Area of Expertise

Community Development

Work Experience

Edmund Zakayo (PhD) works as a Lecturer in the Department of Population Studies. He is an experienced community development expert, researcher and trainer with over 10 years of professional experience in different governmental organizations. Before joining IRDP he also worked with Kilindi District Council for one year as a cooperative officer mobilizing farmers to form cooperatives for marketing their agricultural produce. He also worked with the Cashewnut Board of Tanzania (CBT) with the main role of coordinating the marketing of Cashewnut for two years. Also, he worked with the Cereal and Other Produce Board of Tanzania (CPB) as a Team Member in verification of payment for cashew farmers for one year. Likewise, he worked with the Tanzania Cooperative Development Commission (TCDC) as a research expert coordinating all research activities, linking the commission with development stakeholders and organizing cooperative research conferences for sharing research findings with key stakeholders for four years. The skills acquired over the years have given him extensive experience in community development and working with local and international stakeholders.

Professional Skills

• Organizing community members to find solutions to existing challenges and participate in different development projects 
• Wide knowledge in working with community members in formulating, monitoring and evaluating development projects 
• Capacity building to community-based organizations and assessing their effectiveness and sustainability 
• Preparing strategic plans and other working tools for community-based organizations 
• Organizing academic and non-academic conferences 
• Experienced in the use and applications of statistical packages such as SPSS, for statistical analysis
• Conducting both qualitative and quantitative research studies 
• Designing and using online mobile data collection google forms and Open Data Kit (ODK).
• Writing and managing projects 
• Fundraising for community projects
• Advocacy  

Research and academic Interests

Community development, community participation, youth development, cooperatives, financial inclusion, blue economy, community-based organizations, community empowerment, youth, women, children violence, community resource management, participatory planning, rural development, gender equality and social inclusion, agricultural marketing and community economic development.