Evaluation uptake

I am a Data and Evaluation expert, former journalist, with 18 years of professional experience, currently working as Evaluation, data and knowledge expert, in the core team of MELDEA project, providing help desk evaluation support DG INTPA and DG NEAR. Following an education at the European School of Brussels II, he graduated in Journalism at the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve (UCL, École de Journalisme de Louvain), and worked for 4 years as a journalist in Brussels covering EU News. This was followed by 7 years working in the management of International Development projects for consulting companies, and 7 years working as an expert in evaluation, data analysis, communication and knowledge management for the evaluation helpdesk technical assistances with DG INTPA, DG NEAR and FPI, which is his current assignment.
In the past 7 years, he has applied his data analysis skills and knowledge of EU Project Cycle Management to the field of developmental evaluation, with the objective to improve evaluation practices and learning from evaluations in the EC institutions. He has an excellent knowledge of EU Policies and guiding principles of Team Europe initiative, Strategic Planning and Programming Cycle (SPP), Financial Guidelines and EU funding mechanisms, and an excellent knowledge EC financial and contracting procedures (PRAG, INTPA Companion), Intervention Cycle Management guidelines, internal reporting and monitoring.

Hur Hassnain (MDS, MBA) is an evaluation specialist, author, Treasurer and founding Board Member at the International Evaluation Academy. Currently he is working as the Senior Evaluation Expert at Meldea, the European Commission DG INTPA, DG NEAR, and FPI’s external service on Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning, and Design supporting the headquarter units, and over a hundred EU Delegations around the world.

Hur has authored several internationally peer reviewed publications, including a book as lead author: Evaluation in Contexts of Fragility, Conflict and Violence published in 2021. It presents an interesting argument that “evaluation” – like development aid itself – can unintentionally exacerbate tensions in ways that can negatively affect people and institutions if care is not taken in designing and approaching it with caution and sensitivity.

Hur has over 20 years of experience of working in a variety of thematic areas including but not limited to gender equality, rural development, climate change, renewable energy, agriculture, women’s economic empowerment, education, and protection. He has lived and worked in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. Hur has designed, commissioned, and conducted research and evaluations for projects funded by UN agencies, the European Commission, private donors and the governments of the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Norway.

Hur is a staunch advocate of the Latin proverb "rerum cognoscere causas", signifying the pursuit of understanding the causes of things – a guiding principle that underpins his work and philosophy.

Mr. Casillas has more than Twenty-one years of experience in programme and project management, including ten years in the field of Twinning/Jumelage, both in DG NEAR in the Twinning Coordination Team and in the field, in an EU Delegation in the Caucasus region. Mr. Casillas also specializes in monitoring and evaluation of EU funded programs and projects.

For more than six years years, he has been one of the pillars of the Twinning Coordination Team at the European Commission, Neighbourhood Directorate-General and Enlargement Negotiations Directorate General in Brussels.  As such, ha was the main focal point for MS Twinning National Contact Points network interacting daily with them, in particular regarding the eligibility assessment of public and semi-public administrations as mandated bodies and as helpdesk on rules and procedures and in solving issues with EU delegations and national authorities in IPA and ENI countries. As such, he developed a successful strategy to diversify and increase the number of MS’ participating in calls for proposals in French speaking north African countries. He has been the main trainer on Twinning and has contributed to the Twinning Manual updates since 2012. For five years, he was the Country coordinator for all Western Balkans and Turkey and for three years he was country coordinator for all North Africa, Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine. He delivered trainings on Twinning in EU Member States (Greece, Malta, Belgium, Denmark, Austria) and in partner countries (Albania, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Turkey, Belarus, Georgia, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco). While working in the Twinning Coordination Team, he also acquired hands on experience on TAIEX, being project officer for several events.

Mr Casillas has also been Twinning, TAIEX and SIGMA coordinator at the European Union delegation in a Caucasus country where for three years, he was responsible for Twinning yearly Programming with PAO and implemented the majority of Twinning projects, such as: Strengthening capacity to strengthen the enforcement of intellectual property and related rights or developing synergies between three Twinning projects related to social protection. He participated as Evaluator in 80% of Twinning calls for proposals, with four to five proposals being submitted for every call. One of his achievements, while working at the Delegation was to increase significantly the number of Twinning projects. The country was quoted as “Twinning Success story” by former Commissioner Hahn and Deputy Maternova. He also multiplyed the number of TAIEX events by three.

Mr Casillas has carried out numerous monitoring and evaluation missions, in Ecuador, Benin, Burundi and Djibouti and very recently he carried out for DG NEAR an evaluation on EU Member States legislation related to public cooperation with all 27 EU Member States.

He holds a master's degree in international politics from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), and has been delivering trainings on Twinning rules and procedure, proposals preparation, selection and award modalities and Twinning implementation best practices for the past six years at the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) in Maastricht.

Mr Casillas is presently a freelance expert in Armenia.

Doctor of Education with specialisation in Didactics and Educational Planning/Management; M.A. in Education, Social Sciences and Psychology; Social Worker; State accredited teacher; Educational Psychologist
38 years of professional experience in education, with 25 years’ experience and expertise in international education programme design (including sector-wide approaches and Sector Budget Support Programmes especially EU funded), planning, management, teacher training, M&E, and in leading teams of (inter)national consultants
Licensed Consultant according to European Coaching Association (ECA) Standards at Expert level/Master competency (highest level);
Substantial and wide-ranging experience in evaluation of education programmes and projects funded by a variety of development partners (e.g. World Bank, European Commission, GTZ, UNICEF, local NGOs), including the design and management of mixed-method country-wide surveys with a strong focus on educational quality and equity issues, and based on DAC standards
Extensive experience with education in a refugee context (Syrian and Iraqi refugees in Jordan; Palestinian refugees under UNRWA), including issues of out-of-school children and peace education to combat violence in schools and society
Good knowledge of broader debate around fragility, including on-the-ground experience with fragile states
Expertise in designing and strengthening M&E systems and related trainings for countries, organisations and multilateral initiatives (e.g. GPE), including the development of procedures for subsequent evaluations
Thorough understanding of the systemic interdependencies between institutional arrangements, management and implementation capacities of key stakeholders, and educational policy development (particularly regarding quality issues)
PCM and logframe approach, leadership training, training for teams (conflict management, facilitation, communication skills, problem solving), and training of trainers

Senior Consultant specialized in Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) for international development cooperation.

I am a trained journalist and evaluation expert, data specialist and experienced project manager with 18 years of general professional experience, out of which five years working as a journalist, six years managing projects and tenders (mainly with EU agencies), and eight years working as an independent evaluation expert, data and knowledge management specialist. Currently working for the technical assistance Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Design for External Action (meldea) providing support to DG INTPA, DG NEAR and service FPI, previously with the Evaluation Support Service (ESS) of DG INTPA.