Channel Research

Channel Research has a group of motivated, highly experienced and professional trainers and facilitators carrying out our different trainings.

John Telford

John Telford is an Irish consultant in both humanitarian and development aid. Over the last 29 years he has worked as a practitioner, trainer, lecturer, analyst and evaluator world-wide, covering both natural and conflict related programmes. He now specialises in evaluation and training. He started his career as National Director of the Irish Section of Amnesty International. Following several years teaching in Colombia, he spent 6 years with UNHCR, including as a Senior Emergency Preparedness and Response Officer. He has worked with major UN, NGO and donor agencies, affected governments and communities and academic institutions. He has lectured in Central American and EU universities and has been published widely, including major evaluations, specialized reviews and guidance materials and media pieces.

Margie Buchanan-Smith

Margie Buchanan-Smith works as a consultant, trainer/facilitator and coach in the international humanitarian aid sector, with expertise in both natural disasters and conflict-related emergencies. She is an experienced evaluator of humanitarian relief operations, for international NGOs, donor governments and UN agencies, and has participated in a number of joint agency evaluations. In 2008 she was one of two reviewers for ALNAP’s meta-evaluation of joint evaluations. Margie has worked as a policy researcher on humanitarian issues for many years and has also direct experience of managing humanitarian assistance programmes having been head of ActionAid’s Emergencies Unit for three years and acting Policy Director for one year. Since going freelance, Margie has developed a successful coaching business. She is particularly interested in approaches that facilitate individual and organisational learning.

John Cosgrave

John Cosgrave is a resourceful and goal-oriented, multi-sectoral professional with strong evaluation, assessment and communication skills. He has excellent training, planning, project management and problem solving expertise. Mr Cosgrave has twenty-seven years of broad experience in over forty countries covering all aspects of managing both relief and development.
John’s learning from experience, reviews, and evaluations feeds into the training that he does. He has experience of course design and evaluation; of designing and delivering training materials and of facilitation and mentoring. His key experience is with developing and delivering training not only for international staff but also for national staff in developing countries or at international venues. His training is largely based around participatory methods, founded on a core of teaching of key concepts, tools and information. John has developed an extensive library of presentations and exercises in the areas he has trained in.

Emery Brusset

Emery Brusset directs Channel Research Ltd. He is trained in international relations and sociology, and specialized in performance evaluations and conflict sensitive programming. After a career in the agencies (UNHCR, UNDP) serving in Iraq, Sudan and Rwanda, Mr Brusset has become a full time evaluation consultant over the last ten years, with a focus on conflict situations and programmes in conflict prevention, human rights, promotion of the rule of law, and humanitarian aid. He has carried out training in conflict handling for DFID staff, and in the application of the logical framework to conflict programming. Amongst others, Mr Brusset has, in 2003, participated in the evaluation of the OTI confidence building programme in Macedonia, and the global evaluation of the UK government’s Conflict Prevention Pools.

Ralf Otto

Ralf Otto has ten years professional experience and has a background in law and holds a master degree in international humanitarian assistance. Since 2003 he has undertaken 25 evaluations in humanitarian aid. An emphasis of his work lies on participatory evaluations and evaluations as a learning tool. Ralf Otto has since he joined Channel Research in 2003 been closely involved in the development and design of Channel Research’s training program, which by today has developed into a comprehensive training scheme with four different areas. Channel Research is also offering tailor-made in-house training in evaluations (e.g. for UNHCR and the IFRC).

As a trainer he is facilitating on an annual basis evaluation within the EC sponsored master program for International Humanitarian Assistance at the University of Bochum, Germany. He has trained staff of aid agencies in designing and implementing evaluations and M&E schemes. At Channel Research he is also involved in identifying, recruiting and managing evaluation consultants and developing quality standards for evaluation. He is up to date with recent methodologies, approaches and has hands-on experience with participatory evaluation techniques. Mr. Otto represents Channel Research in professional evaluation associations and other professional evaluation groups e.g. ALNAP, European Evaluation Society and the German Evaluation Society.

Tony Vaux

Tony Vaux has been involved with international development and humanitarian work for over 30 years, mainly with Oxfam.

He was Emergencies Coordinator for 10 years, leading Oxfams response to conflict and other disasters in many parts of the world. In the 1990s he focused on peace-building efforts in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, establishing new Oxfam programmes intended to support a sustainable basis for development.

Since leaving Oxfam in 2000 he has written a book about Oxfams responses to famine and war The Selfish Altruist and then, as an independent consultant participated in the development of DFIDs Strategic Conflict Assessment methodology. Vaux has used this method in studies for DFID in around 15 countries.

He also developed a similar method for UNDP and has advised several INGOs on conflict analysis. He has written extensively on humanitarian and conflict issues.

As a trainer, Vaux has a long history of training Oxfam field staff on a wide range of emergency issues but has more recently focused on conflict prevention and peace-building. He has been a member of the OECD-DAC Panel on the Evaluation of Conflict Prevention and Peace-building Programmes and helped with the development of the current draft guidelines.

As well as being a Co-Trainer on the Channel Research course, he has been invited by DFID and several INGOs to train staff on conflict analysis and evaluation.

Bobby Lambert

Bobby Lambert is skilled in training, facilitation, research, and communication. His training experience ranges from field-level technical training with local farmers in Africa through to the management, design, convening, facilitation and evaluation of senior international professional workshops. Whilst with RedR, he developed and ran a comprehensive international training programme, introducing innovative approaches such as “just-in-time” emergency field training. He is also conversant with the strategic learning and human resource development issues. His experience in development and humanitarian operations includes 10 years as Chief executive of RedR. A chartered engineer, he now works as an independent consultant and partner of Channel Research with clients ranging from the UN, the Red Cross and a variety of NGOs. He is a visiting fellow at London’s South Bank University and interim Executive Director of the Good Earth Trust.

For any comment, question and expression of interest regarding one of our training sessions, please do not hesitate to contact Maria Bak phone +32 2 633 65 29