Member Details -David Rider Smith

David joined UNHCR Evaluation Service as the Senior Evaluation Coordinator in February 2020.  In this role, David leads on building the decentralized evaluation function in UNHCR and is the deputy to the Head of Evaluation. 

David has over twenty years of experience in evaluation, research and performance monitoring.  He has previously worked as the head of evaluation capacity and quality, and deputy head of evaluation at UK Department for International Development (DFID); as an advisor to the Government of Uganda in the Office of the Prime Minister where designed the Government Annual Performance Reporting system and the Government Evaluation Facility, and at the Uganda Bureau of Statistics where he worked on district statistics.  David has worked in the UN system twice before, for two years as the senior officer and team leader in the Joint Inspection Unit of the UN system, tasked with strengthening quality and professional practice across the JIU Secretariat, and leading a UN system-wide study on change management (2018-19) and at the UNDP Evaluation Office as an Evaluation Specialist (2003-07).    David has a strong record in research and publications on performance assessment, evaluation and socio-economic research, working for three years at the Water, Lands and Ecosystems Research Programme of the CGIAR (2014-17) and four years at the Natural Resources Institute (1999-2003).  Geographically, David has lived and worked extensively in sub-Saharan Africa, including nine years in Uganda and two in Mozambique.