Mr. Richardo Aiken is a Community Development Specialist, Social Sector Division, Caribbean Development Bank. His role includes the design and implementation of strategies to secure the participation and ownership of local beneficiaries in development interventions. Richardo has manged community-level programming and planning for over 17 years. His particular interest is using data-driven approaches to enhance the capacity of community development professionals and leaders. He also led on the preparation of the Caribbean’s first Community Engagement Guidance Note and is currently collaborating with the University of Wolverhampton to develop an online course on community engagement, specific to the Caribbean context. Richardo is also member of the CDB team leading on the Indigenous People’s Initiative, geared at strengthening collaboration with the Indigenous and First Peoples of the Region. He also represents CDB on Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency Civil Society Sector Sub-committee, responsible for managing community-based disaster risk management programming across the Caribbean.

Mr. Aiken holds a Master of Arts in Communication for Social and Behaviour Change and a Bachelor of Science in Sociology, with Minors in Political Science and Criminology from the University of the West Indies, Mona. He is currently pursuing a MPhil/PhD in Communication Studies and has completed Post Graduate Courses in Community Engagement: Co-constructing Knowledge with Communities at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.