Houston Executive Consulting · Our Team
Hazra Okem Development that delivers lasting value.
International Development Consultant, MEL Expert, NGO Management and Agribusiness Value Chain Specialist. Hazra designs, manages and evaluates market-led agricultural development programmes that connect smallholder farmers, private agribusiness and development partners.
Profile overview
An international development specialist who connects evidence, institutions and markets.
Hazra Okem is an international development professional with over 12 years of experience in programme leadership, monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning, resource mobilisation and team supervision. Her work spans agricultural development, climate resilience, gender and girls’ advocacy, organisational leadership and partnership building.
She brings a practical market-systems perspective to rural development: understanding the conditions that help farmer groups, local institutions and private businesses work together, while ensuring that programme decisions are guided by reliable evidence and donor-compliant reporting.
Hazra is Chief Executive Officer of Seniors without Borders Uganda, where she provides strategic leadership, builds partnerships, supports resource mobilisation and oversees monitoring and evaluation of in-country projects. Her experience also includes senior roles with Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project, Forum for Women in Democracy and Plan International.
“Development creates lasting value when evidence improves decisions and markets work for the people they are meant to serve.”
How Hazra contributes
Four connected areas of expertise.
Assignments are tailored to the programme context, combining strategic analysis, field-aware implementation and a strong focus on measurable, sustainable results.
Agribusiness value chains
Market systems development, smallholder commercialisation, climate-smart agriculture, public-private partnerships and cooperative market linkages.
Monitoring, evaluation & learning
Theories of Change, logical frameworks, performance monitoring, mixed-methods evaluations and adaptive management.
NGO leadership & compliance
Organisational strategy, resource mobilisation, local-NGO capacity building, donor reporting and cross-functional team leadership.
Climate resilience & inclusion
Programme support for climate resilience, mitigation and adaptation, women’s leadership, advocacy and farmer learning groups.
Career record
Experience built across programmes, partnerships and institutions.
Chief Executive Officer · Seniors without Borders Uganda
Provides strategic leadership, resource mobilisation and partnership development; oversees monitoring and evaluation of in-country projects and supports regulatory compliance.
Project Lead · Agroforestry Project, Mount Elgon
Led a project among coffee farmer field learning groups, supporting practical environmental and agricultural learning.
Deputy Country Director · Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project
Supported organisational leadership, staff capacity building, HR management, fundraising, strategic planning and donor reporting.
Regional and programme leadership roles · Plan International and Forum for Women in Democracy
Managed and coordinated donor-funded work on girls’ advocacy, women’s empowerment and leadership, including technical support to remote teams and a five-country regional portfolio.
Selected assignment experience
Work designed to turn agricultural investment into measurable change.
These selected highlights reflect the experience supplied for Hazra’s profile, alongside her documented programme and organisational leadership record.
- Conducted a maize and horticulture market-systems analysis that identified interventions integrating over 15,000 smallholder farmers into formal regional supply chains.
- Designed and executed a mixed-methods end-line evaluation for a US$5 million climate-resilient agriculture project, using digital data tools to measure a 35% increase in household incomes.
- Authored technically sound, market-driven proposals with compliant M&E frameworks that secured over US$8 million in institutional donor funding.
- Directed rural-livelihood programmes with a cross-functional team of more than 40 staff and a 98% budget utilisation rate under compliance requirements.
- Oversaw the capacity building of 25 farmer producer organisations in governance, financial management and collective marketing.
- Transitioned organisational tracking from paper-based processes to a cloud-based dashboard, reducing reporting turnaround time by 40%.
Professional development
Leadership, enterprise and professional training.
Feminist Organisational Leadership
Certificate from Urgent Action Fund, Malawi.
Steering Innovative Leadership
Certificate from Sookmyung Women’s University, South Korea.
Build Your Business
Business-development training through Microsoft Foundation at Makerere Business School.
Development and Research Using Social Media
Certificate completed in London.
Professional Writing Skills
Certificate from JANyeko Publishing Centre Ltd.
Enterprise Management
Certificate from Enterprise Uganda.
Academic foundation
Economics, energy and natural-resource education.
MSc Petroleum, Energy Economics and Finance
University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom · 2017
BSc Natural Resource Economics
Busitema University, Uganda · 2013
Research and professional learning
Specialised learning in development research, enterprise management, leadership and professional writing.
Strategic focus
What a Hazra Okem engagement is designed to strengthen.
Practical advisory support for development organisations, agricultural programmes and partnerships that need clearer evidence, stronger systems and more inclusive market outcomes.
Market-led agriculture
Assess value chains, diagnose constraints and shape interventions that connect farmers, producer organisations and private-market opportunities.
Evidence for adaptive action
Build MEL systems that collect useful data, support credible reporting and help teams learn and adapt while implementation is under way.
Stronger local organisations
Support NGO leadership, compliance, partnerships, staff capability and the systems needed for responsible programme delivery.
Start a conversation
Tell us how Hazra can help.
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