Kelly David

For the past 20 years, Kelly David has been leading diverse local, national and international teams to prepare and respond to the humanitarian effects of conflict and natural disasters throughout West, East and Southern Africa. As the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ Strategic Planning, Evaluation and Guidance Section, she has also been extensively involved in strategic planning, corporate performance monitoring, enterprise risk management, policy development and evaluation.

She presently chairs the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Inter-Agency Humanitarian Evaluation (IAHE) Steering Group. As such, she managed the first ever systemwide evaluations of: the gender equality and empowerment of women and girls in emergencies; the humanitarian response to multiple recurrent droughts, year on year, in Ethiopia; and of the new scale-up procedures for major crises, in the responding to Cyclone Idai in Mozambique.

She is presently leading the systemwide evaluation of the humanitarian response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to joining the UN, Ms. David was a journalist for major regional and national dailies in the US, including The Los Angeles Times and Newsday.