Tōtāra is a Zambia-based not-for-profit that helps governments and development partners turn evidence, expertise and innovation into solutions that work on the ground. We bring together local knowledge, international expertise, research, technology and behavioural insight to design, test, strengthen and help deliver programmes that can be owned and sustained locally. Our work currently spans agriculture and food systems, health, and climate resilience — connected by a common focus on behaviour, sustainable implementation and locally owned systems.
Tōtāra is a young organisation. The senior experience, technical partners and live programmes behind it are not.
Our founding principle
Most expertise never reaches the ground. That's the problem we exist to fix — we put it there, and we keep it there.
Tōtāra was built as a locally embedded Zambian platform that brings international academic and technical expertise directly into in-country programmes, alongside Zambian expertise rather than in place of it — and that ensures learning from implementation flows back into the research and policy work.
No distant head office. Decisions get made where the work happens.
Localisation, for us, is not a compliance box on a donor form. It is the operating model:
Local institutions set the priorities
Localisation is not an adjustment made after a programme is designed; it is where design starts. Local institutions and experts shape priorities rather than implementing someone else’s plan, and international technical expertise is brought in to support those priorities and add specialist capability where it’s needed — not to substitute for them.
Decisions are made where the work happens.
a small, focused team, so more of every programme budget reaches delivery.
We strengthen existing systems rather than build parallel ones, so the methods, relationships and capability created by a programme remain in-country after the funding cycle closes.
Academic rigour is integrated with practical delivery so that research outputs are directly usable in operational decision-making, not filed and forgotten.
We work as part of a consortium, not alone. Tōtāra brings strategy, donor engagement and international expertise; our partners bring registered operating capacity and delivery on the ground. We don't try to own every capability — we build the right partners around the problem.
The boundaries between climate resilience, agriculture, health, education and livelihoods are dissolving. Climate change is an accelerating driver of health outcomes — heat, food security, water, vector-borne disease, displacement — and of agricultural risk. A household facing crop failure is facing a health outcome.
We work across these connections deliberately, including at the humanitarian–development–peace nexus, rather than treating each sector as a separate funding silo. And we hold behaviour at the centre: across climate, agriculture and health alike, the decisive question is whether people adopt, trust and sustain what a programme offers.
Our Articles of Association were drafted deliberately — long, specific and detailed — rather than as a minimal registration formality. We wanted the founding document itself to state clearly what the organisation is for and how it will operate, so that our procedures, systems and ethical commitments are constitutional obligations rather than policies that can quietly drift.
The Articles set out what Tōtāra exists to do: strategic advisory and institutional strengthening, applied research and data-driven tools, community-level programmes that strengthen local capacity and livelihoods, and a durable platform for long-term work in strategy, science, technology and implementation.
All directors, advisors, staff and contractors must declare and manage any actual or potential conflict of interest. This is a standing obligation, not a one-off disclosure at appointment.
We hold a zero-tolerance position on fraud, corruption and bribery, with mandatory reporting and referral to law enforcement where appropriate.
Gender equality is named in our Articles as a founding principle. We commit to equal participation, equal pay for equal value, and active attention to the barriers facing underrepresented groups, applied across staffing, programmes and partnerships.
An Advisory Council appointed on the basis of specific expertise provides independent technical oversight to the Board, on which all directors hold equal standing.
Tōtāra is one of Aotearoa (New Zealand)’s most enduring native timbers — strong, workable, and built for structural purpose rather than short-term engagement. In Māori culture it is known as rākau rangatira, a chiefly tree associated with leadership, strength and resilience.
The name was proposed by our Zambian co-founder, and carries a personal connection for co-founder Jason, whose family ties reach back to Aotearoa.
Legal structure
Private company limited by guarantee, not-for-profit
Registration
PACRA No. 120261042857, Republic of Zambia
Registered activity
ISIC 7220, Research and experimental development in social sciences
Governing legislation
Companies Act No. 10 of 2017 (Zambia)
Primary geography
Zambia and Southern Africa
Incorporated
March 2026
Botanical illustration from T. Kirk, The Forest Flora of New Zealand, 1889.