Peter Schmidt

Peter Schmidt has been working in development cooperation for more than 30 years. He holds a Master of Science in Agriculture from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He worked in several management positions e.g., as team leader of a large agricultural extension project in collaboration with an International Financing Institution, as Co-Director of Helvetas’ International Programmes Department and later of Helvetas’ Advisory Services, and as Country Director of Helvetas. Long-term assignments in India, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar were complemented with consultancies in around 30 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. He avails particular strengths in understanding complex situations and to describe them in a well-structured and intelligible way, which is of special use in project planning, monitoring and evaluations. He has wide experience and skills in adult education like moderation of workshops and training courses on rural development in general and market chain facilitation in particular. He is currently based in Switzerland and responsible for several agricultural value chain projects focusing on socially fair and ecologically sound solutions in collaboration with private sector partners.