Area of Expertise

Community Development

Work Experience

Dr. Edmund E. Zakayo (PhD) works as a Lecturer in the Population Studies Department. Before joining IRDP he also worked with Cashew nut Board of Tanzania (CBT), Cereal and Other Produce Board of Tanzania (CPB) and Tanzania Cooperative Development Commission (TCDC) for the period of seven years. The experience drawn and skills acquired have equipped him with extensive knowledge in community economic development and collaboration with both local and international stakeholders. With over 13 years of professional experience, he is a seasoned community economic development expert, researcher, and trainer. Dr. Zakayo has also offered consultancy services in various areas, including business development, training to community-based organizations, public organizations, community organizing, conducting baseline, midline and endline surveys, project writing, monitoring and evaluation, preparing strategic plans for community based organizations, organizing conferences and other stakeholders’ events and conducting action research.

Professional Skills

• Organizing community members to find solutions of existing challenges and actively 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
• Assessing community based organisations sustainability
• Preparing strategic plan 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 IBM SPSS Statistics, for statistical analysis
• Conducting both qualitative and quantitative research studies
• Designing and using online mobile data collection goggle forms and Open Data Kit (ODK).
• Conducting baseline, midline and endline survey
• Writing and managing projects
• Mobilizing youth and women for starting income generation activities
• Fundraising for community projects
• Formation for community based groups for development
• Undertaking participatory planning activities using O&OD planning approaches
• Advocacy
• Conducting Training Needs and Impact Assessments.

Research and academic Interests

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