4th Class, 2007-2009
Field Placement: Land O’Lakes International, Nairobi, Kenya
Placed with Land O’Lakes, Carmen Jaquez conducted assessments of activities taking place within pastoralist regions of Africa. This ultimately expanded to incorporate livestock-based interventions (including cattle, goat, sheep, poultry) in dryland systems. This information was used to provide recommendations for Land O’Lakes to expand its core capacities within these technical areas. To facilitate this training and share information with other organizations, Carmen created an intra-organization training manual and on-line training program that provides guidance for field-managers on incorporating and utilizing livestock-based interventions under different conditions (emergency response, chronic food insecurity, etc.). Carmen was able to apply the information she gained by participating and leading Livelihood and Food Security Assessments in several African countries and provided program design recommendations to her host and partner organizations.
Policy Placement: Land O’Lakes International, Arlington, VA
During her policy placement, Carmen co-led the Land O’Lakes Livestock Practice Expansion team, where she used the information gained during her field placement to develop a Practice Expansion Strategy for her host organization. To support this she developed a series of case studies of Land O’Lakes projects from around the world, including capacity statements to be used as internal and external information sharing tools, and provide recommendations for standard monitoring and evaluation tools that were applied to Land O’Lakes programs worldwide.
Ultimately, this information was used to educate donors and policy makers and create linkages between practitioners, policy makers and donors. When necessary, Carmen led field-based livelihood assessments for future programming. Outside of Land O’Lakes, Carmen collaborated with stakeholders working on pastoralist issues specifically partners of the Global Livestock Collaborative Research Support Programs and with the Global Livestock Working Group.
Pre-Fellowship Education/Experience:
Carmen is originally from Zanoni, Missouri, in the Ozark Mountains. She earned a BS in Fisheries & Wildlife Management from the University of Missouri. After graduating from college, Carmen served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda. She worked with communities adjacent to Queen Elizabeth National Park on resource conservation and wildlife-human conflict issues. After the Peace Corps, Carmen remained in Uganda completing several contracts with USAID and serving as the administrator for an NGO working on economic development and natural resource conservation issues in northern Uganda. After a total of four years in Uganda, Carmen returned to the US to earn a Master’s degree at the University of Vermont, where she also served as Peace Corps recruiter. In Vermont, she studied Community Development & Applied Economics as well as Ecological Economics.