David Slane

Presently, David works as the Country Representative for Malawi and Chief of Party for the USAID funded ‘Business Acceleration for Youth Project,’ engaging with multiple partners and stakeholders across research, government and the private sector. By enhancing entrepreneurship skills and access to finance for start-ups and established M/SMEs, the project seeks to improve resilience in households and communities in Malawi, which are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. It is anticipated that supported businesses, will achieve great growth and provide additional income and employment within the targeted communities.

David has extensive experience working at both a senior management and technical level in private sector development, agribusiness, food-security and livelihoods projects. These projects have often utilized novel and innovative approaches to address issues associated with private sector and small holder access to sustainable, long term commercial markets and finance. This has included the utilization of a Market Systems Development approach and value chain analysis of key household food security and cash crops. Managing these projects has frequently involved recruiting, training and mentoring of technical specialists and administrative staff in decentralized office environments. Previously, David has also worked in food aid logistics and managed monetization sales on behalf of USAID projects.