Our Programmes team
Our programmes team look after all of our projects across Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, Mali and Niger. This includes overseeing our monitoring and evaluation systems and our specialist technical work.
They work with communities and local partners to directly tackle poverty and the effects of the climate crisis.
Georges Bazongo, Director of Programmes
Georges started as the Director of Programmes in July 2020 having previously been Tree Aid’s Director of West Africa Operations. Georges has more than two decades of experience in national and international organisations like FAO/Ministry of Environment Project, ORGANIC and Self Help Africa. His areas of expertise are sustainable agriculture, natural resource management, agroforestry, land tenure management, crop value chain development and smallholder’s organisational development.
Matthew Ashpole, Forest Carbon Analyst
Matthew joined Tree Aid in September 2023. He has a BSc in Environmental Science and MSc in Ecological Economics. He has worked in ecosystem restoration and sustainable agriculture since 2021, beginning with sustainable palm oil in Malaysia, migrating to consulting on carbon project design across Africa in 2022. At Tree Aid he designs and implements carbon projects across our West African countries.
David Baines, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Advisor
David joined Tree Aid in January 2018. He has over 15 years of experience in international project development, implementation and evaluation. Previous roles include programme management, infrastructure support and planning and commissioning. He currently focuses on strengthening organisational capacity for internal monitoring, evaluation and learning.
Pietro Carpena, Head of Programme Quality and Advocacy
Pietro has over 20 years of experience in sustainable agriculture, agroforestry, and watershed management in a development context, with over 10 years' work with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), as well as with other international development charities. At Tree Aid, Pietro is responsible for supporting the improvement of programme quality and leading our advocacy team.
Vanessa Depeyre, Head of Programme Funding
Vanessa joined Tree Aid in February 2017 and now develops and manages our entire restricted funding portfolio. She has 10 years of experience in project development and project management in international development contexts.
Previous roles include programme manager, fundraiser and project development manager in different international NGOs such as ACTED and WAVE.
Yassinte Dima, Country Programme Manager, Burkina Faso
Yassinte joined Tree Aid in 2006 as Village Tree Enterprises Manager having studied rural development engineering and agronomy. In 2018 Yassinte was appointed as Enterprise and Value Chain Expert with Tree Aid, and has since been promoted to Country Programme Manager for Burkina Faso.
Abdoulaye Gango, Agronomy Specialist
Abdoulaye joined Tree Aid in October 2017 and has previously worked in various public and private organisations, including the Ministry of Agriculture and national and international NGOs. Abdoulaye’s main areas of expertise are the decentralisation, local governance and sustainable management of natural resources, intensification of agro-silvopastoral production and development and management of farmers’ organisations.
Sean McGough, Head of Programme Management
Sean joined Tree Aid in April 2014 and now oversees all of our projects. He has more than 10 years of project management experience in both commercial and international development contexts. He is experienced in managing portfolios of work across multiple countries, developing management processes and systems and has APM and PMD Pro qualifications.
Jonathan Naaba, Country Director, Ghana
Jonathan joined Tree Aid in 2014. He became the Country Programme Manager in 2016. Prior to joining Tree Aid, he worked with a local NGO in Ghana as project coordinator and also with the Ghana Education Service as a teacher. He has a wealth of experience in participatory process in natural resource management and poverty reduction. He was promoted to Country Director in 2024 and now focuses on developing relationships with donors and government institutions to grow the work in Ghana.
Desire Ouedraogo, Country Director, Burkina Faso
Désiré joined Tree Aid in October 2007 as a Project Officer. Since August 2023, he has been the Country Director of Burkina Faso, after having acted as Director of West Africa Operations. He has over 22 years of professional experience in the development and management of projects and programmes, working with national and international NGOs, government, multi and bilateral cooperations. His area of expertise is natural resources management, agroforestry, climate change, local and decentralised governance and local development.
Nathalie Ouedraogo, Regional Expert on Gender, Social Inclusion & Conflict Sensitivity
Nathalie joined Tree Aid in 2022. She is a sociologist, gender and development expert and holds Master’s degrees in gender studies and local development and territorial community management. In 2024 she was promoted to Gender, Social Inclusion & Conflict Sensitivity Coordinator for Tree Aid West Africa, providing support to project teams to ensure that they implement projects taking into account gender and conflict sensitivity in a context of conflicts in the Sahel region.
Jean-Parfait Ouedraogo, Monitoring & Evaluation Officer
Jean Parfait joined Tree Aid in August 2023. He holds a Master 2 in geography with a specialisation in cartography, geomatics and geographic information system (GIS). He has 7 years of experience in monitoring and evaluation in the humanitarian and development sector within organisations such as Humanity and Inclusion, NGO HELP, Action Against Hunger and CARE International. Prior to joining Tree Aid, he held the position of technical officer for monitoring, evaluation, learning and impact measurement on the Agribusiness Program for Integrated Resilience and Economic Development in the Sahel (Pro-ARIDES) at CARE International.
Dupont Sanou, Carbon Expert
Dupont joined Tree Aid in August 2023 and works on our Tond Tenga project. He hasa Master's degree in Tropical Plant Biodiversity and a diploma as an Inspector of Water and Forests. Previously he worked at the Environment Ministry in Burkina Faso. He has also held positions within the National Forest Information System Service of the General Directorate of Water and Forests, and the sectoral focal point for Burkina Faso's national measurement, reporting and verification system.
With 7 years' professional experience, in these positions he has been heavily involved in carrying out forest inventories of massifs in Burkina Faso, the process of securing land tenure in classified areas, assessing the carbon stock of above-ground and below-ground woody biomass, and also in capacity-building for agents.
Lamine Sebogo, Regional Head of Programme Implementation
Lamine joined Tree Aid in 2022. He is a biologist specialising in the management of natural resources, with 22 years’ experience in wildlife conservation and local community engagement in international organisations. He specialises in strategic planning, illegal wildlife trade, programme development and advocacy.
Alexis Sompougdou, Forest Governance Specialist
Alexis joined Tree Aid in 2013 as the Forest Governance Projects Officer and is now responsible for coordinating Tree Aid’s natural resource management and forest governance activities. Alexis has more than 12 years' experience in national and international organisations, including World Bank and IUCN. His areas of expertise include forest governance, agroforestry, climate change and rural business value chains.
Amadou Tangara, Country Programme Manager, Mali
Amadou joined Tree Aid in October 2017. He has more than 12 years of practical experience working with national and international NGOs such as Sahel Eco and Farm Radio Internationale. His work has included programming, management and coordination of agroforestry, resilience and value chain development projects. Amadou is the winner of the African Innovation for a Sustainable Development prize received at the France Africa 2013 summit.
Cheru Tessema, Country Programme Manager, Ethiopia
Cheru was appointed as Ethiopia Country Manager in June 2014 and is responsible for the development of our programme work and engagement and co-operation with local partners. He has overseen the establishment of the Ethiopia office (opened in June 2014) and is responsible for running and developing the country plan for the expansion of Tree Aid’s Ethiopia programme. Cheru is an environmentalist and livelihoods development expert with more than 25 years' practical experience in the sector.
Fikru Tessema, Country Director, Ethiopia
Fikru has over 18 years' work experience in leadership and managerial positions with INGOs and the public sector in Ethiopia, with considerable experience in leading and coordinating teams. He is well grounded in international best practices and communications, and well acquainted with managing and coordinating technical working groups that design and develop policies, strategies, regulations for the environment, agriculture, education and health sectors.
Fikru holds a Master of Business Administration, a Master of Science in Monitoring and Evaluations, a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Health in Ethiopia and a Diploma in Human Rights Towards Gender Equality from Sipu/Upsala University in Sweden.
Lydia Valea, Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator
Lydia joined Tree Aid in April 2017 to support our Monitoring and Evaluation. She has over 13 years of experience in monitoring and evaluation of development projects and programmes. At Tree Aid, she leads on the set up and maintenance of our monitoring and evaluation system.
