Rainer Rohdewohld has close to 30 years’ working experience in international development cooperation, working for both multi-lateral and bilateral agencies. He has been done consultancy and advisory work for the Asian Development Bank, UNDP, SDC, GIZ, and Roland Berger (Middle East). Most of his work was in the Asia-Pacific region (Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Nepal, the Philippines, Cambodia, Mongolia), with additional assignments to West Africa (Nigeria, Ghana) and the Middle East (Palestine, Saudi Arabia). From 2013-2015 he worked with the German Asia-Pacific Business Association (OAV) which promotes the engagement of German trade and industry in the Asia-Pacific region. 

The focus of his work is on decentralisation and local governance (DLG), multi-level governance, public sector reform, and capacity development. Increasingly, the nexus of DLG reforms and localizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) has become part of his professional concerns. He has designed and moderated e-learning courses on Functional Assignment (2015-2019) (Local Governance Initiative and Network Asia), and on “Decentralization, Local Governance, and Localizing SDGs in Asia and the Pacific” (2020 and 2021) (ADB).  

His most recent publications include Critique of the functional assignment architecture of Punjab’s local governance legislation of 2013 and 2019 (together with Moazzam Janjua) (2020), Localizing Global Agendas in Multilevel Governance Systems. The Benefits of Functional Assignment as Core Element of Decentralization Reforms (ADB Governance Brief No. 30, Manila 2017), and Emerging Practices in Intergovernmental Functional Assignment, London/New York, Routledge (Routledge Series on Federalism and Decentralization) 2017 (together with Gabe Ferrazzi). He has published on decentralization and public sector reform issues in Indonesia, and written on the economic situation in Cambodia and Bhutan. In 1995, the Graduate School of Government, Monash University (Australia) published his book Public Administration in Indonesia.