Interview with Dr. Charles May, Chief of Party on the USAID Ag Links Project
August 11, 2011
for the Autumn, 2011 AmCham Business Connections magazine
by Tatyana Bystrushkina (AmCham Executive Director) and Dale Henry (Chairman, AmCham Agriculture and Food Processing Subcommittee under the Trade &Investment Committee)
When it was decided that the autumn issue would be dedicated to agricultural sector of Uzbekistan all sources advised to speak with Charles A.May, real professional and very warm man with great personality.
Charles May has built his career engineering economic growth in developing countries by increasing both private and public sector productivity, employment opportunities, trade and the value of agricultural commodities. He has 25 years of experience implementing USAID projects in the areas of competitiveness, international trade, and food and resource economics in West and Southern Africa, Central Asia and the Caribbean. Dr. May is also a proven manager having served as Chief of Party for 17 years on USAID efforts in Mali, Burkina, Haiti, Senegal, Malawi, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan; and as a consultant providing technical leadership and coordination for teams working in trade and financial policy development, programmatic design, and monitoring and evaluation in Mali, Morocco, Tunisia, Chad, Niger, Ethiopia, and Burkina. Moreover, Dr. May brings previous experience successfully directing large, complex programs across multipleoffices.
Q:Please tell us a little about yourself and how you have come to work for this project?
A: We started our project in 2008 under a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources (MAWR) of Uzbekistan. We operate in four regions of
Our target crops are stone fruits (peaches, cherries, apricots and plums), pome fruits (apples, pears and quince) and table grapes, which are high value crops.