Associate

Aitor is a Basque partnership enthusiast who, after working for 5 years in the UK where he was the Wandle Trail Partnership Chair, moved to Central America and established ALIARSE, an organization which promotes partnerships for development in Costa Rica since 2007, becoming one of the most successful and enduring MSP platform in the globe.

As the Executive Director of ALIARSE, Aitor leads the research, capacity building, design and management of MSPs and the advocacy work on partnering. These MSP include but are not limited to employment, SME development, climate change, water conservation, recycling, health and sustainable agriculture supply chains. Aitor is convinced that the complex social and environmental challenges that Costa Rica and the world face, require more effective public-private sector cooperation, which requires capacity building public and private leaders, trust building, and brokering model partnerships.

He is the co-author of a partnership management system software, and co-editor of several publications including: the “Methodological guide for the design and management of partnerships for development”, “The legal framework of public private partnerships in Costa Rica”, and the “State of the Art of Partnerships in Costa Rica 2020”.

Aitor has a Masters in Environmental Impact Assessment and Management from Oxford Brookes University, UK. He has been a consultant on partnership and development initiatives for organizations such as the OECD, IADB, UNICEF, GIZ, IUCN.