IIED – Staff

Ced Hesse, Principal Researcher

Ced Hesse is a Principal Researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development, responsible for the design and management of policy-oriented action-research on drylands resilience, productivity and equity – for current portfolio see: http://www.iied.org/drylands-building-climate-resilience-productivity-equity. Currently, lead for the design and implementation of devolved climate finance, working with national and local government to design performance-based fiscal transfer systems that are transparent, equitable and accountable, while strengthening community involvement in prioritisation of investments in public goods that build climate resilience. On-going work in Kenya, Mali, Senegal and Tanzania. Previously, Director of IIED’s Drylands programme in East and West Africa and technical lead on regional research themes including total economic value of pastoralism, making decentralisation work, shared management of common property resources and adaptive climate planning at sub-national levels. Responsible for the design and implementation of a policy-oriented training course on pastoralism and policy in East Africa and Ethiopia targeted at senior-decision makers, government planners and NGO project workers.

 

Morgan Williams, Senior Coordinator

Morgan Williams is a project manager and team coordinator with 11 years’ experience of working with globally diverse project teams on high-profile, large-scale and long-term climate change and international development programmes. Morgan is a Senior Coordinator in IIED’s Building climate resilience, productivity and equity in the drylands team which aims to help local and national governments make their development planning for drylands more resilient to climate change, and advocate at the global level for policies and laws that support climate adaptive management. She oversees a portfolio of projects and is responsible for budget and contract management, financial forecasting and reporting, monitoring output delivery, proposal budgeting, and relationship-building with partners and donors.

 

Claire Bedelian, Researcher

Claire is a researcher in the Drylands team at IIED. Her work centres on building resilience and productivity in the drylands of East Africa. She has worked with pastoralist communities in East Africa for the last 15 years. Her current research focuses on drylands water governance, working closely with county governments in Kenya to inform policy and planning. Before working at IIED, she worked with ODI on the Pathways to Resilience in Semi-Arid Areas (PRISE) project, and at University College London as a Research Associate in Anthropology.

 

Ally Renton, Co-ordinator, Climate Change Group

Ally is a project coordinator for the drylands team in the Climate Change group at IIED. The majority of her work is leading on donor and consortia partner relations and the project and financial management for the drylands team and the devolved climate finance programme. Ally has held previous roles in Australia, from project management consulting in the construction sector to marketing and communications in start-ups and not for profits.

 

David Pertaub, Research Associate

David Pertaub works in the Climate Change Group at IIED, where he is involved in ongoing research into Adaption and Resilience in the Drylands, Gender and Climate Change and Devolved Climate Finance.

David has a background in anthropology with a research focus on pastoralism and the drylands (East Africa), water governance, the impacts of large scale development projects (dams), and indigenous conceptions of prosperity and poverty. He previously worked as a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at University College London on an ESCR-DFID funded project called SIDERA – ‘Shifting (In)equality Dynamics from Research to Application’ (2018-2019). He explored recent social and environmental change in a remote part of southwest Ethiopia – the lower Omo valley – with a particular focus on the downstream impact of a mega-dam (the Gibe III) on vulnerable and marginalised agro-pastoralist communities living along the river Omo.

He holds a Masters in Anthropology, Development and the Environment from University College London (2016).