company Manager focusing on new business development for own consulting company in Bamako, Mali to provide services to Government, donors and private agencies and companies in good governance and agriculture, land issues, business, credit and development, with particular focus on appropriate systems for financial control and for assuring results from commensurate with outlays and interventions.

6 November to 20 December 2011
Team Leader, Ghana for an evaluation assessing advocacy training farmer-based organizations, coalition-building and improved interaction and services of local authorities.

14 September to 2009 to 13 September 2010
Rural Credit and Financial Services Specialist, Mali setting up a system to guarantee access to finance for farmers, women and their producer organizations, promoting value-chain financing, and designing a land payment system to provide beneficiaries of an irrigation project with titles to their land and improved access to medium-term finance.

24 August to 14 September 2009
Economy and Market Development Expert Expert in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for the design of SIDA's pro-poor, gender-sensitive, and market-oriented development program, recommending institutional partnerships and geographical areas of concentration.

October 2008 to April 2009
Team Leader in Ethiopia for a lessons learned study of an innovative CIDA-funded food security, income-generation and asset creation project in eastern Amhara region.

7 January to the 15 October 2008
Team Leader in Ethiopia for the World Bank-financed "Tana Beles Growth Corridor Endowments, Potentials and Constraints" study for the Ministry of Water Resources designing a growth strategy based on development of irrigation, regional marketing, finance, public-private partnerships and agribusiness.

14 August to October 9 2007
Proposal Writer, Uganda carrying out fieldwork in northern Uganda, meeting local authorities, development partners and recruiting prospective staff and local subcontractors, arranging public-private partnerships and preparing the technical proposal for USAID's SPRING project.

29 June to 7 August 2007
Team Leader, Uganda evaluating USAID's agricultural productivity enhancement project (APEP) related to technological adoption, increased production, producer organizations, group marketing, credit linkages and public-private partnerships.

November 2007
Agribusiness Expert designing the methodology for an evaluation of USAID business support projects in Serbia.

January to July 2012 (various times)
Proposal Writer and Agricultural Finance Author/Editor for providing sections on rural finance and employment for proposals and editing a manual on agricultural finance for banks and microfinance institutions in Africa embarking on lending programs for agriculture.

14 September to 2009 to 13 September 2010
analyzing property rights and land titles for beneficiaries of an irrigation project and designing a land payment system to provide unencumbered titles and improve access to credit.

2 June to 24 June 2007
Enterprise Specialist, Huambo, Angola analyzing potential business opportunities arising in peri-urban and rural areas due to improvement in property rights.

16 April to 19 May, 2006 and 12 August to 2 September 2006
Economist/Land Tenure Survey Manager, Kyrgyzstan for USAID responsible for the design, supervision and analysis of a survey of 550 farmers and local government officials concerning terms of agricultural leases, production, soil and water conservation and investment decisions on leased land and recommendations on improvements in leasing arrangements and the ultimate transfer of leased land to farmers.

1 to 23 February 2004
Rural Land Tenure/Agriculture Specialist in Kosovo on an ARD team carrying out a study for USAID of land and property rights and their impact on economic development and finance for enterprises including agricultural crops (potatoes, vegetables, etc), dairy, and trout aquaculture and on improving property rights to increase the use of immoveable property as collateral for bank finance.

January 29 to March 12, 2000
Senior Institutional Management Specialist, Egypt, assessing impacts of the research, design and implementation and the monitoring, verification and evaluation units on success of an agricultural policy reform program. The major focus of this program is on improving the regulatory environment and enabling rules and acts governing agribusinesses and exporters of Egyptian farm products, including aquaculture.

May 13 to 4 July 4, 1998
Land Tenure Analyst, Guyana preparing a program and financing mechanism for conversion of land leases to freehold property, establishing criteria and priorities for areas and farmers to be covered in initial years of program operation. The impact of the change-over to freehold tenure on the development of farm-processing and non-farm rural businesses was also assessed.

11 May to 11 September 1994
Fisheries Economist, Mexico, FAO analyzing viability and investment in fish capture, processing and marketing in Mexican fisheries and aquaculture (including land-titling and credit for aquaculture projects). Macroeconomic factors affecting fisheries investment (including overvaluation of the currency) were highlighted three months prior to the devaluation of the peso. Economic and financial analysis of various types of fisheries and aquaculture activities was also carried out.

10 August to 29 September 1990
Agricultural Economist, Chapare, Bolivia, evaluating a USAID-funded crop and livestock production alternatives to coca production supported by cash grants for eradication, land titles, credit and basic infrastructure. Various processing and product marketing enterprises were analyzed.

21 October to 23 December 1988
Agricultural Economist, Honduras, for a USAID-funded policy study analyzing exchange rate, land tenure, marketing, export disincentives and financial constraints on private sector investment in production and processing of domestic and export crops.

March to October 1984
Land Tenure Analyst, FAO, Rome responsible for the design of a multi-country study of landless workers, promoting wage income, better access to land and more non-farm businesses.

February to March 1983
Consultant for the Land Tenure Center, USAID-funded, evaluating production, marketing and repayment capacity of small farmers in the Bolivian Chaco on loans for land-clearing services, building stockwater ponds and annual crop production. Processing industries were also reviewed.

July – August 1982
Research Assistant, Land Tenure Center of the University of Wisconsin, in charge of the production function analysis of a dataset from a farm-level survey of small farms and agrarian reform cooperatives in El Salvador.

January 1973 to September 1975
Research Assistant, Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, responsible for the Bolivia report and the preparation of two case studies based on farm-level production and marketing survey data, for the World Bank's Comparative Study of Land Reform in Five Latin American Countries.

February 1967 to August 1971
Peace Corps volunteer/project manager, Rancagua, Chile, managing a rural electrification program providing for the needs of agrarian reform beneficiaries for residential, farm-electricity and farm-processing plant electric power.