Rob Hitchins

Rob Hitchins
Director

e: rhitchins@springfield centre.com

Focus areas

• Development policy, strategy and theory of change
• Inclusive economic development and inclusive business
• Private sector engagement and development, public-private sector partnership
• Systemic approaches (market system development / inclusive system development)
• Sustainability

Field experience

• Adviser and backstopper to a variety of implementation initiatives in Africa and Asia-Pacific (see below)
• Worked in over 30 countries

Reference projects

• Market Development Facility (Asia-Pacific, funded by Australia and New Zealand)
• PRISMA (Indonesia, funded by Australia)
• Katalyst (Bangladesh, multiple funders)
• Private Sector Promotion Project (Nepal, funded by Germany)
• Kenya Markets Trust and Gatsby Foundation (East Africa, multiple funders)
• Propcom (Nigeria, funded by United Kingdom)
• ENABLE (Nigeria, funded by United Kingdom)
• Partnership for Niger Delta (Nigeria, funded by Chevron)
• SEMA (Uganda, multiple funders)
• MicroSave (East Africa, multiple funders)
• CGAP (global, multiple funders)
• Centre for Financial Inclusion (global, multiple funders)

Rob has been with the Springfield Centre since 1997. An economist by training, Rob worked for the accountancy and audit firm KPMG, before setting up his own tourism business in Indonesia. He has worked with market development programmes in a range of countries and has written extensively on the subject, including DFID and SDC’s suite of M4P documents (the Operational Guide and Synthesis and Perspectives papers).

In recent years this has included the design, evaluation and support of major private sector development programmes, including business services, value chains, business environment reform and local economic development; acting as Strategic Adviser to several agencies seeking to incorporate the market systems development approach into their policies, programmes and practices; and research on business services in rural areas and the role of government in service markets. Rob has played a key role in designing new Springfield training programmes. Among his main areas of expertise are the policy and regulatory environment, monitoring and results measurement and sector development approaches.