I am a monitoring and programming expert with over 5 years of experience in the migration field.

I am a social entrepreneur and founder of Brighter Smiles, which coordinates the EVETTI project under the Erasmus+ Programme action Capacity building in the field of VET. I am a VET teacher in craft-, design and product development-. In media and communication, I am a farmer, a sailor and a fashion designer with 15 years of professional experience in the industry, working in Spain, England and Norway. I am passionate about transforming lives through education and lifelong learning and recognize the critical role of education as one of the main drivers of the development of the individual and society. I believe diverse, inclusive, and thriving local communities that contribute to sustainable production and consumption and equitable, prosperous, and peaceful societies can be achieved through co-creation and comparison with good environments at home and abroad.

Experienced development professional with over 20 years of success leading international donor-funded (EU, USAID, UN) programs across sectors such as tourism, ICT, agriculture, light manufacturing, and creative industries. Proven expertise in program and project management, human and institutional capacity development, stakeholder engagement, and public-private partnerships. Strong track record in advancing workforce development through strategic collaboration with universities and vocational institutions, developing and launching new certification and training programs, and building skills aligned with market needs. Skilled in SME development, export promotion, trade facilitation, and strengthening quality infrastructure and standards.

Armen Melkumyan has had over 25 years of work experience, of which 20 timewise (since May 2003) – in monitoring, evaluation, programming, mainly for the EU, and occasionally for other international development partners, such as DANIDA, SDC/SECO, UN family organisations, DFID and USAID. He has had over 15 years of cumulative experience in EU Results-Oriented Monitoring, strategic evaluations and as a technical cooperation consultant for coordination and capacity building. Overall, Armen has assessed and evaluated 205projects in 16 sectors and 22 countries, all management modes and aid modalities (TA/TC, Twinning, TAIEX, SIGMA, indirect management with pillar assessed organisations, Blending, Budget Support, joint programmes, TEI). Since 2014 Armen has been working as an expert to the SQ2M, DG INTPA D04 (DEVCO Unit 06 in 2014), where he, first, piloted the EU Results Framework in 2014, and then worked as QC expert for annual results data collection (over 200 country, regional, thematic results reports) and as an expert for QA of intervention logics and logframes of 221 Commission decision-level Action Documents. Armen led and authored evaluation reports on Twinning instrument in Armenia, Georgia an EU-funded Accelerate Prosperity intervention in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan; and participated in other 5 country, regional programme and funding instrument-based evaluations, by undertaking and authoring specific components. He also worked as a programming and design expert for formulation of Action Documents and Twinning Fiches.

Joaquin, director of To the core of things, is a monitoring, evaluation, researcher and programme manager of multimillion regional programmes and projects specialised in human rights, media, gender, community tourism and children/youth.

As the director and principal consultant of To the core of things consultancy firm, I bring over two decades of experience in results-based management, monitoring, and evaluation of international development programs, with a deep familiarity with EU and UNEG norms and standards. Throughout my career, I have developed and refined evaluation systems, policies, and related guidance for various DGs, national authorities, international NGOs and UN agencies. My work spans multiple regions, including Africa, Latin America, and Asia, focusing on human rights, media, gender, and education and youth programs. Notably, I have led strategic consultancies for different EU instruments including EIDHR, the EU social fund and also outside the EU for UNESCO and OHCHR. These consultancies focused on monitoring, evaluation, and reporting functions of international organizations including the assessment of these functions of UN agencies, OECD, the Council of Europe and the European Union.

My methodological expertise includes mixed-methods approaches and quasi-experimental designs that emphasise client and partner ownership, coherence with learning curves, and pragmatic solutions. These tools, developed under the Creative Commons IP from To the Core of Things, include research guidelines, organisational capacity assessment, modular reconstruction and adaptation of theories of change, stakeholder network maps methodologies, case study guidelines and approaches, outcome harvesting through Most Significant Change stories and implementation of machine learning approaches to development cooperation programmes.

The principles I apply in all my works are ownership of the works and the processes by the client and partners (through a strong participatory approach); alignment with latest trends in the field (including ICT4D, statistical techniques and humanistic considerations); coherence with the learning curve of the clients, and; pragmatism, proposing solutions in line with the interests, philosophy and capacities of the clients and its partners.

Key relevant work that reflects this range of skills and passions include ROM reviews for multi-country EU programmes, consultancies for UNESCO (evaluaitons, periodic reporting consultancies or MEAL system TA). Also for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) I have developed as well another strategic consultancy assessing their in-house monitoring and reporting function plus other programme and country evaluations. Other donors, include USAID, with consultancies carried for US Internews setting up the methodologies, managing seven multicultural teams and producing seven research products for their Rooted in Trust programme and leading several programme evaluations. Some other relevant examples of my works are the evaluation of an agriculture cooperative based project in Ethiopia funded by NORAD, the evaluation of a community radios programme in Zambia funded by the Netherlands; the research manager position for ECORYS and also academic publications in the Journal of Multidisciplinary Evaluation.

For more information visit https://tothecoreofthings.consulting; check our track of projects.

ENGINEER, TEACHER, LIFE COACH, TRAINER, EU PROJECT MANAGER

Italian pracademic, senior development expert, peer assessor at TAIEX