World Bank – Community-Driven Development & Women’s Participation

Role: Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Specialist

As a MEL specialist at the World Bank, I supported the Community-Driven Development (CDD) portfolio in Asia and the Pacific by designing and strengthening systems to measure impact, capture learning, and improve program performance. In addition to leading MEL work across multi-country initiatives, I introduced a gender lens—helping country teams and government counterparts identify and address barriers to women’s participation and leadership in community-led projects.

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More About This Work

What I Did:

  • Monitoring & Evaluation: Developed frameworks, indicators, and reporting systems to assess outcomes and ensure accountability in CDD programs.

  • Learning & Adaptation: Analyzed field and desk data to surface insights and recommend evidence-based adjustments to program design.

  • Gender Integration: Applied gender-responsive approaches to MEL, identifying gaps in women’s participation and embedding equity into measurement tools.

  • Capacity Building: Trained government and project staff on MEL practices and gender-responsive monitoring for stronger implementation.

  • Knowledge Sharing: Contributed to World Bank publications and internal platforms to disseminate lessons learned across countries and teams.

Impact:

  • Strengthened MEL systems that improved how CDD programs measured and reported community impact.

  • Informed program adaptations that expanded women’s participation in leadership and decision-making roles.

  • Helped establish gender inclusion as a measurable success factor in World Bank–funded community development initiatives.

Projects:

  • Rural Development Program, Solomon Islands (2012-2014)

  • National Program For Village Development, Timor-Leste (2014-2015)

  • Triaging Extreme Poverty, Lao PDR, Myanmar and the Philippines (2015)

  • Community Governance and Grievance Management Program, Solomon Islands (2015-2016)

Resources:

  • Contributed research to Timor-Leste’s National Program for Village Development (PNDS) — Baseline Report (2015). View report

  • Authored case study: Rural Development Program Participation and Female Empowerment: Evidence from Choiseul Province, Solomon Islands (2013).
    Developed as part of my Master’s thesis, this research was later used by the World Bank to inform gender-focused rural development initiatives. View thesis