Speakers and moderators: Day 2 of the Global Impact Evaluation Forum
See our list of speakers and moderators for 3 December 2024
Parallel session 1
Speakers Day 2
Jennifer Waidler joined the World Food Programme as an Impact Evaluation Officer in 2022 to manage a portfolio of impact evaluations focused on resilience and climate change. She previously worked at the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti, where she led social protection research, including impact evaluations of cash transfers and cash plus programmes. She holds a PhD in Economics and Governance from Maastricht University and UNU-MERIT.
Paul Christian is a Senior Economist in the Development Impact Evaluation Department (DIME) of the of the World Bank. His research focuses on impact evaluations and policy analysis interventions intended to improve food security and agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. He holds a PhD and MA in Economics from Brown University, and a BA in Economics from the University of Notre Dame.
Silvio Daidone is an Impact Evaluation Specialist at FAO, where he is focused on impact evaluations of social cash transfers in Africa and rural development interventions. He holds a PhD in Econometrics and led analysis at the University of York on healthcare costs in England. He teaches Political Economy of Development at LUISS University in Rome and Impact Evaluation methods at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. He has more than 30 peer-reviewed articles in agricultural, development, and health economics.
Elke Johanna de Buhr is a UNICEF Evaluation Specialist and applied researcher passionate about using data and evidence to strengthen programmes, results and impact. Prior to joining UNICEF, she worked as Head of Monitoring and Evaluation for UNOPS, and as faculty member for several universities, including the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and the Payson Center for International Development at Tulane University of New Orleans and the Charité Institute for Health Sciences at Humboldt University and Free University of Berlin. Over a period of 20 years, she has led and implemented applied research, monitoring and evaluation projects focusing on the health and wellbeing of children and people of all ages in a wide variety of countries and contexts including numerous large population-based household surveys and programme evaluations for international organizations (UNAIDS, UNICEF, UN-OCHA, UNOPS, the World Bank), government agencies (USDOL, CDC) and NGOs (Fairtrade International, Walk Free Foundation).
To be confirmed
Parallel session 1
Speakers Day 2
Kristen Mc Collum is a researcher at the University of Oxford’s Centre on Migration Policy and Society, where she teaches on the economics of migration and quantitative research methods while concurrently finishing her doctoral degree. Her research interests include experimental programme evaluation methods in high-displacement contexts.
Kristen holds a Master’s of Impact Evaluation for International Development and has 10 years of experience conducting research for international organizations, including with the World Food Programme, the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and Oxfam.
Conor Flavin is the focal point for data in the New York office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), covering policy development and UNHCR’s partnerships on data while maintaining open dialogue and partnerships with United Nations, civil society and refugee-led organizations. Previously, he held data and information management positions in Latin America and East and Horn of Africa with UNHCR and UNAIDS. His background is centred around the social sciences and urban planning.
Jon Kurtz is Mercy Corps’ Senior Director for Research and Learning, where he leads the agency’s research and impact evaluation efforts. Mr. Kurtz is a prominent author and advisor on how development and humanitarian action can reduce conflict and strengthen resilience to climate change, natural disasters and violence. His work has spanned both emergency and longer-term development contexts, including extensive stints in Afghanistan, Kenya, Mozambique, Pakistan, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Mr. Kurtz holds an MSc in Management of Agricultural Knowledge Systems and Social Change from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
Paul Thissen provides technical and management leadership of and support for impact evaluations, synthesis, and other evidence programmes at 3Ie. He leads 3ie's involvement in the PeaceFIELD initiative, a collaboration with the United Nations Secretary-General's Peacebuilding Fund and the International Security and Development Center. Paul also supports the production of communication materials to effectively convey research findings and 3ie accomplishments to a wide variety of audiences. Paul holds a PhD and MA in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BS in Economics and Journalism from Northwestern University.
Bushra Hassan is the Senior Advisor on Monitoring and Evaluation with the Secretary General’s Peacebuilding Fund in the United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office. Bushra started her career in the private sector and academia before transitioning to the UN system in 2007. She has since then worked with UNDP, UNWOMEN and UNICEF in Pakistan, Somalia and Thailand. Bushra is an anthropologist and psychologist by training and always focuses on perceptions of local actors in complex settings. Within the Peacebuilding Fund, she has focused on impact data for peacebuilding impact. She remains passionate about engaging with programme teams on the evolution and agility of Fund’s interventions and is always keen to establish feedback loops with partners and stakeholders.
Lori Bell leads the evaluation function in UNHCR as the Head of Evaluation Office. Previously a senior evaluator in UNICEF (2014-2020) and FAO (2007-2014), she also has decades of management experience in development and humanitarian action in Asia and Africa. She is currently a Vice-Chair in the UN Evaluation Group. Lori holds a MSc. in epidemiology and biostatistics from McGill University and a BComm from University of Guelph in Canada.
Keynote plenary
Speakers Day 2
Catherine Russell serves as UNICEF’s 8th Executive Director, overseeing the organization’s work for children in over 190 countries and territories.
Ms. Russell brings to the role decades of experience in public service, with a focus on empowering underserved communities around the world and developing high-impact policies and programmes to support women and girls, including in humanitarian crises. She has extensive experience building and managing diverse workforces, as well as mobilizing resources and political support for a broad range of initiatives.
Dean Karlan is agency chief economist at USAID, leading its Office of the Chief Economist.
He is the Frederic Esser Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Economics and Finance and co-director of the Global Poverty Research Lab at Northwestern University. Karlan founded Innovations for Poverty Action and previously served on the Executive Committee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Jameel Poverty Action Lab. In 2015, he co-founded the non-profit ImpactMatters to evaluate the impact of non-profit organizations, helping donors choose effective organizations and promoting sector transparency.
His research employs experimental methodologies and behavioral economics to tackle poverty Issues, focusing on income generation, credit markets and charitable giving across over 20 countries.
Karlan has co-authored several influential books on global poverty and has received numerous awards, including a Presidential Early Career Award. He holds a PhD in economics from MIT and degrees from the University of Chicago and University of Virginia.
Coming soon
Parallel session 2
Speakers Day 2
Andrés Moya is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of the Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, Director of Semillas de Apego and a commissioner for Lancet Commission on Health, Conflict and Forced Displacement. His research focuses on understanding the consequences of conflict and forced displacement and how they thrust people into poverty through economic, psychological, and behavioural channels. Building on this evidence, he designs and evaluates interventions aimed at mitigating those consequences and fostering movements out of poverty. A prime example of this work is Semillas de Apego, a community-based psychosocial programme for caregivers of young children in communities affected by conflict and forced displacement.
Jeannie Annan, PhD, is the IRC’s Chief Research and Innovation Officer, leading the agency’s efforts to design, test, and scale life-changing solutions for people affected by conflict and disaster. Jeannie co-founded the Airbel Impact Lab, a team of researchers, designers, behavioral scientists and analysts working with technical experts, frontline staff and partners to find high impact and scalable products and services in more than 40 crisis-affected countries around the world. Dr. Annan’s own research focus has been to develop and test economic, behavioural, and mental health interventions to prevent violence and to mitigate its psychological and social consequences on women and children. She holds a PhD in Counseling Psychology from Indiana University-Bloomington. She was a post-doctorate fellow at Yale University and NYU and a visiting scientist at the Harvard T.C. Chan School of Public Health.
Nyasha Tirivayi is Social Policy Manager at UNICEF Innocenti-Global Office of Research and Foresight. She leads and manages social protection research, particularly research on the design, implementation and wide-ranging impacts of social protection programmes in all settings. This includes multi-country research on gender and social protection, and on the resilience of children and families to shocks. She works closely with governments and development partners in evidence generation and in promoting research uptake. She has published widely in journals and books, particularly in the fields of development economics, social protection and global health. She previously worked for the United Nations University (UNU-MERIT) and for FAO. Nyasha holds a PhD in Public Policy.
Claire Greene is an Assistant Professor in the Program on Forced Migration and Health at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. Her research aims to improve the effectiveness and implementation of mental health and substance use interventions for displaced populations in humanitarian emergencies. Currently, her research is based in Colombia, Ecuador, Greece, Mexico, Ukraine and Zambia. She is a member of the Steering Committee for the Columbia Global Mental Health Program and serves as an Editor of the Global Mental Health journal and Journal of Refugee Studies.
Inga Kaplan, PhD., is Chief of Evaluation at UN Women, the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. With more than 20 years of professional experience in evaluation, research, and programme design related to development and gender equality within international and national contexts, Inga provides leadership and management for the evaluation function. Inga has a doctorate in Sociology from the University of Warwick, UK. She has extensive experience in social research and evaluation, including the assessments of international, national and community programmes. Inga worked in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Kosovo as a Gender Advisor, responsible for gender mainstreaming in democratization processes and developing women’s community initiatives for peacebuilding and post-conflict recovery. Inga taught a number of sociology, development, and gender courses at Warwick University. She is published in the areas of evaluation, social inclusion and women’s online activism.
Amber Peterman is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and technical lead for the UNICEF Evaluation Office impact catalyst fund on child marriage and social norms. Her work focuses on the intersection of gender and development, with an emphasis on violence against women and children. She is currently an affiliated researcher with the Transfer Project, a non-resident fellow with the Center for Global Development and an affiliated researcher with J-PAL. She previously worked as a Social Policy Specialist at UNICEF Office of Research—Innocenti and as a Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C., Kampala, and Dakar.
Parallel session 2
Speakers Day 2
Simone Lombardini is an Impact Evaluation Officer at the World Food Programme, where he manages a portfolio of randomized controlled trials focused on school meal programmes. He has experience conducting experimental and quasi-experimental impact evaluations in more than 20 countries. Before joining the WFP, Simone was the Impact Evaluation Lead at Oxfam GB. He also worked with the University of Oxford, Innovations for Poverty Action, Centro Studi Luca d’Agliano, and the Mexican Migration Project. Simone holds an MSc in development economics from the University of Sussex and a bachelor’s in economics from the University of Milan Bicocca.
As the Senior Research Advisor for Humanitarian Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA), Qundeel leads the design, implementation, and application of Save the Children’s Global CVA Learning Agenda. She also is a co-creator of the multi-agency MPCA MEAL Toolkit, funded by USAID/BHA. Qundeel previously served as a MEAL Advisor supporting multi-sectoral emergency cash programmes in Afghanistan, Colombia, Myanmar, Peru, Venezuela and Yemen. Qundeel holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) and, in her free time, enjoys spending time with her cats, traveling, and hiking.
Kathryn Falb is a mixed methods social epidemiologist who specializes in designing and testing multidisciplinary strategies to prevent violence against women and children, with a primary focus on humanitarian settings. Her work also emphasizes advancing the science of adaptable, rigorous and equitable research methodologies in complex and fragile settings. She is an Assistant Professor with the Center for Humanitarian Health – Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Leon Robertson Faculty Development Chair in Injury Prevention. Previously, she served as the Research Director for the International Rescue Committee.
Miguel Almanzar is an economist with over 13 years’ experience of conducting impact evaluations of agricultural, social protection and nutrition programmes from inception, data collection and local capacity-building to delivery of results. He is currently an Evaluation Specialist at UNICEF in New York finding innovative solutions to evaluate adaptive social programmes in fragile settings. Previously he worked at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), where he was a principal investigator on several impact evaluations that looked at the effects of agricultural extension, ICTs, WASH, roads infrastructure and electricity access on economic well-being, productivity and food security.
Audrey Pereira is an Impact Evaluation Analyst with the Evaluation Office at UNICEF headquarters, where she supports portfolios on child marriage and social norms, and adaptive social protection. Her work focuses on integrating gender considerations in social protection and other development programmes, with an emphasis on empowerment, gender-based violence, and child and youth well-being. She has over a decade of research experience in international organizations, and is trained in economics, global health and public policy. She employs both quantitative and qualitative methods in her evaluations.
With over 20 years’ experience in humanitarian aid and international diplomacy, Anthea Moore currently works with UNICEF headquarters to provide global support and policy development on planning, monitoring and learning in humanitarian contexts. Her insights draw on degrees in Economics, International Relations and Impact Evaluation with field experience in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Fiji, Indonesia, Mauritania, Myanmar, the Philippines, the State of Palestine, Tanzania, Ukraine, Vanuatu, Venezuela and Vietnam. She has expertise in the ethics of Impact Evaluation and the power dynamics of primary data collection in vulnerable communities.
Zlata Bruckauf leads the UNICEF work on impact evaluation and provides strategic oversight for the Impact Catalyst Fund multi-country impact evaluation portfolios in close collaboration with global programme, regional and country evaluation teams. She joined the UNICEF Evaluation Office in 2021 as a Senior Evaluation Specialist supervising the portfolio of methods, impact, innovation and learning and has more than 20 years’ experience in the development sector including support to national governments in implementing rigorous mixed-methods evaluation and research projects with a particular focus on child poverty and education. She holds a doctorate degree in comparative social policy from the University of Oxford and an MA in International Development Policy from Duke University.
Deep dive sessions
Speakers Day 2
Uyen Kim Huynh, PhD is an Innovation Specialist at the Office of Evaluation at UNICEF. She has over 12 years of experience in evaluation, specialized in impact designs of complex programmes in low-income settings. Prior to joining UNICEF, Uyen served as an Assistant Director of Policy at the Center of Sustainable Development at Columbia University. At UNICEF, she is focused on how to better leverage data science to improve methodological rigor in UNICEF’s evaluation, including AI-powered techniques for data processing and analysis. Uyen has a doctorate degree in evaluation of refugee humanitarian assistance at the Harvard Program for Refugee Studies, a master’s degree in Agricultural Economics from Cornell and, has spent eight years studying and teaching poverty measurement at Columbia University’s The Earth Institute.
Ananth Balashankar is a Senior Research Scientist at Google DeepMind in New York. He did his Ph.D in Computer Science advised by Prof. Lakshminarayanan Subramanian at New York University and Dr. Alex Beutel. His research focuses on improving the safety of AI applications such as Gemini; building domain faithful AI applications for socioeconomics; and privacy. He has won several awards, including the Google SRAP fellowship, NYU’s Janet Fabri Prize for best CS dissertation, and Harold Grad Memorial Prize. His work on using news streams for food insecurity prediction has been leveraged at the World Bank and Google Africa.
Niyati Malhotra is an Analyst in the Development Impact department of the World Bank, where she focuses on digital tools to diagnose and address human capital challenges. Most recently, she has been conducting research on online platforms for behaviour change, including social media and education technology. She also coordinates DIME’s portfolio of entertainment-education projects in India, Kenya and Nigeria, and drives engagement with strategic implementing partners, philanthropic organizations and academic researchers. Before joining the World Bank, Niyati was a Consultant at Oxford Policy Management, where she conducted primary research in early childhood development, results-based education financing and financial inclusion. She holds an MPA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a BA in Economics and International Development Studies from McGill University.
Samuel Paul Fraiberger is a data scientist within the World Bank’s Development Impact (DIME) department, where he leads the DIME AI programme, a group focused on developing AI methods and products to scale development impact. His research has appeared in leading academic journals (Science, Science Advances, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The Journal of International Economics) and conferences across disciplines, as well as in the popular press (The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Washington Post, Axios). His latest product, ImpactAI, has received funding from Google.org as part of the first cohort of their GenAI accelerator programme. He is also a visiting researcher at the New York University Center for Data Science, a fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Connection Science and a senior research affiliate at Data-Pop Alliance
Coming soon
Philipp Zimmer , Data Science Consultant, Development Impact Group, World Bankis a Data Science Consultant working with the Development Impact Group at the World Bank. He specializes in machine learning and natural language processing applications for research on conflicts, hate speech, misinformation and food insecurity. Before joining the World Bank, Philipp was a Graduate Researcher in computational social science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Previously, he supported the UN Executive Office of the Secretary-General in implementing the UN’s Data Strategy and establishing CRAF’d. Philipp holds an SM in Computer Science and an SM in Technology and Policy, both from MIT.
Deep dive sessions
Speakers Day 2
Sara Merner is a Senior Policy Associate at Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) Europe, where she facilitates research partnerships for two humanitarian initiatives: the Displaced Livelihoods Initiative and the Humanitarian Protection Initiative. She previously provided evaluation training for organizations in the refugee resettlement sector in Canada. Before joining J-PAL, Sara conducted randomized evaluations on access to urban centres as a research assistant in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with Harvard University, and on behavioural change as a behavioural economics research assistant at the University of Oxford’s Smith School of the Enterprise and the Environment. She holds an MSc in evidence-based social intervention and policy evaluation from the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford.
Pierre Hodel is a Policy Manager at J-PAL Europe, where he leads J-PAL’s humanitarian portfolio. He oversees two pioneering research initiatives that fund new randomized evaluations of humanitarian interventions and leads outreach to humanitarian organisztions, build awareness in the humanitarian sector, and work with diverse stakeholders to identify priority research and evaluation questions regarding humanitarian effectiveness. Pierre previously worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in conflict contexts such as Iraq, South Sudan and Ukraine as a programme manager for livelihood interventions. He also worked at Instiglio, providing strategic and technical support to government reforms and brings a background in audit and financial advisory services from his experience at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Pierre holds a master’s in corporate finance from HEC at the University of Lausanne and is a Certified Public Accountant.
Hila-Nawa Alam has two decades of global experience in humanitarian relief, development and institution-building. She has worked with the United Nations in Beirut, Kabul and Vienna on post-crisis economic recovery, governance, rule of law and counter-narcotics, and engaged extensively at the grass-roots level in Afghanistan, for example by founding a sponsorship programme for formerly street-working children in 2003. An expert in diplomacy and aid effectiveness, she has worked across Afghan national institutions and published research papers on aid effectiveness, including with the London School of Economics Afghanistan Research Network or Open Diplomacy. She also led a bilingual elementary school in New York City. Currently, as Director of Humanitarian Relief with Uplift Afghanistan Fund, she oversees programme design, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and learning, including impact assessments.
Miguel Almanzar is an economist with over 13 years’ experience of conducting impact evaluations of agricultural, social protection and nutrition programmes from inception, data collection and local capacity-building to delivery of results. He is currently an Evaluation Specialist at UNICEF in New York finding innovative solutions to evaluate adaptive social programmes in fragile settings. Previously he worked at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), where he was a principal investigator on several impact evaluations that looked at the effects of agricultural extension, ICTs, WASH, roads infrastructure and electricity access on economic well-being, productivity and food security.
Felipe A. Dunsch is an Impact Evaluation Officer with the World Food Programme’s Impact Evaluation Unit, where he coordinates workstreams on cash transfers and gender, as well as on using impact evaluations to optimize humanitarian interventions. Prior to joining WFP, he held positions with the World Bank (DIME) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Hamburg, Germany.
Deep dive sessions
Speakers Day 2
Ghassan Baliki is the Director of the Welfare Research Program at ISDC where he studies violent conflict and human development. He leads several impact evaluations in humanitarian and conflict settings, including in Lebanon, Syria, South Sudan and Sudan. Ghassan holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the Humboldt University of Berlin, where he is currently a visiting researcher. His work has been published in reputable journals including World Development, Food Security, Global Food Security, Journal of African Economies and Journal of Refugee Studies. Previously he was a Marie Curie Research Associate at the German Institute of Economic Research.
Neil Ferguson is the director of the Peacebuilding Research Program at the International Security and Development Center in Berlin. His work, and that of his team, focuses on quantitative analyses of what works and how it works in conflict and peacebuilding scenarios, with interests in how peace processes work and what can be done at the individual and community level to bolster and reinforce peace and to mitigate the harms of experiencing conflict. His work has focused on a range of settings, including: Ethiopia, Guatemala, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Niger, Somalia and Tunisia.
Francesco Iacoella is an Impact Evaluation Analyst within the UNICEF Evaluation Office. He has extensive experience in the design and implementation of impact evaluations, with particular focus on fragile and humanitarian settings. His work features the use of advanced econometric techniques to make the best use of available data in the identification of causal pathways. Francesco joined UNICEF in 2023. Previously he was a consultant and researcher at United Nations University in Maastricht, the Netherlands. Francesco holds a PhD in development economics and master’s degrees in public policy and international relations.
Tom Pellens is an evaluation specialist at UNICEF Regional Office of Latin America and the Caribbean. He has been supporting impact evaluations in Argentina, Ecuador and Peru in the areas of social protection, nutrition and education. He managed the UNICEF impact evaluation on improving adolescent lives in India and Pakistan. He previously worked at Oxford Policy Management, the Clinton Health Access Initiative and Innovations for Poverty Action, leading or managing impact evaluations across social sectors.
Jochen Kluve is Director of Evaluation at KfW Development Bank (since 2019) and Professor of Economics at the School of Business and Economics, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (since 2011). Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and Head of Unit at RWI, an economics think tank. His research focuses on empirical development and labour economics, including counterfactual impact evaluations and meta-analyses of labour market policies and development interventions. Prof. Kluve has advised and collaborated with, among others, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the ILO and the European Commission. His research has appeared in publications including World Development, the Economic Journal, Journal of the European Economic Association and the Journal of Applied Econometrics.
Clare Clingain is a researcher at the International Rescue Committee, where she leads the organization’s research portfolio on economic recovery and development. She is trained as a statistician and holds an MS in Applied Statistics from New York University.
Discussion session
Speakers Day 2
Robert McCouch took up his position as the UNICEF Director of Evaluation in August 2021.
Mr. McCouch has served in a variety of evaluation roles in the UN system, including UNICEF, over the past 15 years. He was recently the Chief Evaluation Officer at the World Health Organization, prior to which he was the Chief of Section in the evaluation division of the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). From 2009-2013, as Senior Evaluation Specialist in the UNICEF Evaluation Office, he was responsible for the Organization’s large portfolio of evaluations focused on humanitarian action.
His career prior to joining the UN system was in the field of data analytics and policy and opinion research in the private sector. He was the Director of Research and Evaluation at the Harvard Medical School, covering a range of innovative programmes aimed at improving psychosocial, academic and health outcomes in highly vulnerable children.
Mr. McCouch received a PhD in social policy from Brandeis University, with a specialization in child, youth and family policy, and a post-doctorate in child-centered evaluation methods from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. He holds a Cand. scient. pol. degree in political science and political psychology from the University of Copenhagen, an M.A. in foreign languages from Middlebury College in Vermont, and a B.A. in international affairs from the George Washington University in Washington, DC.
He is a US national and speaks English, Danish, German, French, and Italian.
Jochen Kluve is Director of Evaluation at KfW Development Bank (since 2019) and Professor of Economics at the School of Business and Economics, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (since 2011). Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and Head of Unit at RWI, an economics think tank. His research focuses on empirical development and labour economics, including counterfactual impact evaluations and meta-analyses of labour market policies and development interventions. Prof. Kluve has advised and collaborated with, among others, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the ILO and the European Commission. His research has appeared in publications including World Development, the Economic Journal, Journal of the European Economic Association and the Journal of Applied Econometrics.
Jamil El Khoury holds dual Bachelor's degrees in Premedicine Biology and Psychology and is pursuing a Master's in Research, Evaluation and Measurement at the University of Connecticut. With expertise in behavioural science and children’s well-being, he has led MEAL initiatives for a consortium of six INGOs since 2017, evaluating multi-partner programmes for vulnerable populations. Currently, as a Research and Evaluation Officer for UNICEF Lebanon, Jamil leads research to inform policies and improve outcomes for children and families. His work emphasizes rigorous methodologies and evidence-based approaches to enhance programme effectiveness and equity.
Loïc Couasnon is an Associate Evaluation Officer with UNHCR in Geneva and is supporting evaluations mostly on the African continent while developing the impact evaluation portfolio within the Evaluation Office. Loic has more than 10 years of experience working in experimental protocol implementation, data management and field data collection in North, East and West Africa, in the fields of education, livelihood and microfinance. He has worked in partnership with the Jameel Poverty Action Lab, Innovations for Poverty Action, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). He is fluent in English, French and Dutch. Loïc received a master’s degree in economics from the University of Amsterdam.
Lori Bell leads the evaluation function in UNHCR as the Head of Evaluation Office. Previously a senior evaluator in UNICEF (2014-2020) and FAO (2007-2014), she also has decades of management experience in development and humanitarian action in Asia and Africa. She is currently a Vice-Chair in the UN Evaluation Group. Lori holds a MSc. in epidemiology and biostatistics from McGill University and a BComm from University of Guelph in Canada.
Jonas Heirman is the Head of Impact Evaluation Unit in the World Food Programme's Office of Evaluation. Jonas previously served as a Senior Innovation Adviser and an Evaluation Adviser for DFID, and as the UK Adviser to the Board of the African Development Bank. He also worked at IDS in Sussex, the University of Oxford, and the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM). Jonas holds a DPhil in Development Studies from the University of Oxford, an MSc in Public Policy from Maastricht University, and a BA in Political Science from Hope College, USA.
Daisy Ruguru Nyaga is a Kenyan national with a robust academic background, holding a MSc in Public Health and Epidemiology and MSc in Social Development and Health. Currently, she serves as the Project Manager for the UNICEF and WFP Joint Resilience Project in South Sudan.
With more than 14 years of experience working in fragile contexts, Daisy has made significant contributions to nutrition programming and project management across various countries, including Kenya, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Zimbabwe. Her extensive expertise and commitment to improving health outcomes in challenging environments underscore her role as a leader in the field.
Discussion session
Speakers Day 2
David Evans is currently the Principal Economic Advisor for the Social Sector at the Inter-American Development Bank. David has evaluated programmes in education, early childhood development, health, social safety nets and agriculture in countries including Brazil, the Gambia, Haiti, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania. He has also published articles on how to improve impact evaluations and syntheses of impact evaluations. He was previously a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and a lead economist at the World Bank. He has a PhD in Economics.
Riaz Lodhi is the Representative and Country Director of the World Food Programme (WFP) in El Salvador. He has more than 29 years of varied experience with the WFP, spanning Asia, Africa and Latin America. While serving in Tanzania he advocated for the supply chain’s role in food systems and initiated several successful initiatives. In Colombia and Ecuador, as WFP Deputy Country Director, Lodhi aided internally displaced populations and refugees, fostering national capacity building and school feeding programmes. While in Panama, he supported 10 country offices in emergency preparedness. He has a master’s in public administration.
Allison Stone is the Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), where she leads efforts to develop, evaluate and scale innovative solutions aimed at improving the lives of those living in poverty. She previously served as IPA’s Regional Director for West Africa, Program Director for East Africa, Deputy Country Director for Kenya, and Research Manager. Before joining IPA, she worked at Columbia University’s School of Public Health, conducting health systems research in Ghana and Tanzania. Allison holds an MHS in International Health from Johns Hopkins University and a BS in Physiology from Michigan State University.
Karol Cruz Ugalde is an economist at the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy of Costa Rica (MIDEPLAN). With more than 10 years of experience in evaluation, she has worked with public sector institutions, facilitating evaluation capacity development, coordinating evaluations of public interventions, and developing manuals and guidelines on evaluation.
Michael Craft has served in the United Nations for more than a decade providing evidence-based oversight and advice. Most recently, he managed UN Women independent evaluations on gender equality programming and evaluated United Nations advocacy work regarding children and armed conflict and conflict-related sexual violence, among other areas. He has conducted programmatic and thematic evaluations at the United Nations Development Programme and has extensive experience in designing research systems for evaluation functions. Michael holds a dual master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University and Sciences Po (Paris).
