2022 Speakers

Emmanuel Jimenez is the newly appointed Director General of the Independent Evaluation Department of the Asian Development Bank. In more than 30 years, Mr. Jimenez focused on evaluation, policy advice and research in the fields of economic development. He served as the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3IE) from February 2015 to February 2020, and led the organization’s work in 40 countries, raised funds from government and private donors, and advocated globally for evidence use in decision-making. From 2012-2014, he headed the Public Sector Department of the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) at the World Bank Group (WBG). He joined WBG in 1984 to conduct research on public and social policies and lead regional departments responsible for operations on human development (education, health, nutrition, population, and social protection) and provided strategic direction and management oversight for large lending programs. Mr. Jimenez has written extensively on economic development in books, peer-reviewed professional journals, and reports, with emphasis on public policy to improve the social and economic outcomes of low-income households and individuals. In addition to routinely giving lectures on the subject of international economic development, he is the managing editor of The Journal of Development Effectiveness. 

Richard Jones is Chief of the Capacity Development Section and Senior Evaluation Advisor with UNDP's Independent Evaluation Office (IEO). Richard leads the Office’s support to Decentralised Evaluation, including the updating of the UNDP evaluation guidelines in 2019 and 2021 and providing extensive training and support for staff in implementing decentralised evaluations. In recent years Richard led evaluations of UNDP’s work in Eswatini, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and the Philippines. In 2021/22 Richard led the IEO’s formative evaluation of UNDPs work in support of ‘Financing the Recovery: building forward better for a decade of delivery’. 

Dr. Asela Kalugampitiya is a Sri Lankan lawyer, currently the President of both Sri Lanka Evaluation Association and the Asia Pacific Evaluation Association. He is a holder of PhD and Master of Evaluation from Germany. Asela has been working in the Monitoring & Evaluation field over two decades including for international organizations such as International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation, International Development Law Organization, UN Women, UNICEF, UNFPA, ILO and CARE International as Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist. He is an Advisory Committee member of the IPDET programme and is the Director- Center for Evaluation, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka.

Rajani Kayastha is a multisector monitoring and evaluation professional working since 2004 and has worked with UN organizations, bilateral agencies, INGOs and Government.  She is a former Evaluation Specialist of UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia and currently working as an independent consultant, visiting lecturer on M&E and is also a theme member for NEPS under APEA. She particularly holds interest in M&E capacity building, Gender in M&E, M&E system establishing and strengthening, outcome harvesting, designing and adapting to new innovative approaches and reaching out and motivating young professionals.    

Megan heads the Evaluation Unit in the OECD Development Co-operation Directorate, managing the DAC Network on Development Evaluation and the COVID-19 Global Evaluation Coalition. She has expertise is supporting evidence-informed policy making and facilitating social change, including using impact-focused strategies to support cross sector collaboration for children and youth. She is a US national and lives in Paris, France.

Garrett is Principal Evaluation Specialist at ADB’s Independent Evaluation Department and has 21 years of professional experience and leads evaluations of ADB’s climate change, environment, agriculture, water, and urban operations. Garrett has been based in Asia since 2008, and before joining ADB in 2015, he worked for the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development and other development organizations. Prior to that, he was with the Irish Environmental Protection Agency and holds a BSc in environmental sciences and PhD in hydrogeology from Trinity College Dublin. 

Yeonji is Communications Officer at GCF’s Independent Evaluation Unit (IEU) with over 11 years of experience in policy, development, and communication from the UN, international organizations and the media. She has contributed to several IEU evaluations and has been leading the communications and uptake team of the IEU. In particular, she co-authored the report of the ‘Independent Evaluation of the Relevance and Effectiveness of GCF’s Investments in the Least Developed Countries (January 2022)’ and the report of the ‘Independent Synthesis of Direct Access in the GCF’, which will be published early next year. Before joining GCF, she worked at UNFCCC Secretariat and serviced the Conference of the Parties negotiations on climate finance and capacity building. She has rigorous communications experience from IFC, UNESCAP, and as a newscaster at Arirang TV. She holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Duke University, USA and a B.A. in International Development from the University of California Los Angeles, USA.  

Dr. Kouqing Li is Director of ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO). As an active player in regional financial cooperation, Dr. Li has a profound understanding of APEC and ASEAN+3 financial cooperation mechanisms. He has demonstrated strong strategic vision and exceptional leadership and spearheaded a number of important strategies and initiatives in promoting regional financial cooperation. Before joining AMRO, he was President of the Asia-Pacific Finance and Development Institute (AFDI) and Shanghai National Accounting Institute (SNAI), in the Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China. Dr. Li also sat on the Global Council of the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) and the Expert Panel of Shanghai Data Exchange. He holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration; in addition to a Master of Economics, major in Trade Economics; and a Bachelor of Economics, major in Trade Economics from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. 

Berber Kramer is a senior research fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and currently outposted to Nairobi, Kenya. Her research focuses on financial inclusion and resilience, and in particular on innovations in agricultural insurance and seed systems that can help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change. She leads a research program that aims to strengthen agricultural insurance and finance in Ethiopia, India and Kenya through picture-based crop insurance, using smartphone images of targeted crops to monitor crop health and management. In other projects, she uses high-frequency panel data and (laboratory) field experiments to analyze health and financial decision-making in rural households, the role of polygamy, and trust between actors in agricultural value chains. She is the Editor-in-Chief for the Social Science section of Development Engineering. Dr. Kramer joined IFPRI in 2013 and has a Ph.D. in Economics from the Tinbergen Institute in the Netherlands. 

Uttam Kumar is a Senior Scientist with Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) and CIMMYT. His research focuses on developing climate-resilient wheat cultivars with better nutrition and higher yield. He is leading the wheat program in BISA and works in close collaboration with national partners (NARS). Crop health monitoring using an aerial imagining system,  reduced post-harvest losses, and better crop management practices are an integral part to develop climate-resilient cultivars. Dr. Uttam joined BISA/CIMMYT in 2013 and had Ph.d. in Plant Breeding from Banaras Hindu University Varanasi. 

Sanjay is the Founder of Dvara E-Registry. In his role as the CEO and CTO of Dvara E-Registry, he is responsible for bringing to reality the vision of financial inclusion, agricultural and business productivity services for smallholder farmers and Farmer Producer Organisations, along with other stakeholders in the agri value chain. Sanjay has close to 30 years of experience across Financial Markets, Venture Capital and Banking. He has held leadership roles in various organizations across the globe, including JP Morgan, Bank of America, Azura Capital Advisors, National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Limited (NCDEX), Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange, among others. He has led scalable businesses with an interdisciplinary approach to business, finance and technology. As a part of his PhD, he has embarked on extensive research that brings together his interests, passion and expertise. Sanjay has published multiple papers studying the role of data and technology in increasing financial and agricultural productivity. Sanjay has led Dvara E-Registry to create pathbreaking solutions that seamlessly integrate technology, agriculture and credit that ultimately benefit the most vulnerable demographic of India – the smallholder farmer. Sanjay holds a Bachelor's of Science in Mechanical Engineering Technology from IIT Bombay and a PGDBM from XLRI, Jamshedpur. He has a PhD in Economics and Finance from BITS Pilani.

Dr. Romulo E.M. Miral Jr. is currently the Deputy Secretary General of the Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department (CPBRD). His career in government spans nearly three decades, with most of it spent at the House of Representatives Secretariat. Dr. Miral’s professional interests include public expenditure management, national government budgeting, tax policy and administration, and intergovernmental fiscal relations. He was a lecturer at the UP School of Economics and the UP National College of Public Administration and Governance and rendered consulting services to a number of multilateral and bilateral organizations. Dr. Miral obtained his bachelor’s degree in economics (cum laude) from the University of the Philippines and his PhD in economics from the Australian National University.  

Sarah Moin is a Program Officer with the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) Evaluation and Learning (E&L) Initiative. She also provides research, analytical and coordination support to the Transformational Change Learning Partnership (TCLP). Sarah brings four years of energy experience from within the World Bank, having worked with both ESMAP and the Africa Energy Practice, providing extensive implementation support to energy access investment projects in Southern Africa. She was previously working with USAID Power Distribution Program in Pakistan for two years as part of the Monitoring and Evaluation team. She holds a Masters in International Relations and International Economics, with a specialization in Energy Resources and the Environment from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). 

Ashwani K. Muthoo, Director General of the Independent Evaluation Office of the NDB. Before his current role, Mr. Muthoo was the Director of the Quality Assurance Group in the Office of the President and Vice President at the IFAD.  Prior to that, he was the Director of the Global Engagement and Multilateral Relations Division and Director of the Global Engagement, Knowledge and Strategy Division in IFAD. He also served as Deputy Director in the Independent Office of Evaluation (IOE) of IFAD, and in 2012/13, he was IOE Officer-in-Charge reporting directly to the Executive Board.  He brings more than 30 years of professional and managerial experience in international cooperation, focusing on evaluation, quality assurance, global policies, country strategies, and development projects and programmes. His work experience covers more than 50 developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Near East and North Africa regions.

Jane Mwangi is a Senior Evaluation Specialist and Team Leader for the Humanitarian Evaluation Portfolio in the UNICEF Evaluation Office.  She has 18 years’ experience in managing humanitarian and development operations, including in planning, monitoring, research and evaluations.  In UNICEF, her current role is to manage corporate thematic evaluations related to humanitarian action, as well as large-scale L3 humanitarian evaluations, and promoting their use for decision-making.  Jane also works closely with OCHA and other Humanitarian UN agencies on inter-agency humanitarian evaluations of collective response – these evaluations were introduced to strengthen system-wide learning and promote accountability towards affected people, national governments, donors, and the public, and are guided by a vision of addressing the most urgent needs of people impacted by crises through coordinated and accountable humanitarian action. In 2020/21, Jane worked with all seven UNICEF regional offices to roll-out real-time evaluations/assessments of UNICEF’s response to the covid-19 epidemic.   

S. Nanthikesan is a Lead Evaluation Officer at the Independent Office Evaluation of International Fund for Agricultural Development. He has over 25 years of development and evaluation experience. As the head of corporate level and thematic evaluations at IFAD and UNDP he had conducted several complex evaluations, including a recently completed thematic evaluation of IFAD’s support to smallholder farmers’ adaptation to climate change. In addition, to leading global evaluations, he has conducted several country and project evaluations. He received his academic training and research experience at Harvard University and MIT.

Dr Martin Noltze is a senior evaluator at the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval). As a team leader at DEval’s competence center for evaluation methodology Martin works on the advancement of evaluation standards and designs in the field of development evaluation. As part of his duties Martin is leading a modular evaluation on Germany's international finance for climate change adaptation.