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Who we are
Taskforce
Michel Nussbaumer
Director, Legal Transition Programme, EBRD
Michel works as Director of the EBRD Legal Transition Programme, providing it leadership, vision and long-term strategy. He is leading a team of lawyers working on legal policy dialogue and technical assistance in the countries of central and eastern Europe and North Africa, since the aim of the Programme is to mote an investor-friendly, transparent and predictable legal environment. Prior to this experience he served as Chief Counsel for Legal Transition and Knowledge Management for 12 years. Prior to EBRD experience, Michel has practiced as a commercial lawyer in Geneva, Moscow and London. He graduated from the University of Fribourg, received his Master of Laws from the University of California at Berkeley and was a visiting scholar at Moscow State University.
Eliza Niewiadomska
Senior Counsel, Legal Transition Programme, EBRD
Eliza works as Senior Counsel for EBRD for 12 years and has responsibility for regulatory advice on digital transformation of government commerce and leading technical cooperation activities under the EBRD UNCITRAL Public Procurement Reform Initiative. Graduated from Law (Warsaw University) and holding Master’s degree from University College London and King´s College London, Eliza worked for Polish government during accession to EU on regulatory reforms and later in private sector as general counsel in IT industry and head of procurement at power energy company.
Caroline Nicholas
Senior Legal Officer and Head, Technical Assistance Section, UNCITRAL Secretariat
Caroline is a Law and Procurement Expert, currently in position of Head of Technical Assistance at UNCITRAL Secretariat. She has served as Secretary to the Working Group, which issued UNCITRAL Model law on Public Procurement in 2011 and she is providing legal and policy advice to national governments in all regions, together with another international organizations. She is also the UNCITRAL lead for the EBRD-UNCITRAL Initiative on Public Procurement, a technical assistance programme supporting reform in all EBRD countries. Caroline graduated from University of Oxford and she teaches public procurement law and policy at various UK and EU universities. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Public Procurement Law Review and publishes widely on public procurement.
Samira Musayeva
Senior Legal Officer, UNCITRAL Secretariat
Samira serves as the Secretary of UNCITRAL Working Group V (Insolvency Law) and has been with the UNCITRAL secretariat since 2004 working in addition to insolvency law in the areas of security interests, electronic commerce, public procurement, public-private partnerships and negotiable transport documents. She joined the United Nations in 2000 as an associate legal officer in the Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs, specializing in international public law issues and servicing the Sixth Committee of the UN General Assembly and its subsidiary bodies. Before joining the UN, Samira worked as an associate lawyer with Baker McKenzie, representing clients in privatization and concession projects in energy, telecommunication and construction sectors.
Evgeny Smirnov
Senior Adviser, Procurement Policy Department, EBRD
Evgeny is an associate director & policy advisor at the EBRD Procurement Policy and Advisory Department. After joining the Bank in 2000, he worked at the Infrastructure Business Group on numerous projects, being responsible for developing project delivery strategies, advising and assisting clients during projects implementation on the associated risk management issues, mostly in Balkan´s countries He coordinates the policy dialogue with the governments and provides advice to the Bank's clients across all sectors. He is a member of EBRD-UNICTRAL Taskforce, OECD/DAC MAPS Working group as well as OECD/ACN monitoring teams for selected countries. Prior to joining EBRD, Evgeny worked at the Ministry of Foreign Economic Affairs of Russia on large construction and irrigation projects and as procurement consultant on a number of World Bank funded projects.
International experts
Chris Smith
International expert
Chris is an international procurement specialist and e-procurement adviser with 42 years of experience in implementing donor funded projects in Africa, Asia, the Caucuses and the Middle East. His expertise includes project design, project management, procurement, logistics and advisory services for a diverse range of private and public sector clients and donors including the African Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Government of Japan and the World Bank. Over the last 12 years Chris has focused on e-procurement projects including training, business analysis for new IT systems, customization of donor websites and development of procurement management information systems, and providing advice to the governments of Armenia, Barbados Rwanda and Yemen and on the design and implementation of e-procurement systems.
Eriks Mezalis
International expert
Eriks is an international public procurement consultant based in Riga, Latvia. A lawyer by decree, he has been involved in the legislation development and capacity building projects, managed by institutions such as EBRD, GIZ, OECD/Sigma and European Commission, in Balkan, Eastern Europe and Southern Caucasus Regions. Eriks has drafted a new Public Procurement Law for Georgia, based on the new package of EU Directives. He has participated in the development of primary and secondary legislation of Ukraine and Armenia as well provided legal review for procurement laws and decrees of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Belarus, Kosovo and Albania. He possesses an in-depth knowledge of widely accepted international public procurement standards, such as UNCITRAL Public Procurement Model Law, WTO Government Procurement Agreement, as well as EU Public Procurement Directives. In addition Eriks has been a member of working groups elaborating Latvia’s Public Procurement Law and Public Private Partnership Law.
Youssef Benama
International expert
Youssef is a procurement specialist with sound experience in public procurement management. He graduated in public procurement management from the university of Tor Vergata, Italy. He also a PhD and Engineering degree in industrial engineering. As a procurement manager, he was in charge of conducting procurement procedures and supervising contract execution. As a procurement Consultant with the EBRD, Youssef contributes to TC projects developed by the Bank in the SEMED region to promote digital transformation of public procurement in order to enhance transparency and increase market access.
Ahmad Alhaj Hussein
International expert
Ahmad has over 12 years of experience in specialized custom solutions development based on latest Java technologies. Skilled in project management, he supported the development of Jordan E-Procurement system (JONEPS). implementation of Online Help Desk for JONEPS and development E-Cataloge module through (UNSPSC) for E-Procurement system in Kurdistan. Ahmad also conducts research and case studies on leading edge technologies and makes determinations on the probability of implementation. Moreover, Ahmad contributes as a software development and a development manager to the development of the OCDS procurement data module in JONEPS and building mobile application base on OCDS messages. Ahmad holds Bachelor of Computer Science from Al-Zaytoonah University in Jordan.
Illia Chernohorenko
International expert
Illia is a lawyer working in the fields of dispute resolution, rule of law and human rights. As a former Director General for the Rule of Law Directorate at the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine (2018-2019), he is currently acting as external consultant to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Union (EU) and the Council of Europe (CoE) in Ukraine on reforming judicial system as well as setting up online dispute resolution mechanisms for administrative tribunals. Illia graduated from the Queen Mary University of London.
Vesta Malolitneva
International expert
Vesta has more than 9 years of research experience, which is mainly related to public procurement (legal aspects). In July 2015, she defended PhD dissertation in Economic law which was dedicated to the legal regulation of public procurement in Ukraine in the context of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement and the WTO Government Procurement Agreement. Similarly in April 2021, Vesta defended Doctoral dissertation on the legal institute of public procurement in Ukraine and obtained the degree of Doctor of Science. As an author of more than 30 articles on public procurement issues, she took part in 10 projects within the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and international conferences. Her scope of professional interest includes public procurement (legal aspects, comparative analysis) and sustainable public procurement (green and socially responsible public procurement – legal aspects).
Victoria Vystoropska
International expert
Victoria is a policy & digital tools expert with extensive procurement and project management experience. Having previously worked as procurement manager, she has managed procurement communication and tender preparation for multiple projects in Ukraine. She also revised requirements and qualification criteria in tender documentations, which in turn led to an increase in the indicator of successful procedures. She is currently providing legal support in the procurement sector, manages obligations under terms of contract of selected projects and analyses technical requirement documentation of ongoing projects. She holds a degree in Management from Kyiv National University of Technology & Design.
Local experts
Astghik Solomonyan
Local expert - Armenia
Astghik graduated from Yerevan State University’s Faculty of Law Then studied for her LLM degree in International Economic and Business Law at the University of Groningen. She has worked for the OECD’s Sigma project as a consultant, in a local company as a lawyer, and also as a contracts assistant for the World Vision International Beneficent Organization. She is currently the local legal expert on the Armenian project while simultaneously studying for her PhD at the University of Zurich.
Artak Chobanyan
Local expert - Armenia
Artak is an expert on public financial management with eight years’ experience working with the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Armenia on public procurement, public accounting, budget planning and execution. He also has more than five years’ experience in procurement planning, project management and implementation on nationwide IT projects.
Akif Azimov
Local expert - Azerbaijan
Akif is an expert on public and private procurement and contracts management, Akif is a director of a procurement consulting company and has over 15 years’ experience. He has expert knowledge of the European Union’s and Azerbaijan’s public procurement systems and vast experience in assessing, developing and managing procurement processes. Akif graduated from UK Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply and currently has Fellowship (FCIPS) Membership awarded as a hallmark of professional standing and contribution to the Supply Chain Management profession.
Dorina Jitaru
Local expert - Moldova
Dorina has a professional experience of over 15 years, as an Associate Professor, the main taught courses being International Trade and Trade Policies and Economic Integration. She also has experience working in the Ministry of Economy of Moldova, as well as in different research projects as a researcher-coordinator. Starting with 2013, Dorina works for the EBRD as a regulatory and policy expert in Moldova, Tajikistan, Kyrgyz Republic and North Macedonia following the work at the UNDP as a national consultant for Moldova GPA accession. In July 2016 Moldova has officially joined WTO GPA. The main focus of the ongoing projects is the reform of Public Procurement Sector of Republic of Moldova in the post GPA accession context and in Tajikistan, Kyrgyz Republic and North Macedonia - assisting it in the WTO GPA accession process.
Tuya Mayakhuu
Local expert - Mongolia
Tuya is an international lawyer with extensive experience of working in various sectors, including legal research, retraining of lawyers and legal and judicial reform. She has been actively engaged with the Legal Reform of Mongolia since 2012. Tuya has experience in working with the Public service of Mongolia and other international donor organizations such as Asian Development Bank and has substantial contribution in redrafting the laws and legislations, supporting the concept of Legal reform. Tuya's expertise area is anti-corruption, transparency of governance, human rights, legal reform, public procurement and e-governance.
