Senior Associate Partner, Institutional Development, Governance, Environment, and Natural Resource Management Consulting
Email: jcart@allstream.net
John Carter is a scientist educated in Biology at McGill University in Canada. He then went on to specialize in Marine Ecology and holds an M.Sc. from Memorial University, St. John's, Newfoundland. John has had an extensive career in consulting in this, first based in Nova Scotia where he was a manager for a firm involved with environmental sciences and marine biology, focused mostly on fisheries and environmental impact assessment, then as a programme officer for the International Centre for Ocean Development, where he was responsible for marine resource programmes in the South Pacific and Caribbean.
From the early 1990s he has worked as an independent consultant for various agencies and institutions that include the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), UNDP, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Since then, John Carter has diversified his interests in a very wide range of specialisations in the general domain of environmental sciences, natural resources, climate change, and related capacity building. To date, he has undertaken a huge variety of assignments in 52 countries on every continent and region in the world. He has worked with other members of the FoodWorks group in Pakistan and Papua New Guinea.
The projects John has undertaken in the last two years give only a flavour of his very extensive consulting experience since 1992. Most recently – and an on-going project until December 2013 - John is working with the ADB as Environmental Impact Assessment Specialist in Bangladesh. He is strengthening the use of country safeguard systems, the environmental impact assessment system and its implementation practices. He is responsible for a critical review of Bangladesh’s EIA system and institutional set-up, bringing international perspectives to the process.
In the summer of 2012, Carter was in Mongolia as Strategic Environmental Assessment Advisor for UNDP. He designed, developed and delivered a training course on Strategic Environmental Assessment. The focus was on the implications of the national development plan, policies, and sector strategies with regard to environmental quality in Mongolia, especially addressing concerns for climate variability and desertification, responsible mining development, and urban development and air quality.
In 2010-11 John worked for the Amman Institute and Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority in Jordan as Coastal Zone Management Specialist, Aqaba (Jordan) Master Plan. He reviewed current uses and coastal zone issues in the Jordanian jurisdiction in the Gulf of Aqaba, including the existing port near the city centre, the new industrial port in the south (including the proposed re-location of port facilities to the southern industrial zone), the Aqaba Marine Park, public beaches, and the hotel zone. John advised on policies and legislation related to management of coastal areas and marine spaces in the Gulf of Aqaba. He critically assessed the previous Master Plan for the Aqaba Special Economic Zone, and enumerated beach access issues, coastal zone structures and developed a new Master Plan for coastal areas and marine spaces. He further developed a marine space use zoning map, including shipping lanes, anchorage locations, and vessel “no-go” zones.
In 2010 John was in Mauritius as Climate Change Adaptation Specialist for the Project Development Phase of a project entitled Adapting Coastal Zone Management in Mauritius to Address the Impacts of Climate Change. He completed the drafting process for a proposal for the Adaptation Fund, involving coordination with the UNDP office and consultation with stakeholders, with a focus on coastal erosion issues, water conservation, and adaptation of the coastal hotel industry to rising sea levels. He developed pilot project concepts for arresting erosion in Mon Choisy (public beach, west coast) and for reducing the risk of erosion and flooding in Riviere des Galets (south coast). John determined the net costs and social/economic benefits of implementing the proposed climate change adaptation programme and developed concepts for a flood/erosion early warning system. The project was approved by the Adaptation Fund, with funding of about US$ 9 million.
John is currently working in Iraq on local water governance issues related to municipal and farmer water needs south of Baghdad, and has been working for UNDP on technical review of climate change adaptation projects for farmers in Cambodia. He also recently completed evaluations of two CIDA projects in Indonesia pertaining to water supply systems, rural livelihoods, farming community innovations, and sustainable coastal resource management.
