An economic development specialist undertaking policy research and providing technical assistance to clients in the Greater Mekong Subregion, related to regional cross-border agricultural trade, agribusiness and agricultural commercialization, agricultural development, natural resources management, contract farming, social entrepreneurship, social risk management, involuntary resettlement, and livelihood restoration. Since 1972 Mr. Zola has worked as a consultant to the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, United States Agency for International Development, United Nations agencies, European Commission, and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), among other international organizations and bilateral technical assistance agencies, as well as for private sector and non-profit clients. Mr. Zola was the Chairman and CEO of his own consulting and agricultural land management company in Thailand from 1991 to 2008, providing technical assistance and land management services to public and private sector clients throughout Southeast Asia. From 2011 to 2016, he was engaged by the Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry as the Policy Development Specialist and the Agricultural Policy Specialist on the Northern Upland Development Programme. He prepared an Upland Development Strategy and Program including policy initiatives for agricultural commercialization under the Agriculture Strategy to 2025 and 8th National Social and Economic Development Plan. More recently (October 2019 to March 2020), he was engaged by the World Bank in Lao PDR as a Rural Development Advisor and Institutional Analyst to identify priority areas for future poverty funding. He assessed decision-making structures of the Poverty Reduction Fund within the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and implications for continued World Bank funding; and, prepared a framework for a five-year Lao rural development strategy for World Bank and Lao Government funding. His current work as a social scientist is on social risk management and social safeguards auditing, involuntary resettlement, and livelihood restoration as a technical advisor to international finance institutions and commercial investment banks. He specializes in inspection, monitoring, and auditing social and economic entitlements of people impacted by hydropower, irrigation, and other large-scale urban and rural infrastructure projects, within the framework of the Equator Principles, International Finance Corporation Performance Standards, and World Bank and ADB Social Safeguards policies. Mr. Zola is a board member of the John F. Kennedy Foundation in Thailand and the Mekong Environment and Resources Institute Foundation. He served on the Board of the Thailand-United States Educational Foundation (Fulbright Thailand) from 1997-2016. Mr. Zola served in the United States Peace Corps in Thailand in 1970-72. Mr. Zola holds a graduate degree in economics from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, New York (1976); an undergraduate degree in international affairs from the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington, DC (1970); and, a certificate in French Civilization from the University of Paris, Sorbonne (1967). He speaks and reads Thai, Lao, and French fluently.

Rural development, economic development, Southeast Asia