In 2018, Panagora launched a five-year activity in South Africa leading the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) activity which supports the USAID/South Africa Bilateral Office of Health to maximize results under the Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) health development objective.
Posted on January, 3 2019
Learn MoreMonitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) for the USAID/South Africa Bilateral Health Office. Through the MERL task order (TO), Panagora led a 5-year activity to support USAID/South Africa’s Bilateral Office of Health to maximize results under the Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) health development objective. MERL was active from 2018-2020.
Posted on June, 6 2018
Learn MoreMayada Mahdi is the knowledge management and communications manager for the USAID/Sudan Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Activity. She has six years of experience in humanitarian work both inside and outside of Sudan. She has experience working as a mapping specialist, an information management officer, a water resources engineer, an integrated water resources management expert, a humanitarian information and MERL manager, and a program officer for UN IOM. She holds an M.Sc. and a B.Sc. in water resources engineering. Mayada’s native language is Arabic and she speaks English at a professional level.
Majella van der Werf is a director at Panagora Group, focusing on monitoring, evaluation, research, learning, and adaptation (MERLA) and business development. She brings 22 years of experience including in the design and implementation of MEL systems as well as youth development, workforce development and violence prevention programming experience targeting high-risk youth. Majella has a track record leading evaluations and assessments, managing complex programs and achieving performance benchmarks in the areas of MEL, governance, youth development, violence intervention, workforce development and health. Majella is known for excellent working relationships with clients, partners and stakeholders and has multi-donor experience in Latin America; the Caribbean and North, West and Central Africa. She was also Assistant Director of Evaluation for a US-based NGO working in Baltimore, Maryland. Majella earned an MA in development studies at Erasmus University in the Hague, the Netherlands and speaks Spanish and French and is a native Dutch speaker.
Irene Velez is a director in the monitoring, evaluation, research, learning, and adaptation (MERLA) practice. Irene has over 12 years of experience designing and implementing impact and performance evaluations, spanning multiple sectors and their intersection with gender. She is an expert in quantitative and qualitative research methods, data collection and analysis, and has experience conducting economic assessments, including constraints analysis and cost-benefit analysis. She also specializes in leading impact evaluation design workshops, where she facilitates stakeholder engagement to build capacity on evaluation methods and strengthen buy-in for rigorous evaluations. Prior to joining Panagora, Irene worked at Management Systems International, where she provided technical leadership on dozens of evaluations, evaluation syntheses, and dissemination activities for USAID, MCC and USDOL, including leading the first quality review of impact evaluations at USAID. Previously, she worked at Innovations for Poverty Action, where she led the implementation of a large-scale randomized controlled trial to measure the impacts of microcredit for women in northern Mexico. Irene holds a masters’ degree in international development policy from the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and a bachelors’ degree in economics from Wellesley College. Born and raised in Bolivia, Irene is bilingual in Spanish and English.
The USAID/South Africa Mission is now expanding TSS, which supports the mission’s Health Office to problem-solve technical priorities and develop creative, innovative solutions related to such issues as strategically allocating resources, strengthening connections with partners, and replicating best practices and efficient models. An exciting part of the work is that we support the Mission’s Office of Health to maximize results under their Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) health development objective, furthering USAID’s Journey to Self Reliance (J2SR) goals.
Posted on July, 24 2020
Learn MoreTechnical Support Services (TSS) for the USAID/South Africa Bilateral Health Office and the Regional HIV/AIDS Program (RHAP). Panagora is prime contractor for the 5-year Technical Support Services (TSS) activity, a woman-owned small business sole source that was amended using PEPFAR emergency procurement authority to expand and extend our services. It subsumed the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL) activity. Under TSS, Panagora provides technical support to USAID/Southern Africa’s (USAID/SA) Bilateral Health Office and to the Regional HIV/AIDS Program (RHAP).
Posted on October, 7 2019
Learn MoreWilliam Cartier serves as both MERLA director and IDIQ director of USAID/India’s CLAIM activity. He has thirty years of experience in international development, as Associate Professor at the University of the Andes in Bogota, Colombia, later as Senior Program Officer with the Ford Foundation in Lima, Peru and Santiago, Chile, Director of Monitoring and Evaluation at the Corona Foundation in Bogota, Colombia. He has served as senior technical advisor and chief of party for USAID funded programs in Latin America, Asia and Africa in the field of democratic governance and led monitoring, evaluation and learning platforms in Bangladesh, Liberia and the Dominican Republic and served as chief of party of Panagora’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Platform with USAID/Dominican Republic. He has conducted numerous assessments and program evaluations in democracy, rights and governance, decentralization, local government strengthening, transparency and accountability, youth development and justice reform. He has undergraduate and graduate degrees in Political Science and International Development from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, and University of Toronto, Canada. He speaks Spanish and French.
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