The team behind every engagement.

Umutcan Yüksel

Chief Executive Officer Türkiye

Umutcan Yüksel is a humanitarian professional and researcher specialising in migration governance, protection programming, humanitarian funding dynamics, and the political economy of EU externalisation. He is the creator of PRISM (Protection, Risk & Impact Severity Monitor), an open humanitarian analytics platform integrating 40+ authoritative datasets across 230+ countries, and currently serves as a Policy Leader Fellow at the European University Institute, researching donor decision-making in humanitarian funding allocation under severe resource constraints. He is also affiliated with the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul as part of an EU-Horizon funded research project on EU migration management, and is the founder of Integrity Consulting. From 2017 to 2022, Umutcan served as a Programme Specialist at the European Commission's DG ECHO, supporting management of the EU Facility for Refugees in Türkiye, before leading multi-million EUR portfolios at international organisations, including earthquake response operations. His work on power dynamics in humanitarian aid and migration governance has been published in various academic journals.

Protection & GBV Migration Data & Analytics Research Donor Engagement Capacity Building

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Christophe Gadrey

Senior Expert Morocco

Christophe Gadrey brings over 30 years of experience in development and humanitarian-aid project cycle management, gained within civil society organisations, French territorial administration, and the European Commission (DG ECHO). He has extensive multi-stakeholder coordination experience involving military forces, civil protection, United Nations agencies, the Red Cross Movement, international and local NGOs, and national authorities. His multidisciplinary background bridges humanitarian assistance and development across protection, water and sanitation, health, food security, shelter, Disaster Risk Reduction, and Disaster Preparedness. Recent consultancy work includes training, support to project cycle management, and strategic guidance to partners such as GIZ, Diakonia, IOCC, Brot für die Welt, the International Civil Society Centre, and NRC.

Donor Engagement Localisation Project Cycle Management DG ECHO Capacity Building

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Massimiliano Mangia

Senior Expert Italy

Massimiliano Mangia holds a Master's degree in Law and a post-graduate Master's in Humanitarian Assistance. With over 20 years of extensive experience, he has served as a representative for prominent INGOs and as an institutional donor with DG ECHO. His expertise spans the design and coordination of large-scale, multi-sectoral responses and institutional programmes, with a focus on refugee crises. Massimiliano has demonstrated strong leadership in designing, coordinating, monitoring, evaluating, and managing humanitarian and development programmes in complex crises across regions. His comprehensive understanding of the humanitarian and development systems — including donor structures, NGOs, and UN agencies — further enhances his ability to navigate the sector. As an independent consultant, he has led or contributed to numerous consultancies focusing on impact evaluation (DG ECHO, AICS, INGOs), strategy revision, programme design and resource mobilisation (INGOs, WFP), and policy evaluation and development (DG ECHO, INGOs).

Livelihoods Localisation Impact Evaluation DG ECHO Donor Engagement

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Catherine Chazaly

Senior Expert Belgium

Catherine Chazaly is a humanitarian and social protection expert with over 20 years' experience working in complex and fragile countries. Her career path started with community-based organisations in Africa and in the UK and continued through her career with the Red Cross Movement, INGOs, UN agencies and the European Commission. Catherine has worked in Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and the Caribbean. Since 2019, she has been working as an independent consultant supporting governments, donors and international organisations to design and develop policies and programmes that strengthen humanitarian responses and social protection systems — with a particular emphasis on gender and social inclusion. Her work has constantly involved facilitating processes to enhance learning, capacities and shared knowledge; through continuous practice she has developed a strong set of skills in designing and facilitating capacity-development activities, workshops and events.

Migration Livelihoods GEDSI Cash & Voucher Social Protection Food Security Capacity Building

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Youmna Ghosn

Senior Expert Canada

Senior MEL and evaluation specialist with 15 years of experience designing MEAL systems and conducting independent evaluations for international and national NGOs across multiple countries in the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. Expertise in results-based management, mixed-methods evaluation design, and quantitative and qualitative data analysis. Experience spans humanitarian and development programming, including work within the triple-nexus framework. Technical focus includes humanitarian assistance, education, MHPSS, SGBV-focused protection programming, women's empowerment, and social cohesion. Work spans projects funded by UN agencies, bilateral donors, and private foundations, with strong expertise in evaluation design, evidence generation, and the use of findings to support accountability, learning, and programmatic decision-making.

MEAL Data & Analytics Research Methods Donor Engagement

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Dr Nefise Ela Gokalp Aras

Senior Expert Italy

Dr Gokalp-Aras is a Senior Researcher at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul (SRII), Sweden/Türkiye, since 2017. She was the Principal Investigator of two EU Horizon projects (GAPs: De-centring the Study of Migrant Returns and Readmission Policies in Europe and Beyond, and RESPOND: Multilevel Governance of Mass Migration). She is a postdoctoral researcher of the PHOENIX: Human Mobility, Global Challenges and Resilience in an Age of Social Stress project. She has a BA in International Relations (Ankara University), an MSc in Climate Change and Development (University of London, SOAS), and an MSc and a PhD in Sociology (Middle East Technical University). She has more than 20 years of experience and has worked in different capacities and roles at public institutions, national and international NGOs, and the private sector in project management — particularly 16 years in academia and research. She is the editor of the International Journal of Human Mobility.

Migration Research Methods

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Dr Amanda Bisong

Senior Expert Netherlands

Amanda Bisong (PhD) is a policy analyst and researcher with over fifteen years of experience in policy implementation and research. Her expertise lies in migration, trade, development, and international law. Dr Bisong has a background in Law, with a PhD (cum laude) from VU Amsterdam (Netherlands) and master's degrees in International Law and Economics (World Trade Institute, Switzerland) and International Trade Policy and Trade Law (Lund University, Sweden). Her research and policy work focus on migration governance, labour mobility, trade facilitation and the links between trade and migration policies. She has authored several academic articles and op-eds on these themes. She has worked with African and European policymakers and international organisations in researching, designing and implementing policy solutions. She is affiliated with several academic research and policy networks.

Research Methods Migration Policy

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Dr Laura Rahm

Senior Expert Italy

Laura Rahm (PhD) is a political sociologist and demographer specialising in global governance, sustainable development, gender equality, and social inclusion. She is an Associate Researcher at the Centre for Population and Development in Paris and a 2025/26 Policy Leader Fellow at the Florence School of Transnational Governance of the European University Institute. Rahm brings over 15 years collaborating extensively with international organisations (UN Women, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank) on monitoring and evaluating the SDGs from a gender and intersectional lens. From 2022 to 2024, she served as a Reference Group Member for a UN-wide evaluation synthesis on SDG 5 (Gender Equality). Her research examines how knowledge, data, and policy interact to shape development outcomes, with a focus on knowledge transfer, sustainable development, and public policies related to gender, population, and health. Her work has been published in Bristol University Press, Cambridge University Press, Springer, BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health, and PLOSOne.

GEDSI Sustainable Development Localisation Donor Engagement Social Protection Capacity Building

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Purvi Patel

Senior Expert United States

Purvi Patel is an attorney and public-health professional in the humanitarian and international development sectors, specialising in livelihoods, protection, refugee status determination, and emergency response. She is currently adjunct faculty at Wheaton College's Humanitarian Disaster Institute in Illinois (USA), and until July 2025 served as a Humanitarian Assistance Officer in the US Foreign Service with USAID. From 2013 to 2024, Purvi worked for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), along with various INGOs and private-sector actors, and as an International Affairs Fellow in India through the Council on Foreign Relations.

Protection & GBV Migration Livelihoods MEAL Research Donor Engagement Durable Solutions Climate & DRR Capacity Building

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Ruben Cano

Senior Expert Spain

Ruben is an international humanitarian and development professional with over 25 years of experience in programme management, organisational support services, and representation and strategic coordination across complex and fragile contexts. His background spans the full programme cycle — planning, monitoring, implementation, evaluation, reporting — as well as core support functions including finance, human resources, administration, logistics, and ICT. He has worked extensively in humanitarian emergencies (Colombia, Türkiye, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Haiti, Nepal, Greece, Nigeria, Ukraine) and in development and capacity-building contexts (Dominican Republic, Rwanda, Panama, Ecuador, Greece, West Africa). He holds a Master’s degree in Digital Business Management, a Master’s in Programme and Policy Evaluation, and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. He speaks Spanish (native), English (fluent) and French.

Donor Engagement Programme Management Evaluation

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Alize Seray Yüksel

Expert Türkiye

Alize Seray Yüksel is a humanitarian protection and child rights specialist with over a decade of experience leading child protection, MHPSS, and education-in-emergencies programmes, primarily in response to the Syrian refugee crisis. She consults NGOs in Türkiye, leading proposal development and donor engagement with GIZ, UNICEF, UNHCR, KfW, and the EU Delegation. From 2024 to 2025, she was a Child Protection Officer at UNICEF Türkiye, where she chaired the South-East Türkiye Child Protection Sub-Sector Working Group. Between 2017 and 2024, Alize worked with IOM, Concern Worldwide, SPARK, and CARE International, across protection, psychosocial support, and education programming, and co-chaired the inter-agency MHPSS Sub-Working Group for South-East Türkiye from 2022 to 2024.

Protection & GBV Child Protection MHPSS Education in Emergencies Donor Engagement

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Kubilay Karagöktaş

Expert Türkiye

Kubilay Karagöktaş is a humanitarian programme manager and independent consultant with nine years of experience across Türkiye, Syria, Ukraine, Sudan, and South Sudan. Trained as a social worker, he began his career in direct case management with refugees at SGDD-ASAM and the Turkish Red Crescent, working with Syrian, Afghan, Iraqi, and Iranian caseloads before moving into programme management at INTERSOS, IFRC, and GOAL Global, where he has managed ECHO, BPRM, UN, GFFO, and BMZ-funded projects from design through close-out. His consultancy work covers case-management reviews, mixed-methods evaluations, service mapping, and referral-pathway design with an age, gender, and diversity lens. In the field, Kubilay coordinated the 2023 earthquake response in southern Türkiye and ran ECHO mobile protection across three Ukrainian oblasts.

Protection & GBV Migration MHPSS MEAL Data & Analytics Research GEDSI Donor Engagement Social Protection TPM Capacity Building

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Sezen Yalçın

Expert Portugal

Sezen Yalçın is a senior Child Protection Specialist with 15 years of experience in child protection, child rights, community-based protection, GBV, and gender equality. She has worked extensively with UN agencies, international NGOs, and national humanitarian organisations, leading the design and implementation of multi-sectoral programmes in complex emergencies — including the Syria Crisis, Türkiye's 2023 Earthquake Response, and the Sudan refugee operations. Most recently, she supported UNICEF Türkiye on the design and scale-up of community-based child protection centres through qualitative research, systems analysis, and multi-stakeholder consultations. She is also collaborating with ILO to support public and private sector actors in strengthening responsible business conduct and child labour due diligence. She holds a BA in Political Science and International Relations from Boğaziçi University, an MA in Sociology from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), and an MA in Human Rights Law from İstanbul Bilgi University.

Protection & GBV Child Protection

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Leju E. Joseph Wani

Expert South Sudan

Leju E. Joseph Wani is a development and humanitarian professional based in Juba, South Sudan, specialising in monitoring and evaluation, project management, and strategic coordination across health, protection, and emergency response programmes. He holds a Master's Degree in Development Studies from Uganda Christian University and a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology and Social Anthropology from the University of Juba. He currently serves as a National Consultant with University Research Co. (URC) on USAID-funded HIV/AIDS interventions in South Sudan, a role he has held intermittently since 2023. From 2015 to 2023, Leju worked across major international development and humanitarian organisations, including Palladium International (with funding from the Global Fund and Against Malaria Foundation), the Humanitarian and Development Consortium (supported by UNHCR, UNICEF, NPA, CARE, and NORAH), and Johns Hopkins University Affiliates (Jhpiego) under PEPFAR and USAID funding, where he led monitoring, evaluation, and learning across county- and national-level health programmes.

MEAL Health Programming

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Dunja Bonacci Skenderović

Expert Croatia

Dunja Bonacci Skenderović is an independent consultant and researcher focused on gender-based violence (GBV), femicide, and violence-against-women data in Croatia and the Western Balkans. She has more than 15 years of experience working with NGOs, international organisations, and public institutions on issues related to violence against women and gender equality. Her work includes analysis of national GBV policies, administrative data, institutional responses, and femicide cases, with a particular focus on how data can support evidence-based prevention and policy development. She is the author of several research studies, including analyses on intimate-partner femicide in Croatia, and is currently developing a relational database on femicide cases aimed at improving data integration and analytical approaches to violence against women. Her expertise includes qualitative and quantitative research, interviews, policy analysis, stakeholder engagement, and translating complex data into accessible public and policy-oriented insights. Fluent in Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian.

Protection & GBV Femicide Research GEDSI

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Yazid Jardat

Expert Palestine · Spain

Senior MEAL specialist with extensive experience in research, evaluations, data quality assessments, and information management across humanitarian, development, and financial-sector programmes. Proven expertise in designing MEL frameworks, leading large-scale mixed-method data collection, and implementing third-party monitoring in complex contexts — including emergency operations in the Gaza Strip. Highly skilled in data analysis and visualisation (SPSS, R, Power BI, Tableau, GIS) and in developing analytical dashboards and financial monitoring tools for banking and MSME portfolio analysis. Experienced in assessing accountability mechanisms, programme performance, and service delivery quality, and translating complex datasets into clear insights for donor reporting and strategic decision-making. Strong background in capacity-building and MEL system strengthening, having delivered M&E and data management training for multiple organisations and field teams.

MEAL Data & Analytics Research Methods

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Benjamin Scholz

Expert Germany

Benjamin is an experienced development professional specialising in assessment, evaluation, research, and analytics across social protection, food systems, and climate adaptation. Over eight years with the United Nations World Food Programme, he led the design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of assistance programmes in diverse contexts — including Cambodia, Cameroon, DR Congo, Haiti, Jordan, and Somalia. In subsequent senior roles across multiple organisations, he has provided thought leadership on the generation and effective use of evidence to support country offices. His work spans context and needs assessments, development of theories of change and measurement frameworks, and evidence-based programme design, including vulnerability targeting and entitlement determination. He has also led monitoring, research, and impact evaluations while strengthening national institutional capacity in programme design and analytics. Benjamin excels at translating data into action through strong stakeholder engagement, clear storytelling, and multilingual communication.

MEAL Social Protection Climate & DRR

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Burak Çınar

Expert Türkiye

Burak Çınar is a long-standing humanitarian and development practitioner specialising in cash and voucher assistance and economic empowerment programming in Türkiye. As CVA and Livelihoods Programme Manager at Support to Life, he oversees a portfolio across earthquake-affected provinces — with a focus on labour market integration, vocational training, income-generation support, and micro-grants to micro and small businesses for crisis-affected host and refugee populations, as well as cultural heritage. He previously served as a Programme Specialist at the European Commission’s DG ECHO, where he contributed to the management of ESSN and C-ESSN programmes as well as earthquake food security and protection responses, and at WFP Türkiye. Burak is also a vocal advocate for localisation, championing local actors on the ground who work directly with communities and are best placed to understand their needs.

CVA Livelihoods Localisation

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Jan Menke

Expert Nigeria

Jan Menke is a humanitarian and social protection specialist with extensive experience across complex emergencies and development contexts. His career began with GIZ and community-based humanitarian initiatives before continuing with World Vision International, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and the United Nations World Food Programme, with assignments spanning East, West and Central Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. He has led humanitarian operations, managed multi-sectoral programmes covering protection, food security, nutrition, WASH, shelter, health, and rapid response, and contributed to humanitarian diplomacy. At WFP he has specialised in strengthening social protection systems — supporting governments to design policies and programmes that improve resilience, food security, and shock responsiveness. His work combines technical assistance, evidence generation, policy development, and strategic partnerships, translating evidence into practical solutions for governments and partners.

Social Protection Food Security CVA

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Ezgi Emre

Expert Portugal

Ezgi Emre is an independent senior humanitarian protection specialist with over 12 years of experience across conflict-affected and displacement settings in MENA, East Africa, Europe, and Asia. She currently serves as Protection Technical Advisor on IRC’s Global Surge Team while maintaining an independent consultancy practice with organisations including NRC, DRC, CARE, Plan International, and Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe. Her technical expertise spans GBV prevention and response, child protection, protection monitoring, legal aid, and localisation. She has led coordination mechanisms at national and sub-national levels, managed multi-million-dollar protection portfolios, and delivered strategic reviews and operational guidance across complex political environments. Ezgi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Galatasaray University and is completing an MA in Human Rights at the University of London. She is fluent in English and French, and a native Turkish speaker.

Protection & GBV Child Protection Localisation

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