Flexible project support when you need it

Why we exist

How we can help

How to find out more

Many charities, NGO’s, think tanks and higher education institutions rely on donor funding to carry out international development work. Donors such as governments, private foundations and multi-lateral institutions require unique and significant amounts of information, and procedures to be managed from the proposal stage through inception, implementation, and project closure.

Although such scrutiny is needed to ensure funds are maximising impact, and providing value for money, these management activities require significant resources from organisations who have programme staff juggling multiple projects and donors at once. This leaves them less time to work on fundraising or actual management of project activities and this can lead to a high turnover of over-worked programme staff.

OrenDev Consulting provides flexible and dedicated support to international development projects and grants which require increased operational management during busy periods, at short notice for as long or briefly as you need it. Whether it be managing the inception phase of a large grant you have just won, or the closure of a multi-year project which you now need to report on, we can provide the support your core staff need.

If you have a period upcoming where you think you or your staff may need operations management support, simply contact us below for an initial chat.

We can identify what tasks can be outsourced to OrenDev, how many days they will require, what our availability is and what outputs you want. Of course, the match needs to go both ways and you or your team can interview us to make sure we have the skills and experience you need.

Get in touch for a consultation

Discuss what you need, and explore options for flexible short-term management support to free up capacity within your team – from a few days to months of day-to-day operational management and communications support

Sonia Hoque

Director & Consultant

Programme Operations and Communications Manager

Sonia is an experienced Programme & Operations Manager with a highly varied background in International Development, Economics and research. Her unique industry experience includes working with, and for, several developing country governments and local partners, global charities/NGOs, the private sector and the Department of Economic & Social Affairs (DESA) at the United Nations.

After starting her career as a Management Consultant in the International Development team at PwC UK, she worked at the world’s leading development think tank, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) as a Programme & Operations Manager in the International Economic Development Group. She led on all aspects of programme operations, donor management, reporting, planning, budgeting, monitoring & evaluation and communications. She developed the role to pursue her interests, publishing blogs and research for ODI. She then began providing consulting and operations support for projects and organisations working on gender equality, before beginning a PhD in Development Policy (with a focus on gender). Her research takes a qualitative, grounded methodological approach looking at women’s unpaid care work and gender norms in Bangladesh. She is experienced in qualitative research methods and analysis, and recently carried out data collection independently over 5 months in north-east Bangladesh.

Sonia is passionate about international development and believes that an interdisciplinary understanding of issues in the development context is critical to programme design. She believes her academic and research experience make her uniquely positioned to look broadly at development actors efforts to make sustainable change, and also the value of efficient and flexible programme management cannot be underestimated.

Sonia is currently in her final year undertaking a PhD in Development Policy at University College London (UCL) in the Bartlett Development Planning Unit. She has a BSc in Economics from SOAS, University of London (1st Class hons) and an MSc in International Development Studies from the University of Amsterdam. She is a qualified Prince II Practitioner.

At OrenDev, our name is inspired by Orenda—an Iroquoian term for the inner force in people which empowers them to change their lives, and the world.

We believe development efforts should support people – in all their diversity – who are living in the majority world to transform their lives, and to pursue and define their own wellbeing.

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Photo credit: Scott Wallace / World Bank