For those CIE affiliates who were not yet born or were still rolling around in a cradle, I am one of the early faculty members, recruited at CIE in 1975 as Assistant Professor, to develop and teach graduate courses in non-formal education for rural development. It was my first job after my Ph.D. studies at Cornell. Working at CIE was indeed a learning experience in itself, which I found of great value in my future career development. I left CIE at the end of 1977, with memories that I still cherish. Who will forget the 1970s colleagues like David Evans (evergreen), John Bing, David Kinsey, George Urch, Felix McGovern, Cookie, Carmen, and of course a lively group of over-enthusiastic students. I am very sad to learn from the CIE website the passing away of David Kinsey, James Mangan, Mose Tjitendero, Elvyn Jones, Leon Clark, Merci Montsi, and James Hoxeng. I interacted with them while at CIE.
After leaving CIE, I did some consulting work in Connecticut (in adult basic education, and Washington DC (at Academy for Educational Development, where I met Steve Grant, another CIE graduate). Then I worked in Papua New Guinea for two years as Advisor on Rural Development Training & Non-formal Education. During a short visit to Washington DC, I had pleasant surprises of running into Nana Seshibe, and meeting Julie Gilmore, both CIE graduates. I worked in Indonesia for two years as Advisor on Agricultural Extension & Training/Team Leader. There, I once met James Mangan, who was renting a house for CIE NFE project staff. Later, I worked in Nepal as Extension Communications Specialist for World Bank projects for almost three years.
In 1989, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) sent me to Iraq as Chief Technical Advisor. After just one year, however, came the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, followed by the first Gulf War, and several UN families including ours were evacuated. I tjem worked at the FAO headquarter in Rome for 16 years, first as Country Project Officer, managing dozens of FAO projects in several countries, and later as Senior Officer for Extension & Training, with global responsibilities. My technical activities covered about 50 countries in Asia & the Pacific, Middle East, Africa, Caribbean, Europe and Central America.
We returned from Rome in 2007 to our home in the suburbs of Washington, DC. I now keep myself busy in consulting work, and in promoting a small business consulting company, Development Actions International. Those of you who are interested in applying NFE to various aspects of rural and agricultural development in developing countries may like to learn about agricultural extension, technology transfer, producer groups, and gender-sensitive capacity development of men, women and young farmers. In this regard, see some of my FAO publications, downloadable free from the Internet: [6-15]
Modernizing National Agricultural Extension Systems: A Practical Guide for Policy-Makers of Developing Countries (2005),
Reaching the Hearts and Minds: How Extension Workers in Egypt Educated Farmers in Population and Environment Concerns (2006),
Introducing Demand-Driven Extension Approach in a Traditional Region: A Case Study from Pakistan (2011).
Email: mkalim.qamar@gmail.com