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My clients and donors

Karam Shaar Advisory Ltd. is a limited-liability consulting company registered in New Zealand (business number: 9429048957441).

Services

My work mainly focuses on Syria’s economy and how it interacts with politics (political economy). I am especially interested in macroeconomics, monetary economics, energy, aid, war economics, actor mapping, and sanctions. Here’s a list of the standardized services I can help you with:

Policy Consulting

  • Oral updates and consulting: Such updates are particularly useful in the early stages of policy formation.

  • Policy briefs: Punchy briefs of less than 1,000 words with a focus on practical recommendations. A brief can be turned around in less than 72 hours.

  • Policy research: All my policy research is data-driven—be it primary or secondary data—to facilitate original value. I guarantee access to all parts of Syria for primary data collection. Because the expense and time required for completing such projects depends on the scope, the cost of this service must be quoted on a case-by-case basis.

Coaching and Training

I provide group and one-on-one coaching or training sessions for recently appointed diplomats and the staff of international and local organizations working in Syria. These sessions can be arranged on an hourly or daily basis.

Peer Review of Unpublished Policy and Academic Reports

One of the services I enjoy most is going through unpublished work and providing feedback. This can be done at different stages of writing:

  • At the scoping stage, I propose appropriate research tools and the skeleton of the report.

  • For near-final reports, I give feedback on the soundness, clarity, and correctness of stated arguments and presented visualizations.

Interactive Visualizations

I can help you communicate large datasets effectively using interactive visualizations. I usually design a static version of the visualization, describe its functionality, and later work with in-house programmers on the implementation. I provide two types of visualizing services:

  • Bespoke visualizations, built from scratch to utilise all valuable aspects of the data and tailored to meet the needs of your audience. These visualizations appear in different formats on PC and mobile devices. Here you can see a dataset, which would have required tens of pages to be presented as a table, rendered instead as a single visualization. Similar examples of earlier work can be found hereherehere, and here. Depending on the complexity, these visualizations may take up to a few weeks to be developed and tested.

  • Typical visualizations. If your dataset is typical, and you’re willing to lose some customizability in the visualization, you can opt for cheaper and ready-made visualization packages, such as Tableau and PowerBi. An example can be found here.

Operational Research

I provide Third-Party Monitoring, Capacity Assessment, and Monitoring and Evaluation (MEAL) services. I have led the implementation of such projects with a vast range of partners, including Christian Aid, Expertise France, The Day After, Search for Common Ground, Rozana, Enab Baladi, Arta FM, Basmeh and Zeitooneh, and Kesh Malek. Because these projects can range widely in terms of complexity and implementation duration, they are discussed and priced on a case-by-case basis.

Due Diligence

I have access to a wide network of informants, businesspeople, and government officials in Syria. I use this access to provide due diligence services for background checks on individuals and entities for various purposes, such as imposing unilateral sanctions, KYC, offering citizenships, and providing evidence for criminal cases.

Rates (flat unless otherwise indicated)

Policy Briefs

(24-hour turnaround)

  • Oral Updates and Consulting

  • Hourly Coaching Sessions

  • Peer Review of Unpublished Policy and Academic Publications

  • Typical Visualizations

Bespoke Visualization

Full Day Coaching or Training

  • Operational Research

  • Policy Research

  • Due Diligence

4500 USD

425 USD (hourly)

Exceptions:
Free of charge for students
300 USD for non-profits

Starting from 11,000 USD

1300 USD

800 USD for non-profits

Case-by-Case

Service Inquiry Form

Thank you for your inquiry. I'll respond to you within two working days.

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