Project Team

The project team is set up of researchers and management and communication staff. In addition, it is supported by an international advisory group.

Researchers involved in EDC2020

EDC2020 brings together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers with extensive experience on the research topics of the project. Coming from our partner organisations DIE, FRIDE, IDS and ODI they join each other in three thematic work packages. Please find below their names, affilitations, positions and short biographies.

Neil Bird

ODI
Research Fellow, Climate Change, Environment and Forests Programme

Neil Bird's current research investigates the governance and institutional structure of environmental policy processes, as well as the international funding initiatives that have been recently been put in place to provide the resources for tackling climate change (both through mitigation and adaptation measures) in aid-receiving countries.  This work complements earlier research on aid architecture, national budgetary processes, sector policies and governance.
Neil Bird has been a Research Fellow at ODI since 2002.  Prior to that Neil acted as a long-term technical adviser on forest management in Guyana, Belize and Ghana.

Edward Burke, until July 2010

FRIDE
Researcher, Democratisation Programme

Edward Burke holds a Masters degree in War Studies from King's College London. At FRIDE he analyses political reform trends in the Persian Gulf region, including the GCC states, Iraq and Yemen. In addition to this, he is also working on the relationship between energy security and democracy in the Middle East.
Prior to joining FRIDE, Edward worked at the Club of Madrid. He has also previously undertaken research on behalf of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs.

Marta Foresti

ODI
Programme Leader, Politics and Governance

Before joining ODI in January 2006, Marta Foresti worked as a senior policy advisor in the Department of Development Policy of the Italian Treasury and was the former Head of the Learning and Impact Assessment team at Save the Children UK.
Marta’s current research interest include citizens’ voice and accountability, social justice and human rights, economic and social rights, action research and evaluation theory. Marta has a particular interest in the methodological dimensions of development and human rights research. She was responsible for developing impact assessment frameworks for Save the Children UK and Amnesty International and has undertaken research and evaluation studies of several UK and European social policies and programmes.

Thomas Fues

DIE
Senior Researcher, Global Governance School

Thomas Fues (PhD) is an economist with extensive research experience. Among others, he has worked at the Institute of Development and Peace / University Duisburg-Essen, the Scientific Council of the Federal Government on Global Change and the German Development Institute (DIE). His research focus is on global governance and the United Nations. At DIE he is working at the Global Governance School which gathers 20 highly qualified young professionals mainly from India, China, Brazil and South Africa. 

Sven Grimm

DIE
Senior Researcher, Department for Bi- and Mulitlateral Development Cooperation

Sven Grimm, Senior Researcher at the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik, specialises on European development co-operation and governance. After his studies in Hamburg, Accra and Dakar, he obtained his PhD in political sciences from Hamburg University. From 2003 to 2006 - the last year in a joint appointment with DIE - he worked at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London on European relations to developing countries. Current areas of research are coherence and coordination in European development policy. 

Natasha Grist

ODI
Research Fellow, Forest Environments and Climate Change

Natasha Grist, Research Fellow at ODI, specialises in climate change, adaptation and international development, with a background in social and environmental science.  Prior to joining ODI in August 2008, she was a post-doctoral researcher at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change. Her doctoral research analysed rural-urban linkages, migration and livelihood diversification in Brazilian Amazonia.

Christine Hackenesch

DIE
Researcher, European Policy for Global Development programme

Christine Hackenesch, researcher at the Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik / German Development Institute (DIE), holds a diploma in political science from the Free University of Berlin and a Master degree in comparative regional politics from Sciences Po Paris. Her research focus is on China’s engagement in Africa and consequences for European development cooperation in Africa as well as on EU-China relations.

Merylyn Hedger

IDS
Research Fellow, Vulnerability and Poverty Team

Merylyn Hedger started as a sociologist and has worked on climate change since 1994 initially as International Co-ordinator of WWF’s Climate Change Campaign, more recently, as Director of the UK Climate Impacts Programme, and head of the Environment Agency’s climate change unit. At IDS she is working on projects for the European Commission on the Global Climate Change Alliance and with Tearfund on climate change and water resource management issues in Brazil and Niger.

John Humphrey

ODI
Team Leader at the Globalisation Team

John Humphrey, Research Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), has an inter-disciplinary background in sociology and economics and holds a PhD in Sociology. He is currently the Team Leader of the Globalisation Team and responsible for the team's Asian Drivers research programme. This programme has increasingly focused on China and includes work on China-Africa relations. His recent research has focused on agribusiness value chains and the growing importance of standards upon production and trade in horticulture and seafood.

Sarah-Lea John de Sousa

FRIDE
Researcher, Peace, Security and Human Rights Programme

Sarah-Lea John de Sousa, Researcher at Funcación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el diálogo Exterior (FRIDE), holds a MA in Regional Sciences of Latin America from the University of Cologne and is in the final stage of her PhD in International Relations at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
She has been project manager at the agency Chuconsultig Germany and worked in a programme on education for development in Concepción, Chile.

Erik Lundsgaarde

DIE
Research Fellow, Department for Bi- and Mulitlateral Development Cooperation

Erik Lundsgaarde, Research Fellow at the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), with a focus on the application of scenario analysis methods to explore what development policy challenges may emerge in the coming decades. He has previously conducted research on the politics of aid provision in donor countries and on the relationship between trade and aid flows, and is currently participating in the EDC 2020 work packages on new actors and climate change. Erik holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Washington.

Simon Maxwell, until April 2009

ODI
Director (until April 2009)

Simon Maxwell was Director of the ODI from 1997 to 2009. He is an economist who worked overseas for ten years, in Kenya and India for UNDP, and in Bolivia for UKODA; and then for 16 years at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, latterly as Programme Manager for Poverty, Food Security and the Environment. He has written widely on poverty, food security, agricultural development, and aid. His current research interests include European development policy, aid, poverty, food security, linking relief and development, global governance and bridging research and policy.

Stefan Meyer

FRIDE
Senior Researcher, Humanitarian Action and Development Programme

Stefan Meyer is a Political Scientist and holds a Masters degree in Governance and Development of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Brighton, U.K. His working areas are aid instruments, governance & institutional development and the relation between aid and democratisation.
Before joining FRIDE, he worked as a consultant on aid instruments and conflict impact assessment for a number of NGOs and for the German Development Bank (KfW). Between 2000 and 2003, he was Coordinator of the social sector of the reintegration programme for refugees and ex-combatants in Sierra Leone of the German Development Agency (GTZ). Previously, he worked as a researcher in a consultancy firm for health sector reform and in an NGO providing civic education.

Mick Moore

IDS
Research Fellow, Governance Team

Mick Moore (political scientist) works on institutional and political aspects of development; the causes of 'good' and 'bad' government; the effects of government revenue sources on governance; taxation; the relationship between politics and private enterprise in poor countries. He is Director of the Centre for the Future State, a research programme focusing on the question of how public authority in developing countries can best be reshaped and reconstituted to meet the challenge of poverty reduction in the early decade of the 21st century.

Leo Peskett

ODI
Research Fellow, Forests, Environment and Climate Change Programme

Leo Pesekett, Research Fellow at ODI, has a background in climate change science and policy, and a longstanding interest in the implications of climate change on developing countries. His research focuss is on climate change mitigation and adaptation in relation to developing countries and forestry in developing countries. He analyses impacts of climate change on agriculture in developing countries, including the analysis of donor agricultural policies.

Imme Scholz

DIE
Vice Director and Head of Department, Department for Environmental Policy and Management of Natural Resources

Imme Scholz, Research Fellow at the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) since 1992 and Head of the department “Environmental Policy and Management of Natural Resources”. In June 2009 she was appointed Vice Director of DIE. Her work focuses on climate change and development as well as issues related to tropical forest management. Between 1999 and 2002 she was an environmental advisor for German development co-operation in Brazil.

Natalia Shapovalova

FRIDE
Researcher

Natalia Shapovalova is a researcher at FRIDE. Prior to joining FRIDE, she was a researcher at the International Centre for Policy Studies in Kiev, Ukraine (2005-8). She has an MA in European Public Affairs from Maastricht University, Netherlands, an MA in International Relations from the Maria Curie Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland. Her research focuses mainly on Ukraine, Eastern Partnership, EU enlargement, Russia, and the Caucasus.

Leni Wild

ODI
Research Officer, Politics and Poverty Programme

Leni Wild recently joined ODI as a Research Officer in the Politics and Governance team, with a particular interest in governance, accountability and aspects of democracy promotion as well as aid and development effectiveness. She was previously a Research Assistant, then Research Fellow in the international team at the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) where she worked on a range of development issues and she was Research Officer at Education Action, an NGO working in post-conflict countries, where she managed programmes in Northern Uganda, Sierra Leone and Gaza.

Richard Youngs

FRIDE
Director General

Richard Youngs is director general of FRIDE. He is also assistant professor at the University of Warwick in the UK. Prior to joining FRIDE, he was EU Marie Curie research fellow at the Norwegian Institute for International Relations, Oslo (2001-4), and senior research fellow at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (1995-8). His research focuses mainly on democracy promotion and democratisation, European foreign policy, energy security, and the MENA region.

Kimana Zulueta-Fülscher, until January 2009

FRIDE
Researcher, Democratisation Programme

PhD in Political Science and International Relations. She participated in the OSCE Elections Observation Mission in Armenia, February 2008 , and Kazakhstan, August 2007, as a short term elections observer. Prior to joining FRIDE, she was visiting scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University, New York. She has also been visiting scholar at the University of Vienna (Austria), and did an internship at the United Nations HQ in New York, Department of Political Affairs.

Management and communication staff

The project management conducted by EADI. Moreover, EADI and SID are responsible for the communication of research outcomes.

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Aurélien Lafon

EADI
Project Officer

Aurélien Lafon is Project Officer at EADI and coordinates the EDC2020 project. He holds Master’s degrees in European Studies and English. Main areas of work include communication, project development and management.

Thomas Lawo

EADI
Executive Secretary

Thomas Lawo (PhD) is Executive Secretary of EADI and Director of its head office in Bonn, Germany. Formerly, he was Managing Director and Head of Programmes of MISEREOR, a German NGDO of the Catholic Church and has been Country Representative at the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation in Malaysia.

Frida van der Graaf

SID

Project Officer

Frida van der Graaf is Project Officer at SID Netherlands. She holds a Bachelor degree in Political History and International Relations and a Master degree in International Development Studies. Main areas of work include administration, project support and management.

International Advisory Group

The international advisory group has been set up to give proactive advice for the project team, to ensure policy-oriented and policy-relevant research as well as the practical relevance of the research. 

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Alberto Cimadamore

Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO) in Buenos Aires / Argentina
Coordinator, International Relations

Yang Guang

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing / China
Director, Institute of West Asian and African Studies (IWAAS) in Beijing / China

Paul Hoebink

Centre for International Development Issues (CIDIN) in Nijmegen / The Netherlands
Extraordinary Professor for Development Cooperation; EADI Working Group on Aid Policy and Performance

Garth le Pere

Institute for Global Dialogue in Braamfontein / South Africa
Executive Director

Françoise Moreau

DG Development and relations with ACP States European Commission in Brussels / Belgium
Head of Unit Forward looking studies and policy coherence,

Alfred Nhema

Centre for African Development (CAD) in Addis Ababa / Ethiopia
Director

Andreas Rechkemmer

International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) / United Nations University
former Executive Director of IHDP and visiting professor at the Beijing Normal University, China

Hadi Soesastro

Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta / Indonesia
Executive Director
Chair of the newly founded Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia in Jakarta / Indonesia