Taking his expertise to distant lands
Ian Anderson is no stranger to exotic locales. After spending time in Guatemala, Ukraine, and Israel, where he was able to put his knowledge and skills into practice, Ian travelled to Tajikistan to spend eight months working with the Mountain Societies Development Support Programme (MSDSP). His responsibilities there involved supervising four monitoring and evaluation projects (two large-scale surveys and two in-depth case studies).
A Montreal native with a master’s from the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA), Ian never misses a chance to share the knowledge and know-how he gained during his years on campus.
Ian was first drawn to the University because of the multidisciplinary program at the GSPIA, where he was able to fully explore some of his academic interests, including global governance, democratic development and conflict resolution.
He quickly started putting the knowledge he had gained to good use in a variety of ways. The projects he worked on in Tajikistan evaluated local governance performance across a number of areas, including service delivery and enterprise development.
"The master’s program at the School of Public and International Affairs was instrumental in preparing me for my career. It provided me with the foundation I needed for the things I have gone on to do…My studies really shaped the person I have become," he says.
Ian now serves as a Governance Officer with the Canadian International Development Agency in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He is posted to the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team, and works on governance and institution-building initiatives with the provincial and district governments of Kandahar province.
By Dominic Boutin
Published: November 2010