EBA’s secretariat has been strengthened by four new staff members. From left: Verena Knippel, Linn Ternsjö, John Viklund and Adea Gafuri (inserted; the image is a montage)
Verena Knippel, Program Manager, worked Prior to joining EBA, with Sida as Senior Evaluator and Deputy Head of the Evaluation Secretariat, Coordinator for Effective Development Cooperation, Senior Advisor for Capacity Development and, most recently, Coordinator for Methods and Approaches. She has extensive experience in Tanzania, has worked for the World Bank, UNESCO, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, DfID and Twaweza East Africa, as well as a consultant for civil society, bi- and multilateral organisations. Her areas of expertise include capacity and institutional development, governance and gender equality, migration and partnerships. She has a background in Development Policy Studies and holds a PhD in Economic and Social Geography from Bayreuth University, Germany.
Linn Ternsjö, Programme Manager, comes most recently from Lund University, where she researched and taught on the political economy and distributional consequences of structural change. There, she also worked on capacity-strengthening in science, technology and innovation, in collaboration with Sida and AUDA-NEPAD. She has previously worked on private sector development at the Embassy of Sweden in Rwanda and UNDP in Ethiopia. Linn has a background in development studies and economics from SOAS, University of London. She holds a PhD in Economic History from Lund University.
John Viklund, Assistant Programme Manager, previously worked as a market analyst at a consultancy, focusing on encrypted communications. John holds a master’s degree in War and Defence from the Swedish Defence University and has also studied at King’s College London and the University of Bologna.
Adea Gafuri, Program Manager, recently finished her postdoctoral research at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI), where she conducted research on how aid from various actors, including the EU and China, affects democracy and the opinions of citizens and politicians in developing countries. She has an interest in quantitative methods, particularly experimental methods, and she has regional expertise in the Western Balkan countries. She has previously worked with V-Dem and AidData. Adea holds a PhD in political science from the University of Gothenburg.
The secretariat is not yet fully staffed; a temporary post as program manager has been advertised. When fully staffed, the secretariat will consist of eleven staff members who implement the expert group’s decisions. We will also soon be welcoming two interns and a Master’s student.