Dr. Hugh Evans is principal of Evans Consulting Inc, a private firm engaged in urban and regional planning issues in less developed countries. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor in the School of Policy, Planning and Development at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and was Director of the Practitioners Institute there from 1995 through 2003. Dr. Evans has a PhD in urban and regional planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Tech¬nology (1983), and his main areas of expertise include: governance, local government decentralization, local economic development, rural-urban linkages, and project design and evaluation. He has completed some 80 assignments as a consultant to international development agencies such as the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and the US Agency for International Development, mainly in South and Central America, East Africa, the Middle East, South and South-East Asia.

During his professional career, Dr Evans has been involved in three main policy areas: local government decentralization, economic development, project design and evaluation.

In terms of governance and decentralization, he has worked on matters related to the allocation of functions, responsibili¬ties and fiscal resources between central and local government (Kenya, Maldives and Cambodia).

 He also has experience in designing and implementing programs to enhance citizen participation in the decision making process (Bolivia, Nicaragua, Indo¬nesia). He has completed several assignments for the United Nations Capital Development Fund in designing and implementing funding mechanisms for local develop¬ment (Palestine, Malawi and Somalia). He has also undertaken various assignments having to do with institutional reform (notably the National Housing Corporation in Tanzania), and capacity building for local government (Bolivia, Pakistan and Indonesia).

In terms of local economic development, he spent two years in Bolivia in the early 1980s developing a regional development plan for the Department of Potosi. During the 1980s and 1990s, he undertook several studies on rural-urban linkages and the implications for regional and national development policy in Kenya, Somalia, Nepal and Sri Lanka. During the 1990s, he advised numerous cities in Latin America on strategies for local economic development, and prepared the economic development component of strategic plans for the cities of Santa Cruz in Bolivia and San Pedro Sula in Honduras.

From 1998 until 2001, he served as Chief Technical Advisor to Bappenas in Indonesia on a UNDP financed project titled Poverty Alleviation through Rural-Urban Linkages. In 2002-03, under the USAID PERFORM program, he advised local governments in Indonesia on strategies for local economic development.

Since 2005, he has served as Economic Development Advisor to UNDP Indonesia for projects in Aceh featuring public-private partnerships for selected clusters of export oriented economic activities.

In terms of project design and evaluation, he has completed 19 assignments for projects related to government decentralization, democratic and participatory development, urban development, economic development and disaster management. Of these,13 have been for UNDP in Asia and Africa, while the rest have been in other countries worldwide for USAID, AusAid, the World Bank and Sida. In all but three cases, he was the Team Leader responsible solely or primarily for the writing, and in some cases the editing, of the resulting reports. Since 2005, Dr. Evans has been working mainly for UNDP Indonesia to assist with post-disaster activities in Aceh, Indonesia. When not engaged by UNDP, he is available for other short term assignments.