Ricardo Alem
Associate
Languages: Spanish (native), Portuguese (fluent), English (fluent), German (basic), Quechua (basic)
Focus Areas:
Ricardo Alem is an experienced Agricultural Engineer specializing in rural and economic development, inclusive market systems (MSD), and natural resource management. He has expertise in project planning, monitoring, and evaluation, with a focus on agricultural value chains, climate change, gender, and innovation. Ricardo has led initiatives in crop and livestock systems, enterprise development, and natural resource sustainability across Latin America and Africa. He possesses strong skills in fundraising, stakeholder coordination, and technical assistance, supporting sustainable rural livelihoods. His broad experience reflects a commitment to impactful, multi-stakeholder development.
Field experience
Bolivia, Mozambique, Uganda, Colombia
Ricardo is passionate about working in rural areas, where he feels he can make the greatest contribution by improving the living conditions of the local population. With over 30 years’ experience in organisations, research, training and consultancy, he has developed extensive knowledge of various areas of rural development, different ecosystems, and socio-economic, cultural, political and productive contexts. He has also developed the ability to adapt to each situation he has encountered. For the first 20 years of his professional career, he worked using the traditional approach to project implementation, in which institutions played a leading role in providing welfare to rural families. Over the last 10 years, he has become familiar with systemic thinking and has applied the principles of the MSD approach to all his projects and consultancy work. This has transformed his approach, enabling him to achieve sustainable results where previously there were few.
In his role as Inclusive Economic Development Advisor for the Latin American region at Swisscontact, he seeks to strengthen the internal capacity of project staff to apply the approach, as well as supporting the organisation in designing and delivering specialised advisory, training, and research services in priority areas for the region, and in areas that are relevant to institutional positioning and expanding its network of partners, clients, and donors.
