2018- Independent Development Consult (Own Company) 2013-2017 World Bank - Senior Urban and Social Development Specialist, MENA Region 2002-2013 Local Government Denmark (KL) - Senior Adviser and International Consultant 1998-2001 DANIDA Adviser, specialist in municipal finance, planning and financial planning in Nicaragua 1993-1997 BUPL (Danish Federation of Early Childhood and Youth Education) - Finance and Policy Adviser 1990-1993 The Association of Danish County Councils - Specialist in local government financing and budgeting 1991 Copenhagen Business School - Lecturer in micro and macroeconomics 1986-1989 University of Copenhagen - Teacher in economics and philosophy of science.
Own Company - PWB Consult
Since 2018 PWB Consult has provided advice and consultancies in an inclusive approach with climate change adoption, gender equality, youth and human right principles incorporated in any operation. Overall focus is decentralisation, local governance, institutional building, and intergovernmental finance. Several assignments have been implemented globally such as an evaluation of the Danish Strategic Sector Cooperation with field visits to Brazil, Kenya and Indonesia, and conduction of a multi country PFM evaluation for the Swiss Government with virtual meetings in the Swiss Federation, Ghana, Kenya, Peru and Albania during the COVID-19 lock-down. PWB Consult has worked for the Danish Government, the EU, UNCDF, UNDP, NIRAS (Sweden), AFD (France), SECO (Swiss Federation) and cooperates with several other international companies.
The World Bank 2013-2017 - Sr Urban Development Specialist
From September 2013 to September 2017, Mr. Bottern worked in the World Bank's Middle East and North Africa Region as Sr. Urban Development Specialist. He led or co-led WB operations in Palestine, Tunisia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Libya. He provided guidance in many WB operations worldwide as specialist in local government systems. He became fully operational within the WB management and QA system and familiar with all WB procedures. He was involved in preparation of projects with all aspect
of social and urban development, human right issues, inclusion of refugees, climate change,
environmental and social risks, youth inclusion and gender mainstreaming. He also worked with preparing Jordan municipalities for the inflow of refugees from Syria. After 2017 he has worked with the WB in such countries as Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands and Ethiopia.
Local Government Denmark 2002 to 2013
He was an international consultant for 12 years in the Danish Association of Municipalities (KL). He worked worldwide with building up local government systems including support to key ministries, finance commissions and local government associations. Increasingly he led or participated in large evaluations of programmes finance by international organisations and in large EU twinning projects. In KL he worked for several international development agencies (Danida, EU, UNCDF, UNDP, the World Bank, Sida, DFID, NORAD and became familiar with their procedures and politics. Projects in: Albania, Bhutan, Bolivia, Ghana, Honduras, Guatemala, India, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo,
Latvia, Lithuania, Malawi, Mongolia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Peru, Palestine,
Romania, Russia, Solomon Islands, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Turkey,
Uganda, Vietnam and Yemen.
Danida - Nicaragua
Mr Bottern started his international work in 1998, when he was contracted as an adviser for the Danish Government stationed in north Nicaragua from 1998 to 2001. In Nicaragua he worked in particular with municipal planning and finance, public participation, social accountability and gender equality. He also coordinated with other programmes and government institutions. He led project activities with a large team consisting of local experts and staff and spearheaded new ideas for local revenue collection and municipal planning.
Public Sector Denmark
After graduating as an economist (M Sc) in 1990, he achieved a profound experience from the public sector in Denmark as budgeting specialist in the Association of Danish County Councils (1990-1993) and as researcher and policy adviser in the Danish Federation of Early Childhood and Youth Education (1993-1997). He was also a teacher for undergraduates at the University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen Business School.
Associated Consultants
Nicolai Malm
Nicolai has more than 20 years-experience as manager and advisor from KPMG
and Implement Consulting and 5 years as government official from the Danish
Ministry of Finance. He has expertise in strategy and leadership development,
with focus on sustainable solutions with lasting impact. As a trainer and
consultant, he works with interdisciplinary development characterized by
political understanding, high intensity and close involvement of the entire
organization and all people – putting people first. All assignment includes a
strong and solid analyses with strong and easy-to-understand communication
applied.
Nicolai’s consultant work has addressed Danish
ministries, agencies, municipalities, energy companies, educational
institutions, and varies professional organizations. Internationally, recently
he has worked with several ministries in Saudi Arabia with strategy development
and partnership building.
Nicolai has a master's degree in political science (cand. polit.) from
the University of Copenhagen from 1995. and has also worked as a lector. Today
he has his own company https://nicoma.dk/ and
can be contacted on 45 5138 7428.
Jesper Steffensen
Jesper is Managing Director and Consultant at
Steffensen Consult, Danish citizen with an MA in Political Science. He is a
public administration, financial management and fiscal decentralization
specialist with comprehensive working experiences from core positions in
central governments and local government associations. Jesper has project
experiences from assignments in more than 45 countries over the past 30 years
in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands. His fields of core expertise are:
Public finance, intergovernmental fiscal relations, financial management,
performance-based incentive systems, climate change funding & design of
interventions addressing climate change, surveys on systems and procedures of
decentralization and design and implementation of local development projects. He
has been lead consultant on several larger decentralization reform projects in
Europe, Africa, Asia the Pacific Countries in cooperation with the governments,
the World Bank, UNDP/UNCDF, Danida, DFID, the Netherlands, KFW, Asian
Development Bank and others development partners. Finally, Jesper has been
guest professor at Duke University within the subject of Fiscal
Decentralisation and PFM (2005-11).E-mail: js@steffensenconsult.dk.
Experience from 35 countries in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and South America