We already know that energy moves mountains. In Mário Gomes's case, it was an interest in international development that turned him into a professional who moves across different latitudes, always keeping energy efficiency in mind. From Abidjan, in Ivory Coast, this Mozambican tells us how he has been adding up experiences in several countries working for the African Development Bank.
Today, Mário Gomes writes to us directly from Abidjan, the main financial centre of West Africa. In a few days, or the following week, we will no longer know where. A project manager for the private sector, with a particular focus on local economic development and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), he has been away for almost 4 years – after almost 3 years in Nairobi, Kenya – although every year he spends weeks and months on missions, identifying needs and designing and implementing development projects for public and private clients.
Gomes joined international organisations and multilateral development banks early on, from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group –, the International Trade Centre (ITC), a joint agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization (WTO), or even the African Development Bank (AfDB), among many other private institutions, and in higher education, as a lecturer, which made him aware that he would have to move around a great deal throughout his career: “I knew I would become a global citizen. My professional life would be different, and I had to accept that travelling the world periodically would be part of that routine. Meeting colleagues with different academic and professional backgrounds, experiences and cultures, as well as meeting the needs of clients in different contexts, would be a duty.”
In order to help and contribute to reducing poverty and social disparities, something important to Mário, the Mozambican was willing to go further, “where I could make a difference, and which required designing and implementing projects to meet clients' needs, everywhere,” as he shares by email.
“Over the last 17 years, I have worked in more than 25 countries, mainly in Africa but also in Asia (China). So leaving Mozambique and working abroad is a consequence, a natural thing. The second aspect is that I was raised by a single mother, who taught me from an early age that we are the ones who define our future, and that the past and the present cannot define where we should go and what we should be. In addition, I have read dozens of books about great people who travelled the world with the intention of making an impact and, finally, having been a basketball player for 12 years, I also learnt to feel comfortable with constant change,” as in a game of basketball where, in a second, everything can change, from apparent defeat to final victory, and vice versa” – he shares.
At 51, Mário Gomes divides his time between his professional obligations, daily sporting activity (basketball, an eternal love, swimming and yoga), postgraduate studies in the United Kingdom (where he is currently at the end of the first year of a master's in Energy Finance and Economics at the University of Aberdeen, having completed, 1 year ago, an MBA in Oil and Gas), work trips and, of course, looking after his family. He is dedicated to the mission of the African Development Bank and intends to expand his knowledge and implement projects in Central and North Africa, always with Mozambique in mind. Indeed, he tells us: “I have three projects in Mozambique, around local content and SME development, which are being implemented by two entities, the Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH) and the Instituto de Promoção de Pequenas e Medias Empresas (IPEME). Similar requests have been sent to the Bank by member countries such as Equatorial Guinea and Mauritania, which shows that Mozambique is well positioned on the continental map as an example of project implementation for SMEs.
