Area of Expertise

Environmental Planning/Community Development/Risk Assessment/Facilitation/Project Planning

Work Experience

Gemma Donald Mafwolo works as a Lecturer in the Department of Environmental Planning of the Institute of Rural Development Planning, Lake Zone Centre. She is an environmental planner and community worker with 8+ years of experience as a researcher, trainer and consultant in the field of Environmental assessments and planning, community mobilisation and youth mentorship. Apart from IRDP, Gemma has worked temporarily with other institutions including UNDP, Compassion, FHI, Eqwiphubs, Lake Victoria Disability Centre and Buhare CDTI. Gemma participated in teams to develop five (5) projects relating to aquaculture, food security, blue economy, gender, and environmental management.

Professional Skills

• Environmental impact assessment (EIA), Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and Environment and social Impact Assessment (ESIA).
• Spatial data collection, mapping and analysis through Google Earth Engine (GEE), OpenstreetMap (OSM)  and QGIS
• Risk assessment by using risk matrix as guided by National Guidelines For Developing and Implementing Institutional Risk Management Framework in PSO (2012)
• Designing, sharing and managing online data collection through ODK, Kobocollect, SurveyMonkey and Google forms
• Qualitative and quantitative data analysis and visualisation through SPSS, R, Excel and Bibliometrics
• Mentoring youth in research, innovation and entrepreneurship projects

Community mobilisation, facilitation and empowerment

Research and academic Interests

Main research and academic interest is on Environmental planning and management, community project planning and execution.