ACE Europe, a learning experience ...

I have been a consultant with ACE Europe since 1996 and co-manager since 2007. I graduated as a historian from K.U.Leuven in 1991 and started my career as a researcher in the field of the history of psychiatry. After the publication of this research, I started working for ACE Europe in 1996, initially focusing on the relationship between the EU and municipalities, the European policy of municipalities and the impact of European enlargement on local governments in Central and Eastern Europe including programmes on local development in Ukraine and in Moldova.

Today, I work as an evaluator, trainer and coach of organisations having more than 25 years of experience. I work on the following themes: capacity building, monitoring and evaluation, programme formulation and Theory of Change, lobbying and advocacy, local governance and access to basic services (water, health and education) and inter-university cooperation. I have experience in managing and conducting multi-disciplinary evaluations in various countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and Europe. My main focus is on qualitative research methods. I use my experience as evaluator as a source for developing tailor-made trainings. As a trainer and coach, I have supported a number of evolutions in the development cooperation sector, for e.g. on the regulatory framework for NGO evaluation policy and strengthening quality of NGO programme formulation, implementation, monitoring and learning.
My training as a historian continues to this day and is reflected in the questions I ask: how did processes turn out and could things have been different? What has really changed and for whom? What explains that change? What should we understand and how can we learn from this? How then could things continue? I take these questions into my daily work. I get my energy mainly from supporting change processes within an organisation, providing training, conducting evaluation and building respectful relations with people who work on change every day, both fellow consultants and NGO staff here and in other countries.

I studied adult education and social change at the Catholic University of Leuven [KUL] and embarked on my career as a scientific assistant at the same institution. My interest in cooperation for development grew during my studies.  I was driven by a feeling of injustice to endeavour for fairer North-South relations, in both a professional and a volunteer capacity, so as to give a voice to people who are excluded.  I joined a literacy campaign in Mexico,  worked as a volunteer for the NGO Coopibo (now Ricolto), performed a brief assignment at the VVOB [Flemish Association for Development Cooperation and Technical Assistance] and was head of development education at the NGO Fonds voor Ontwikkelingssamenwerking (FOS) [Development Cooperation Fund], where I was also responsible for gender policy. In 2000 I got the opportunity to start working for ACE Europe,  which I found fascinating, as it appealed to both the “thinker” and “doer” in me.  I have been the co-manager since 2007. I provide support to various stakeholders who are active in international cooperation: NGOs, social organizations and governments.

In my work I focus on analysing social change processes with specific attention for capacity building, lobby and advocacy, multi-stakeholder processes, network development and active citizenship. I have gained experience in the following areas over the years: improving access to basic services, including education, food, water and healthcare; the struggle for fair gender relations and climate justice; the struggle of workers and trade union activists. I have always used a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods and have specific experience in (quasi-experimental) impact assessments of programmes.
What fascinates me particularly in my work as a consultant is putting (scientific) research to practice, and more specifically turning evidence and lessons learned into more effective strategies. I always rely on the principles of appreciative inquiry and invite organizations to analyse their practices and gain greater insight in their work and the results thereof. I draw a great deal of energy from working together and joint learning. 

I’m trained as a linguist and political scientist, with a specific interest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). By studying Arabic (KULeuven) and Middle Eastern politics (SOAS, University of London), I learnt how to connect history, literature, politics and religion. Interested by a region characterised by protracted conflict but also – at the time – hopeful calls for social change, I decided to look into the role of women’s movements in pushing for democracy and social justice in the Arab World. In 2017, I obtained a PhD in Conflict and Development studies on this topic from the University of Ghent. After finishing my PhD I changed course towards more policy-oriented research. I obtained valuable experience during my traineeships at the European parliament and the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. My position as a researcher at the think tank CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies) gave me further insights into EU foreign policy.

Having worked at the crossroads of academia, government and civil society, I am very pleased to have joined ACE Europe as a researcher and evaluator since 2020. The work at ACE Europe brings together a lot of interesting ingredients that have recurred in my professional track record: learning first hand from people’s personal stories across the world; translating academic research into foreign and development policy; supporting civil society as an actor for social change. Thus far, in my capacity as evaluator, I have conducted various programme evaluations in the MENA and Africa, often with a focus on democratisation, gender, lobby and advocacy, civil society strengthening, (local) governance or conflict.

After a first academic career in astronomy, I felt the need to contribute more directly to some of the complex issues and inequalities that face our society. In 2016, I moved from the stars down to Earth and left academia abroad to become impact manager at a local non-profit in Antwerp. The Advanced Masters in Development Evaluation and Management at the University of Antwerp introduced me further to the world of monitoring and evaluation. In 2018 I joined University Colleges Leuven-Limburg (UCLL) as a part-time researcher to work on projects supporting non-profit, social profit and profit organisations and companies to measure, report and improve their ecological and social impact and become more sustainable. In 2020 I left the non-profit in Antwerp to become a part-time freelance consultant. Since then I have had the great fortune to collaborate frequently with ACE Europe on programme evaluations in areas such as development education & awareness, lobby & advocacy, youth and education. We have also been able to respond to an increasing demand from smaller organisations working locally within Belgium for support in setting up a framework and tools for their internal monitoring, evaluation and learning activities.

I find great value in theory-based and systemic approaches such as Theory of Change and Contribution Analysis to help make sense of how complex processes of social change unfold. I prefer to use mixed-methods approaches and value participatory and narrative methods such as Outcome Harvesting to keep a broader view also on unintended changes. Designing accessible evaluation outputs such as infographics or dashboards, and placing emphasis on joint sensemaking and developing organisational learning are important points of attention for our work to facilitate use of evaluation findings.