John Young joined ODI in May 2001 after 5 years in Indonesia managing the DFID Decentralised Livestock Services in the Eastern Regions of Indonesia (DELIVERI) Project - an action-research project to promote more decentralised and client-oriented livestock services. Before that he was ITDG's Country Director in Kenya, responsible for managing the group's practical project and research work on a wide range of technologies to ensure that lessons were effectively communicated to government and non-government policy makers. Since joining ODI he has been involved in projects on decentralisation and rural services, information and information systems, strengthening southern research capacity, and the research-policy interface. He is Director of Programmes for the RAPID Group, and also manages the Civil Society Partnerships Programme. More...

Enrique Mendizabal joined RAPID in October 2004. A research fellow, his responsibilities include the development of ODI's research on the use of evidence and the contribution of networks to pro-poor policy processes. Enrique also supports the development of the Civil Society Partnerships Programme’s Latin American network and is involved in capacity building and advice for civil society and policymakers on bridging research and policy in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Enrique also chairs the Latin American and the Caribbean Group at ODI - a cross-cutting group that aims to study and promote debate and solutions for pro-poor policies in the region. His areas of focus include networks and their role in development, civil society and policy influence, children and vulnerable groups, public sector reform and urban development. Enrique has worked in projects for the Peruvian government, DFID, USAID, IDRC, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, the UN and several international and national CSOs.

Harry Jones joined the ODI in 2006. He is a research officer in RAPID working on issues of knowledge, power and politics. He has contributed to an important stream of work on complexity theory and a number of ongoing research and capacity building activities. Other areas of focus are the role of different types of knowledge in policy processes, bridging research and policy in different contexts and work on evaluation approaches. This has included an in-depth study into the interface between science and policy in developing countries, a paper on the use and uptake of impact evaluations, work applying concepts of social justice and equity to development and extensive work on the Outcome Mapping Planning, Monitoring and Learning methodology.

Simon Hearn joined RAPID in July 2007 as the Research Officer for knowledge and learning. His main responsibility is the coordination, facilitation, and development of the Outcome Mapping Learning Community – a global group of advocates, trainers, specialists and users of Outcome Mapping. He is also involved in research, capacity building and advisory work around policy influencing strategies, monitoring and learning, communities of practice, networks and the use of social media and online communications. Prior to joining ODI, he worked as a research assistant at Gamos Ltd, a consultancy specialising in information and communication for development. He has a BSc in Astrophysics and an MSc is Biomedical Engineering.

Ajoy Datta joined ODI’s RAPID group as a research officer in April 2008. He is responsible for improving the institution’s understanding of the contribution of evidence to policy-making. Before this, he worked in ODI’s Centre for Public Expenditure (CAPE) as an associate, where he helped with two aid projects aimed at enhancing Southern voices in aid policy-making. In addition, Ajoy was the Ghana Programme Coordinator at the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET), an organisation that strives to improve health services in developing countries. Ajoy has also spent over three years living and working in Zambia as a VSO development worker.  He graduated from Durham University with an MEng in Manufacturing Engineering and from SOAS with an MSc in Development Studies.

Cecilia Norlander joined the RAPID Programme in October 2005. She is the coordinator for the Partnership Programme Agreement (PPA) with DFID. As PPA coordinator, she facilitates the Evidence-based Policy in Development Network (ebpdn), a worldwide community of practice for think tanks, policy research institutes and similar organisations working in international development, to promote more evidence-based, pro-poor development policies. She has a BA in International Social Science from Sweden and an MSc in Environment and Development from Reading.

Naved Chowdhury works at Oxfam International as a Strategic Collaboration Coordinator. While at RAPID, he lead on partnership and capacity building activities for the Civil Society Partnerships Programme and the Evidence-based Policy in Development Network. Naved has over ten years of experience of working with development organisations in Bangladesh and Asia, especially in the field of livelihood security, environmental management, capacity building and partnership.

Julius Court is a Governance Adviser in Policy Division at DFID. He was a Research Fellow in the RAPID programme for four years, until August 2006. At ODI, he was involved in research, advisory work and training on issues of civil society and policy influence; bridging research and policy; and governance and development. Recent publications include: Governance, Development and Aid Effectiveness; Policy Engagement: How civil society can be more effective; and Bridging Research & Policy in International Development.

Ingie Hovland is a social anthropologist who has done work within the anthropology of development, including on the ethnography of NGOs and the relationship between religion and development. She worked for RAPID from 2002-2007, focusing especially on communication processes at the research-policy interface, and ways of conducting M&E of policy research programmes or institutions.

Amy Pollard is writing a PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. Her thesis will be based on fieldwork conducted with DFID, at a multi-donor facility in Indonesia, and seeks to understand relations of research, policy and practice around aid harmonisation. She joined RAPID in Spring 2003 and worked on a variety of projects around bridging research and policy: strategic communications within PRSPs, knowledge management and how civil society organisations use evidence to influence policy. She was Director of the Interns' Network 2003-4, and Chair of CUSAS in 2005. Before joining ODI she worked at the John Smith Memorial Trust and Demos, having completed her undergraduate degree in Social Anthropology at Cambridge in 2002.

Ben Ramalingam worked with the RAPID team specialising in strategies for improving organisational learning and knowledge utilisation. Highlights from his recent work include: an evaluation of UNDP networks in the Eastern Europe and Central Asian regions; development of an institutional learning and knowledge management strategy for Africa Humanitarian Action; setting up a global community of practice for users of the innovative Outcome Mapping methodology; provision of advice to the Swiss Government’s development agency (SDC) on strengthening the institutional approach to sustainable livelihoods and empowerment issues; and developing ODI's own knowledge management and learning strategy. He has also provided strategic advice and support to the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition, Help Age International, the Africa Commission and the HIV-AIDS Alliance. He currently the Strategic Advisor of Evaluation and Learning for ALNAP, an ODI-sponsored network looking at issues of humanitarian action.

Debbie Warrener joined ODI in July 2004 having worked for the London office of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). At ODI she works on building stronger links with Japanese researchers and policy-makers and researching NGO evidence-based influence on policy-making. Her particular interests are Asian perspectives on development and the role of NGOs in the policy process. She is currently working at DFID on a short-term assignment on preparations for the Asia 2015 conference.