Katja Hirvonen

• As Head of Development Cooperation overall responsibility for effective management and coordination of Finland’s development cooperation in Myanmar using RBM, HRBAP, conflict analysis, conflict sensitivity tools, political economy analysis and adaptive management. • Strategic guidance and management of the peace and democracy support portfolio (UN agencies, INGOs NGOs, multi-donor trust fund). • Conducting conflict analysis together with partners and building common vision for action. • Manage a UNWOMEN led gender equality project and forestry/rural livelihoods projects. • Policy influence in donor coordination mechanisms and groups (e.g. OECD-DAC group, Peace Support Group, EU Political Counsellors). • Political analysis and reporting.

• As Deputy Director of Unit managed operations of the unit and participated in relationship management with partner civil society organizations. • Contributed to development and improvement of the unit’s aid instruments (calls for funding). • Ensuring gender equality as a crosscutting objective in supported projects. • Led the updating process CSOs development policy guidelines through multiple workshops with NGOs and other relevant stakeholders. • Facilitated round table discussions between CSO’s and private sector actors to enhance their cooperation.

• Responsible for further improvement, strategic planning and delivery of the ministry's training programme related to development cooperation. • Oversaw mainstreaming of results based management (RBM) and human rights based approach in all training courses. • Organized a "training for trainers" course to improve the skills and motivation of the specialist giving training. • Facilitated a ministry wide process for developing a new manual on RBM for bilateral development cooperation. • Advised development cooperation managers in the ministry on aid quality issues.

• As Head of Development Cooperation responsible for planning, reporting and delivery of the Finnish development cooperation programme in Vietnam. • Enabled positive and effective teamwork, by engaging project officers into strategic planning and development of the country programme results framework and indicators. • Represented Finland in different donor groups including "Friends of One UN", Aid Effectiveness Forum and the EU Heads of Development Cooperation and conveyed Finnish objective including principles of aid effectiveness and gender equality in these groups. • Built good working relations with Vietnamese counterparts in different ministries through an open dialogue and active search for positive solutions.

• Followed up and reported on the political situation in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives. • Managed development cooperation projects related to forestry, environment and climate change, human rights, democracy and peace building. • Managed procurement of consultants, prepared agreements • Followed up on budgets and reported on country programme results and Finnish development policy priorities.

• Coordinated writing and editing of a joint research proposal (five European and African universities) for the seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission. • Organised a planning workshop in Helsinki, compiled the proposal texts, prepared the budget of the Department of Development Studies for this proposal and negotiated budgets with the other research consortium partners. • Planned and carried out (with a co-lecturer) an intensive course on project planning and management at the Department of Development Studies. • Facilitated student’s group works on developing a project plan using different tools including problem trees and logical framework matrices and evaluated their final presentations.

• Prepared a teacher’s manual for a course titled “History and contending theories of development cooperation” for a European Master's Degree in European Development Cooperation offered jointly by five European Universities. • Conducted lectures on integrated project cycle management and logical framework approach in a project management course for master's students of development studies.

• Provided technical inputs to monitoring and evaluation, including management of field monitoring and performance analysis, linking plans with lessons and observations from the field, and feeding these back to programmes. • Built capacities in M&E within the office and chaired the office M&E technical working group. • Contributed to knowledge management especially through quality control of the Childinfo database and its indicators. • Coordinated UNICEF support to national Poverty Reduction Strategy Plan. • Developed guidelines for participatory planning, collection and analysis of data and monitoring of indicators.

• Contributed to establishment of a comprehensive M&E system, including a monitoring database and development of indicators. • Provided technical support to development of participatory methodologies and carrying out a participatory planning process including supervising field research, analysing and compiling results, and development of community level plans. • Contributed to the planning and conduction of a gender analysis carried out in the programme areas.

• Carried out, as a member of an international evaluation team, an external evaluation of a Finnish financed programme supporting forestry colleges in SADC countries. • Collected and analysed information concerning the supported forestry colleges in seven SADC countries and on the forestry and education related policies in the respective countries. • Assisted in designing and pre-testing participatory approaches and peer review methods, including preparation of questionnaires and guidelines for focus group discussions and critical incidence cases. • Conducted interviews with policy makers and held focus group discussions with students and teachers including gender issues.

• Compiled and analysed statistics on Finnish development cooperation and reviewed and analysed project documents and project evaluations of Finnish development cooperation. • Provided inputs to the research team based on the above findings. • Assisted in editing working papers and final publications of the research project. • Coordinated an international research workshop and acted as a focal point for the research groups in Tanzania, Nepal and Finland.

• Conducted an assessment on the use of participatory approaches in an ICIMOD led rural applied research project in Nepal. • Assessed the participatory methodologies used and the participation of women in project activities, and prepared a presentation for a regional workshop. • Reviewed monitoring and evaluation practices of the project and provided recommendations for improving local participation and participatory monitoring and evaluation.

• Assessed requests for funding from local NGOs and conducted negotiations with chosen project partners. • Carried out various background studies on issues of interest to the Finnish Embassy.

• Conducted analysis of concepts, strategies and efforts of Finnish Development Cooperation on poverty reduction for a European wide research project “Aid in use of poverty reduction”. • Carried out text analysis and interviewed civil servants in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs on poverty reduction.