Irene Guijt (PhD) has worked in international development for 25 years, combining her degrees in agricultural engineering and communication to inform practice and academic thinking. She undertakes research, system design, facilitation and advisory work on learning-oriented knowledge processes, and is known for her innovative thinking on monitoring, evaluation and organizational learning in rural development.
Recent work includes pioneering a stories-at-scale approach SenseMaker in international development for (impact) evaluation in East Africa, Latin America and Asia on issues including girls’ empowerment, inclusive business, accountable democracy, water service delivery, and youth leadership. She is active in global evaluation capacity building through the BetterEvaluation platform and working on theory of change for transformational development with Hivos. She has pushed debates on the politics of evaluation as co-convenor of the Big Push Forward, including co-editing the book ‘The Politics of Evidence and Results’.
For the past six years, she has co-organised annual ‘Hot Topics in M&E conferences’, with the Centre for Development Innovation in Wageningen, with 2015 focusing on ‘M&E for Responsible Innovation’. She has just joined Oxfam Great Britain as their Head of Research.