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Dr. McMillan’s work has taken her to over 27 countries in Africa—with a primary focus on the West African Sahel and Burkina Faso—as well as Suriname, Russia, Iraq, Myanmar, and Yemen.

Her collaborative research on settlement impacts of river blindness control in Burkina Faso and West Africa helped inform the design and execution of a series of restudies on settlement-related development. These restudies became the basis of the Settlement Guidelines for River Basin Development in West Africa that was adopted by 10 of the 11 Onchocerciasis Control Programme (OCP) countries in West Africa in 1994. Since 2019 she has continued to co-monitor the economic and social  evolution of two of the affected areas of new lands settlement (in the extreme southwest and west of Ouagadougou at Mogtedo) as well as the settlers’ original home village area near Kaya through a joint initiative with a local consulting firm  ( Associated Consultants for Sustainable Development [ACSD]).

Specialties

Cultural Anthropology, Development and Applied Anthropology, Sub-Saharan Africa, The Sahel, Burkina Faso

Background

Since 1994, Dr. McMillan has specialized in the design, execution, assessment, and capacity strengthening of a wide range of donor-supported initiatives with a focus on building local staff and partner capacity to support monitoring and evaluation (M&E) processes through on-the-job mentorship and training. She has executed or co-executed 91 contracts for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Inter-American Development Bank, along with a wide range of donor-funded subcontracts to a wide variety of national and international NGOs and private-sector consulting firms. She has also participated in and published on the issue of university-based capacity building for agricultural development at the University of Florida, Iowa State University, and the University of Kentucky, as well as at Cape Coast University in Ghana and Makerere University in Uganda.

She is the author/co-author/editor/co-editor of 6 books and over 24 book chapters and articles as well as over 100 other reports and technical papers that are available through the USAID Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC) and other websites.

She has served on the faculty at the University of Florida and the University of Kentucky, and as a visiting professor at the University of Kyoto (Japan). She is currently an affiliate scientist in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida.

Countries

Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Côte D’Ivoire, Djibouti, DRC, Ethiopia, Eritrea, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Iraq, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of South Africa, Russia, Senegal, Somalia, Suriname, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Yemen

Languages

French (level 3–4), Moré (Burkina Faso) (basic speaking); Arabic (2 years training)

Education

Ph.D., Anthropology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois (advisor: George Dalton).
M.A.  Anthropology,  Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
B.A. History,  Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia (advisor: Penelope Campbell).

Contact Information

Phone: (352) 275-6655 (cell)
Skype: mcmillanwilson