Speakers

Farzana Ahmed is the Lead Evaluation Specialist at the Independent Evaluation Department (IED) of the Asian Development Bank. Amongst other evaluation roles, Ms. Ahmed leads the evaluation capacity development function at IED. Ms. Ahmed joined the ADB in 1998 and prior to joining IED, held positions in ADB Operations that included a country posting in Indonesia and a secondment as an Advisor to the Australian Agency for International Development. Before joining ADB, Ms. Ahmed worked in various financial positions in the private sector in the United Kingdom and Australia. Bangladeshi by origin, Ms. Ahmed graduated from Oxford University, UK and is a qualified chartered accountant.

Tom Bartos has been with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London for more than 20 years, first as a Senior Banker specialising in infrastructure and property sectors. He led more than 20 infrastructure transactions, among others the first PPP in the water sector in Russia. While with the property team, Tom was involved in the financing of several landmark commercial property development projects. Since 2010 Tom has been working as a Senior Evaluation Manager, concentrating on the reviews of the implementation of the Bank’s strategies and policies, such as Local Capital Markets, Delegated Authority, Renewable Energy, Agribusiness or Legal Transition.Before joining EBRD, Tom worked at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington D.C. on infrastructure projects in Latin America, as well as at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Tom holds MBA and the Graduate Diploma in International Development from the University of Ottawa

Dr. Vinay Bhargava is the Chief Technical Adviser and Board member at an international NGO - the Partnership for Transparency Fund (www.PTFUnd.org). PTF is a volunteer’s organization and supports innovative civil society led initiatives to improve governance and development effectiveness. He has taught international development policy and practice courses at George Washington University, USA and at Kobe University, Japan. He is a former Country Director and former Director, International Affairs at the World Bank. He has worked as a development specialist in South Asia, East Asia, Western Africa, Eastern Europe and Middle East. His has delivered seminar and written articles on fighting corruption particularly through citizen and civil society led programs. His publications include books titled Global Issues for Global Citizens; Challenging Corruption in Asia; Many Faces of Corruption; Citizens Against Corruption; and Ending Asian Deprivations. He has served as consultant to the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and U-4 Anti-corruption center.

Gambhir Bhatta is Advisor in the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila, and Chief of the Bank’s Knowledge Advisory Services Center. He is also currently an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (Singapore) after having had an Adjunct Professor appointment there during 2016-2018. His other concurrent appointments have been at ADB Institute (NonResident Adjunct Fellow, 2016-2018) and National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines, Manila (Adjunct Professor, 2018-2019). At ADB, he has led various missions to design development projects and programs in Asia, and has contributed directly to a portfolio of more than two billion dollars in programming in the broad areas of governance and public management, including public financial management, anticorruption, SOE reforms, and local governance. Prior to joining ADB in 2005, he was Senior Advisor in the New Zealand public service. He has almost 30 years of experience in governance and public sector management in advisory, policy planning, and program development and management realms across 4 continents.

Mr. Chen is responsible for operations in the South Asia Department and the Central and West Asia Department. Prior to joining ADB, Mr. Chen headed the Department of International Economic and Financial Cooperation at the Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). From 1998, Mr. Chen held senior positions in the Ministry of Finance, overseeing areas of public finance and partnerships with multilateral development banks. From 2012 to 2014, he was a Board Director in the Credit
Guarantee and Investment Facility. Mr. Chen was World Bank’s Executive Director for the PRC from 2013 to 2016 and a Board Director for the PRC in the New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank from 2016 to 2018. Mr. Chen holds a Doctorate degree in Economics from the Graduate School of the Research Institute for Fiscal Science, and a Master’s degree in Public Policy Management of the Mason Program of the John F. Kennedy School of Government in Harvard University.

Hon. Olfa Soukri Cherif is a member of the Parliament – Tunisia. She is a Steering Committee member of the Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation (GPFE) which is the global movement of parliamentarians promoting evaluation culture. She is instrumental in promoting evaluation in the country in collaboration with the evaluation community. As one of the Vice-Chairs of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank & IMF, Hon. Soukri Cherif chairs its Middle-East and North African regional chapter. She is a member of the French National Council for Development and International Solidarity (CNDSI) as a foreign political leader.

Before taking on her parliamentary duties, she was an lecturer in Economics at the University of Tunis El Manar, and an assistant in Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne, where she also studied. Hon. Soukri Cherif graduated with an executive MBA in Trade Policy from Harvard University Governance School.

Mr. Charles Collyns joined the IEO as Director in February 2017, after working as Managing Director and Chief Economist at the Institute of International Finance for 3 1/2 years. He served as Assistant Secretary for International Finance at the US Treasury Department from February 2010 to July 2013. Prior to joining Treasury, he worked at the IMF, including as Deputy Director in the Research Department responsible for the World Economic Outlook and Deputy Director in the Western Hemisphere Department. He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Oxford and a BA from the University of Cambridge.

Mr. Anuj Dayal is the head of Corporate Communications for the Delhi Metro Rail Project which is the largest Urban Infrastructure Project undertaken in India. 

Mr. Dayal has over 32 years experience in the field of Management and Communications. He is a regular speaker in domestic and international forums and had also written books on Project Management which have been appreciated by the Harvard Business School which has prepared a case study on the same. He has been closely associated with the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in preparation of a study on “Excellence in Management”.

Mr. Dayal has received awards from the PR Society of India as the best Corporate Communicator in India, the Amity Leadership Award, the Abdul Kalam Award for excellence in Government and the Dainik Bhaskar Group Award for being the most outstanding Public Relations Head of Department in India.

Dr. José Efraín Deras, Chief of the Independent Evaluation Office at CABEI. During his professional career has performed as Chief Economist and Sectoral Specialist. He was responsible for the creation and the implementation of the Development Impact Evaluation System of the Bank, as evaluation manager the institution has evaluated more than 200 projects, for more than US$ 12,000 million (ex ante, progress and ex post; before-after, cuasi-experimental, meta-evaluations), eight country programme evaluations, and six corporate evaluations between 2009-2019. He has worked and made publications with institutions such as the Center for the Competitiveness of Eco-enterprises at CATIE, Costa Rica; Cambridge University and University of Portsmouth in England; the Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International (FLO), Germany; XVIII World Economic History Congress 2018, MIT. One of his major publications is the Book: The Central American Common Market (CACM): An Evaluation of Economic Integration and Competitiveness. Currently is writing an article for Oxford Press.

Marvin Taylor-Dormond is Director General at the Independent Evaluation Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Reporting to ADB’s Board of Directors, his responsibilities include assessing ADB’s development effectiveness as well providing lessons to inform the ADB operations. Prior to joining ADB, Mr. Taylor-Dormond served in the World Bank Group’s Independent Evaluation Group as Director of Finance, Private Sector and Sustainable Development, and in the International Finance Corporation and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency as Director for Independent Evaluation. Mr. Taylor-Dormond joined the multilateral banking community after having served as Vice Minister of Finance of the Republic of Costa Rica as well as working at the Central American Bank for Economic Integration where he held several leadership roles as Controller, Executive Vice President, Chief Economist, and Chief of Evaluation. Mr. Taylor-Dormond holds a Doctorate degree in Economics from
Carleton University, University of Ottawa Canada, a Master’s degree in International Affairs from Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, and a Licenciatura in Economics and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Costa Rica.

Umi Hanik has been working for 17 years for many bilateral and multilateral organisations in Indonesia as researcher and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) professional. She holds BA and master of economics in public policy and advanced master and predoctoral studies in development evaluation. Currently she works as M&E specialist for ADB project on national strategy to integrate agriculture information extension for smallholder farmers in Indonesia. Among her outstanding works, she has contributed in the national development planning, budgeting, monitoring, and evaluation reform in Indonesia. Her current research interest is in politics of evaluation and the politics of social interventions for the poor. She is the founder of MONEVStudio, a recent startup for the development and evaluation literacy in Indonesia. She is a founding members and also coordinator for Capacity Building of Indonesian Development Evaluation Community (InDEC), Board Directors of Asia Pacific Evaluation Association
(APEA) , and Management member of EvalGender+.

Political Scientist, PhD at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE); Evaluation expert with more than 15 years experience in design and implementation of evaluations in the field of development cooperation; More than 10 years professional experience managing projects and programs in developing countries as well as managing evaluations, including M&E Missions to more than 50 countries; Worked at/for World bank Group, European Commission, Change Management & Evaluation Consultancy firms and as independent consultant. Publications include evaluations on fragility and sustainability in German development cooperation. Current projects encompass an evaluation on the adaptation to climate change as well as the coordination of the EES Thematic Working Group Methods & Designs. 

Hur Hassnain has 15 years of experience in monitoring and evaluation, organisational systems development and in designing and conducting evaluations, including in contexts of fragility, conflict and violence. He is an expert in (quasi) experimental designs, participatory and theory-based evaluation approaches and has developed innovative tools that have been used and presented internationally. He has extensive experience of working in a variety of thematic areas including but are not limited to gender equality, climate change, renewable energy, agriculture, women economic empowerment, education and protection. He organized and delivered M&E capacity building at the corporate and country levels, which entailed the liaison with a broad range of stakeholders including government representatives. He has lived and worked in Asia, Middle East and Africa. Hur has designed, commissioned and conducted research and evaluations for projects funded by the UN agencies, European Commission, private donors and governments of the UK, Canada, Switzerland, Netherlands and Norway. Hur is an elected Board Member at the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) where he chairs the Thematic Interest Group (TIG) on Evaluation in Fragility, Conflict and Violence. Hur is the Founder of Pakistan Evaluation Association and Vice President at the Asia Pacific Evaluation Association.

Houqi Hong is a Senior Evaluation Specialist at the Independent Evaluation Department (IED) of the Asian Development Bank, with over 25 years of experience in evaluation of development operations, project performance management, and policy and economic research. He works on project, country program, corporate, and thematic evaluations at IED. Before joining ADB in January 2019, he worked for 14 years at the World Bank Group on independent evaluation and operations in sustainable development, and as an advisor on the Executive Board. Previously, he managed World Bank operations in PRC as an official in PRC Ministry of Finance for 10 years. His areas of technical specialization include theory of change, results framework design, economic analysis, portfolio and strategy analysis, country case study, and institutional assessment. He has an MBA in Management from Georgetown University and a PhD in Technology Economics from Tsinghua University

Dr. Masahiro Igarashi is an evaluation expert with more than 25 years of experience in development evaluation, economic analysis, organizational reform and policy development, and result-based management. He is currently serving as the Director of the Office of Evaluation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and has led the reform process of the Organization’s evaluation function to enhance the quality of its evaluations and their utility to stakeholders. Before joining FAO, he served as Evaluation Advisor at the United Nations Development Programme, having led a number of evaluations and developed country programme evaluation methodology. Prior to this, he served as Programme Management Officer and Economic Affairs Officer at the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development. He holds a doctorate degree in economics from the University of Queen’s in Canada and a master’s degree in socio-economic planning from the University of Tsukuba in Japan.

Ms. Jambal has 19 years of experience working at the Government and development partners in Mongolia, spanning from the National Statistics Office, the Ministry of Finance and most recently UNDP, where she acted as the Poverty Reduction and MDG/SDGs Team Leader. She also worked on World Bank, Asia Development Bank, and USAID projects. Ms. Jambal has extensive knowledge and experience in the field of national accounting, human development, sustainable development, development policy and planning, and policy analysis. She obtained a Masters degree in Development Economics from the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University in the Hague, The Netherlands in 2002.

Emmanuel (Manny) Jimenez is Executive Director of the International Initiative on Impact Evaluation (3ie), a non-profit organization which provides grants for the rigorous assessment of the effectiveness of development projects and programs and supports the use of such evidence in decision-making. He came to 3ie early in 2015 after many years at the World Bank Group where he provided technical expertise and strategic leadership in a number of research and operational positions including as director of the bank’s operational program in human development in its Asia regions from 2000-2012 and as director of public sector evaluations from 2012- 2014. Before joining the bank, Dr Jimenez was on the economics faculty at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. He received his Ph.D. from Brown University. He is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Development Effectiveness.

Hanako Kawamoto is an evaluation officer for the Japan International Cooperation Agency and certified professional evaluator of Japan Evaluation Society. She is in charge of evaluating projects related to healthcare and social welfare. In addition, she has organized process analysis procedures within JICA such as quality assessments for guidelines, handbooks, and other administrative resources. Her current research interests include advancements in project sustainability by exploring behavioral change through qualitative methodology.

M. Teresa Kho is the Deputy Director General of the East Asia Department covering operations in the People’s Republic of China and Mongolia. Prior to this, she was ADB’s Country Director in India (2013–2016) and Country Director in Bangladesh (2012–2013). Ms. Kho was Director of South Asia Urban Development and Water (2010–2011) and Director of the Office of Cofinancing Operations (2008–2010). Ms. Kho joined ADB in 1997 and worked in various departments, including Budget, Personnel and Management Systems Department, Office of the Vice-President Finance and Administration, South Asia Department, and Private Sector Operations Department. Before joining ADB, Ms. Kho spent 12 years in the U.S. private sector, performing finance, treasury, and audit functions for Fortune 500 companies. A U.S. national, Ms. Kho obtained an MBA from Stanford University, California, U.S.A. in 1991 and B.A. Economics from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, U.S.A. in 1983.

Hoe Ee Khor is the Chief Economist of ASEAN +3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) responsible for overseeing and developing the work on macroeconomic and financial market surveillance on East Asia and on the member economies in the region. He is also a member of the senior management team responsible for setting the strategic direction and management of AMRO. Prior to joining AMRO, Dr. Khor was a Deputy Director of the Asia and Pacific Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), responsible for overseeing the surveillance work on six ASEAN and twelve Pacific Island countries. Dr Khor started his career as an economist at the IMF in 1981 and had worked on a wide range of economies in the Western Hemisphere and Asia and Pacific departments. He was the IMF Deputy Resident Representative in China from 1991-1993. From 2009-2010, Dr. Khor was Head of Economic Development and Chief Economist at the Abu Dhabi Council for Economic Development
(ADCED). Dr. Khor joined the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in July 1996 and was Assistant Managing Director from 2001 to 2009 where he was responsible for economic research, monetary policy, macro-financial surveillance, and international relations. Dr. Khor obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Economics/Mathematics from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University.

Barry Kolodkin is Director, Deputy Chief Evaluator at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development where he also leads the State Owned Enterprise Community of Practice. Prior to joining EBRD in 2014, he was Head of Office for UNDP Greece and Regional Programme Manager for the Black Sea Trade and Investment Promotion Programme. Barry previously served as a Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Romania for foreign investment. In the private sector, he was Director of Strategic Services for Prometric, a division of Thomson Reuters. He is the lead author of “Best Practice Guide to a Positive Business and Investment Climate” which has been translated into five languages. Barry holds a Master of Arts degree from the Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, DC.

Suk-Won Lee is Professor at the Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University, Korea. Dr. Lee received his Ph.D. from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University. He has been a faculty member of the Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University for 12 years. He has also served as a faculty member of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and a research associate at Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC). His primary area of research interest is about how to validly assess the effectiveness of public programs in both domestic and international domain.

Hans Lundgren manages the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Network on Development Evaluation at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which brings together evaluation heads and experts from over 40 ministries, development agencies, multilateral banks and organisations. Hans has extensive experience in development co-operation and evaluation, and has contributed to the elaboration and consensus building of internationally agreed norms and standards for evaluating development co-operation, including the DAC Principles for Evaluation; the Glossary of Terms in Evaluation and Results Based Management; the Guidance on Managing Joint Evaluations; and the DAC Quality Standards for Development Evaluation. Hans has advised bilateral and multilateral agencies on evaluation policies and systems, and he is actively involved in facilitating collaboration in evaluation between development partners.

José C. Carbajo Martínez is Director, Financial, Private Sector & Sustainable Development Department, Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the World Bank Group. José has over 30 years of professional experience in academia and international financial institutions (IFIs). His expertise encompasses the appraisal of investment projects, infrastructure Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), IFI results frameworks, and project and policy evaluation. Prior to joining IEG, José was Associate Director at Frontier Economics, a European private economics consulting firm, where he advised private clients, such as HSBC and the European Venture Capital Association (EVCA), and regional IFIs, such as Asian Development Bank, European Investment Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and InterAmerican Development Bank. José holds MSc and PhD degrees in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Licenciatura en Ciencias conómicas y Empresariales from the University of Valencia, Spain.

Adamou Sanda Mayaki has more than ten years of experience in banking, particularly in risk management. He joined the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) in 2016 after having worked for nearly five years at Ecobank Niger where he held the positions of senior credit analyst and director of the risk management department. Previously, he worked successively at Banque Atlantique Niger and Bank of Africa Niger as a management controller.

Adamou Sanda Mayaki holds a Master's degree in International Economics and Development from Eastern Michigan University, an MBA in Finance from CESAG (Dakar, Senegal) and a Master's degree in Audit and Management Control from Paris I University. Pantheon- Sorbonne. He is fluent in French and English and good command of Arabic.

Maurya is a senior evaluation officer in the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), with 20+ years as an evaluator.  Maurya’s current IEG work involves methods advisory and evaluation capacity development (ECD) support for CLEAR (Centers for Learning on Evaluation and Results) and IPDET (International Program for Development Evaluation Training). She was team leader of an M&E training program in the World Bank Institute and has trained government professionals in Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Europe, and Latin America on M&E and needs assessment topics.  She holds graduate degrees in international affairs/economics and education, both from George Washington University.  Maurya is active in the American Evaluation Association (AEA) and was co-chair of AEA's Needs Assessment Thematic Interests Group.  She is a co-author of the 2012 book, A Guide to Assessing Needs: Essential Tools for Collecting Information, Making Decisions, and Achieving Development Results.

Raghavan Narayanan is Senior Evaluation Officer, Private Sector and Sustainable Development in the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group (IEG). Raghavan has worked in emerging markets, developing economies and private sector development for more than 22 years with leadership experiences in investment management and financial advisory service. At the World Bank Group, he brings unique private sector insights to evaluation sciences and specializes in thematic evaluations and corporate initiatives. He manages flagship corporate and thematic evaluations on wide ranging topics such as WBG support to private capital mobilization, domestic resources mobilization and fostering regional integration in client countries. Before joining the World Bank Group, Raghavan was an economist and climate policy advisor for the North American energy trade group. Further, he has rotated through various positions in venture capital and private equity investment funds in Singapore, Hong Kong and London. Raghavan teaches private sector evaluation methods at the IPDET program in the University of Bern (Switzerland). He has completed management programs at Harvard Kennedy School of Government (USA) and Carleton University (Canada). He holds an MBA from Georgetown University (USA), and B.Eng. from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore).

Ada Ocampo is a Peruvian sociologist with a Master’s Degree in Development Planning and Management (University of Wales, UK). She has worked in the UN system since 1990 with UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA and IFAD in different countries of North and Latin America, Africa and Asia. During her career, she has been mainly involved in evaluation capacity development and networking.  She has lectured at various universities including Carleton, FLACSO, Indian School of Business and BRAC. She is the author of several articles and publications.  She was one of the founders of the International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation (IOCE) and of the Latin America Evaluation Network (ReLAC). She represents UNICEF at EvalPartners. Ada is the co-chair of EVALSDGs and supports the Secretariat of the Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation.  She is based in New York where she holds the position of Sr. Evaluation Specialist.

Johanna Pennarz is a Lead Evaluation Officer at the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD. She has been leading evaluations of IFAD country strategies and programmes in Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, Georgia and Kenya. She also led the preparation of synthesis evaluations on gender, partnerships, inclusive rural finance and community-driven development for IFAD. Prior to joining IFAD, she has been the GIZ Principal Advisor on evaluation capacity development at the Office of the Prime Minister in Uganda. Overall, she has more than  20 years on strategic and institutional evaluations, amongst others for the African Development Bank, United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Human Rights-Office of the High Commissioner, Department for International Development (DFID) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). Johanna Pennarz holds a Ph.D. from Munich University in Germany.

Riccardo Polastro is the Regional Evaluation Adviser at UNICEF’s Regional Office for East Asia and the Pacific. Before joining UNICEF he was a Principal consultant at IOD PARC and the Head of Evaluation at DARA. Overall he has twenty years of experience in humanitarian affairs and development aid having worked in over than seventy five countries for the United Nations, the International Movement of the Red Cross, NGOs, donor agencies and private firms. Riccardo has managed and carried out policy and operational evaluations and reviews funded by most bilateral and multilateral donors. He lectured in several university-level Master’s programs and provided professional training on results based management. He holds an MPhil in Peace and Security, an MA in International Relations. Riccardo obtained his Maîtrise of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He has served as Steering Committee member of ALNAP and currently co-chairs the United Nations Evaluation Development Group for Asia and the Pacific.

An evaluator by training, Emmanuel Pondard has 17 years’ experience in evaluation of public policies. At the European Investment Bank, Emmanuel has analysed instruments as diverse as microfinance in Europe, intermediated lending in developing countries, Framework Loans supporting European Structural Funds, and the inclusion of a gender lens in operations. Prior to joining the Bank, as a co-founder of highly specialised evaluation companies, Emmanuel has developed evaluation methods, led evaluation teams and ensured the quality control of evaluations. He has developed M&E systems and has contributed to various evaluations in the area of European structural funds. He has also contributed to or coordinated complex thematic evaluations for international and bilateral donors (including the OECD, the EC, France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands). Emmanuel holds a Master degree in evaluation methods and in financial analysis for public entities.

Dr Jo Puri is the Head of GCF's Independent Evaluation Unit. She has 23 years' experience in evaluating research in agriculture, environment, health and infrastructure related poverty alleviation. Jo has worked for the World Bank, UNDP, UNEP and the International Initiative of Impact Evaluation (3ie). She has published several books and written extensively. She is also Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, USA and research fellow at the Centre for Evaluation and Development (C4ED). She also sits on the boards of International Center for Evaluation and Development (ICED) and the Humanitarian Quality Assurance Initiative (HQAI). Jo has a Ph.D. and an M.Sc. in agriculture and resource economics and a Masters in Development Economics.

David A. Raitzer is an Economist in the Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department of ADB, where he focuses on impact evaluation of development interventions and research on environmental policy
hallenges and agricultural development constraints. His 16 years of research experience have focused on evaluating the effects and benefits of development interventions, using a range of methods from randomized
xperiments, to quasiexperimental approaches, bio-economic modeling, and economy-wide modeling. In addition to performing research, he also provides advisory services to operational departments within ADB, as well as national governments, on impact evaluation studies. He has previously worked with the International Rice Research Institute, Center for International Forestry Research, the CGIAR System, and national donor agencies on planning, economic assessment and impact evaluation of natural resource management innovations.

Mr. Noriji Sakakura is Director General, Evaluation Department in Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Mr. Sakakura previously served as Senior Deputy Director General of Southeast Asia and Pacific Department in JICA headquarter and promoted many Mega-Projects for Southeast Asia such as High Speed Railway Project and Power Plant Construction Project. As an overseas experiences, Mr. Sakakura has a long career for Latin America such as Brazil and Peru. Based on these intensive experiences, Mr.Sakakura has demonstrated an excellent ability in formation and implementation of many development projects and currently leads Evaluation Department in JICA with outstanding leadership.

Merwin Salazar is the Executive Director of the Senate Economic Planning Office (SEPO) in the Philippines, a post he holds since 2010. Prior to joining the Senate of the Philippines in 2004, he worked as a project consultant at the World Bank Office Manila for the Public Expenditure, Procurement and Financial Management Review (PPFMR) and Decentralization Study projects. His advocacies include the passage of a national evaluation policy in the Philippines that would expand the establishment of monitoring and evaluation units from the national to the local government units. Recently, he obtained a certificate from the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET), a self-initiated effort to capacitate himself for the job. He also spearheaded the conduct of an on-going training on evaluation for the legislative staff of the Senate of the Philippines. He has more than twenty years of professional experience from both private and public sectors in the areas of economic research, financial management, and public policy. He obtained both his Bachelor of Science in Business Economics and Master in Development Economics from the School of Economics of the University of the Philippines in Diliman.

Véronique Salze-Lozac’h is Deputy Director General in the Independent Evaluation Department at the Asian Development Bank. She is an economist, with a strong political science background, and has worked for both the public and the private sector on foreign direct investments, inclusive growth, private sector development, and policy reforms in Africa and Asia. Prior to joining the ADB, Ms. Salze-Lozac’h was Senior Director of Economic Development and Chief Economist at The Asia Foundation, where she oversaw strategic planning for the Foundation’s economic activities and developed programs across 18 Asian countries in areas of policy reform, enabling business environments, regional cooperation, and trade and women entrepreneurship. In this role, she supported Asian initiatives to accelerate inclusive and sustainable economic growth and broaden economic opportunities.

Marco Segone is Director, Evaluation Office, at UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. Previously, he was director of the Evaluation Office at UN Women; Chair, United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG), the network of Evaluation Offices of 46 UN agencies; co-founder and co-chair of EvalPartners - the global partnership for national evaluation capacities – and EvalGender+. Before that, Marco was responsible for the decentralized evaluation function as well as the national evaluation capacity development portfolios at the UNICEF Evaluation Office; Regional Chief, Monitoring and Evaluation in the UNICEF Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia; Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean; Brazil Country Office, and Niger Country Office. Marco also worked in international NGOs in Albania, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand and Uganda. He has authored dozens publications including: Evaluating the SDGs with a ‘no one left behind lens’; Evaluation for Equitable Development Results; and, How to Design and Manage Equity-Focused Evaluations.

Kate Sturla is a Director on the Innovation Team at IDinsight, based in San Francisco. In her role on the Innovation Team, Kate leads IDinsight’s results-based financing strategy as well as internal initiatives to develop new services and resources for IDinsight’s client engagements. Previously, Kate was based in India with IDinsight for 3 years. She led IDinsight’s Patna office and managed multiple projects, including the evaluation of the world’s first development impact bond and a learning partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to provide evaluation services to agriculture non-profits. Kate holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and South Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and an MPA in International Development (MPA/ID) from Harvard Kennedy School.

Hon. Mylvaganam Thilakarajah is a member of Parliament, an Executive member of Sri Lanka Parliamentarian Forum for Evaluation, Member of the Global Parliamentarian Forum for Evaluation, a Member of the Parliament Select Committee to study and report to parliament its recommendation to ensure National Evaluation Capacity in Sri Lanka and the Chair of the (SOC) Sectoral Oversight Committee of the Parliament of Sri Lanka on Health, and Human Welfare, Social Empowerment. He has been actively engaged in promotion of evaluation in the context of SDGs. He followed the IPDET training in Switzerland in July 2018 where he got substantial knowledge and experience on evaluation. He was instrumental in advocating for National Evaluation Policy in Sri Lanka which was endorsed by the Cabinet in June 2018. He is also instrumental in institutionalization of evaluation in the parliament.

He has worked as an evaluator in the international environment and development arena for the past two decades holding positions in the GEF and UNDP, including as Evaluation Advisor and Deputy Director in the UNDP Independent Evaluation Office. In these capacities, he has managed and conducted numerous evaluations at the country, regional and global levels. His earlier career combined positions in international organizations, academia and as consultant. For most of the 1990s, he was environment and sustainable development research and training program manager at the United Nations University. A geographer by training, he holds a master’s degree from Helsinki University in his native Finland and earned his PhD from the University of Lund. Juha Uitto has published widely on the environment, natural resources management, hazards, and evaluation.

Narayanan leads a team of research and policy experts working on a range of topics relevant to the accountancy profession. He is personally involved with the impact of technology on accountancy, and represents ACCA across a range of topics in this area. These include emerging technologies like Blockchain, more mature areas like robotic process automation (RPA) and data analytics, as well as the role of ethics and human emotions in a technology led digital age.

He is an experienced strategist and has advised board level stakeholders on future implications, opportunities and risks of technology. He represents ACCA on government, industry and academic forums, for example as a member of the steering committee on the Technology and Data Ethics Inquiry within an All Party Parliamentary Group in the UK.

He has a global remit for the topics he covers and leads a team of subject-matter specialists with diverse skills. In addition to technology, other areas of thought leadership conducted within his team relate to economic analyses, business models, sustainability, social mobility, as well as sector specific insights, in relation to the public sector, financial services and oil and gas.

Narayanan was educated at the University of Oxford and London Business School.

As independent Inspector General of the EIB, Jan Willem van der Kaaij is responsible for Operations Evaluation, Fraud Investigations, and the Complaints Mechanism. His previous professional experience includes senior positions with the Dutch Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank, as well as assignments at Boards of the EIB, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

He holds a Master’s degree in History from the University of Groningen and has published articles on evaluation issues, the European Monetary Union (EMU), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and “De Nederlandsche Bank”.

Maya Vijayaraghavan is Principal Evaluation Specialist at the Independent Evaluation Department (IED) of the Asian Development Bank. She leads IED’s knowledge and evaluation capacity development initiatives. In her previous role, she evaluated ADB’s policies, strategies, and operations at the thematic, country, and sector levels. In her last role at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, she led impact and economic evaluations of international health programs at global, regional, and country levels. Early in her career, she was an econometrician with the World Bank Group in Washington, D.C. Over her 22-year career, she has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and spoken frequently at professional meetings. Maya is a national of the United States of America and has a PhD in applied economics.

Saleha Waseem leads Independent Evaluation Department’s (IED) communication and outreach activities. She supports implementation of IED’s Evaluation Knowledge Management Strategic Plan through collaborations within and outside ADB to promote synergies for knowledge sharing thereby promoting a culture of evaluation in the region. Prior to joining ADB, Saleha was a television news anchor and worked with New Delhi TV and Doordarshan News, a government-run public service broadcaster. She is also a founding member of an education NGO based in India.

Alexander Wellsteed is a Principal Evaluation Specialist in the Independent Evaluation Department (IED) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) where his work focuses on the evaluation of the bank’s private sector perations. Prior to ADB Mr. Wellsteed was an Independent Consultant at Alternative Asset Investment Advisors in Tokyo supporting institutional investors with the due diligence of overseas private equity funds. Mr. Wellsteed also held roles as an Associate Director General at Japan Bank for International Corporation (JBIC) and as Investment Director at Greenpark Capital LLC in Hong Kong. Prior to relocating to Asia in 2012, Mr. Wellsteed served as a Senior Investment Officer in the Financial Markets and Private Equity Funds Department at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in Washington DC where he served as Transaction Lead for equity and
tructured finance deals with banking, insurance and reinsurance clients in Asia and Africa. Mr. Wellsteed started his career in finance at the Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, Ltd., in Japan, where he was responsible for overseas investments and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the energy, telecommunications, and transportation sectors. Mr. Wellsteed is a national of the United Kingdom, has studied variously at universities in the England, Germany and Japan and holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Georgetown University.

Xianbin Yao is the Special Senior Advisor to the President of the Asian Development Bank. He coordinates ADB’s development effectiveness work; and engages ADB’s Board Committee on development effectiveness, and the Independent Evaluation Department. Prior to this, Mr. Yao was the Director General for ADB’s Pacific Department, as well as Regional and Sustainable Development Department. Mr. Yao, a national of the People’s Republic of China, joined ADB in 1991.

Zheng Yong is the Director of Division of Performance Management, Department of Budget, Ministry of Finance of China. She holds a doctorate degree in economics. Before her current assignment, Zheng Yong was researcher and deputy director of Division of Institutional Management of Department of Budget, Ministry of Finance of China. She has profound knowledge and rich experience in finance management and performance management.

Wencai Zhang is Director General of the International Financial Cooperation Department of the Ministry of FInance (MOF) of People’s Republic of China (PRC). Prior to that, he was VicePresident (Operations 1) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) responsible for operations in the South Asia Department and the Central and West Asia Department. Prior to joining ADB in 2013, he was the Director General of the Department of External Economic Cooperation at the MOF, and was the Deputy Director General for the International Department from 2004 to 2012. From 2007 to 2009, he was the Executive Director for the PRC at ADB, the Chairman of the Budget Review Committee, and a member of the Development Effectiveness Committee and the Ethics Committee of the Board of Directors. From 1993 to 1996, he was the Advisor to the Executive Director of China at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. Mr. Zhang holds a PhD in Finance from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He earned his Master’s Degree and Bachelor’s Degree in International Economics from Nankai University in Tianjin, PRC.

Zhixiang Zhang is an Academic Committee member of the International Monetary Institute of the Renmin University since 2009. Concurrently Prof. Zhang was appointed an Independent Director of the Board of Directors of the Lao-China Bank since 2014. Prof. Zhang is also an Independent Director of the Board of Directors of the JP Morgan Chase Bank (China) since 2017. Prof. Zhang was a Senior Advisor on international affairs and Director of international exchange program of the School of Finance, the Renmin University from 2002 to 2009. He also worked at the International Monetary Fund as an Executive Director from 1996 to 1999 and at the Asian Development Bank as a Director General from 1999 to 2002. He was a deputy Director General and Director General of the International Department of the People’s Bank of China which is China’s central bank from 1985 to 1996. Mr. Zhang studied at the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute with English language as major from 1960 to 1964. He received the Master’s degree (MIPP) from the Johns Hopkins University in1990. He has a number of
publications, including “British Financial System”, “US Monetary System” and “Lessons from the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis”. Mr. Zhang also undertook proof-reading of the six-volumes of Prof. Robert A Mundell’s works in Chinese language. At the present, Mr. Zhang focuses his attention on issues of international monetary system, financial risks and internationalization of Chinese currency, Renminbi.