The Team
The core team of Valid Evaluations comprises its director - Dr Alistair Hallam - and Project Manager - Basia Benda. We have worked for over 20 years with a group of highly respected evaluation professionals in many countries around the world, predominantly in those affected by emergencies and humanitarian crises. We have long-standing relationships with DFID, WFP, OCHA and other evaluation clients. We work closely with Valid International, with whom we share back-office services.
Alistair Hallam
Alistair has many years of experience of humanitarian action, research and evaluation. He spent over a decade in Africa working to implement humanitarian responses in a number of crises, including Sudan, Somalia, Mozambique and Liberia, working with IRC, Save the Children and OXFAM, as well as spending time as a humanitarian coordinator with the UN Peace-Keeping Operation in Mozambique. He then worked as a Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, where he was part of the core team on the Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda. This ground-breaking evaluation came up with proposals to redesign parts of the humanitarian infrastructure, many of which have been implemented and have had a major impact on the way that humanitarian aid is now provided. He authored a Good Practice Review on the Evaluation of Humanitarian Assistance. He is a qualified economist, and spent 18 months with the Mozambique Central Bank. He has also written on the cost-effectiveness analysis of humanitarian aid.
Alistair is a founding director of both Valid International - the organisation that pioneered the community-based approach to severe acute malnutrition (CMAM), now adopted by UN agencies and countries around the world, and which has led to tens of thousands of lives being saved – and Valid Evaluations – set up particularly to focus on major humanitarian evaluations. He has been involved as team leader or manager of many major evaluations of humanitarian programmes over the last 20 years.
Basia Benda
Basia manages a large portfolio of nutrition and humanitarian research projects in Asia and Africa. While working for Valid International, Basia provided technical support to partners and helped build local capacity. She also worked on the design and implementation of coverage evaluations for CMAM nutrition programmes in the field (such as SQUEAC/SLEAC). Since 2009, Basia has worked in Niger and Burkina Faso (for UNICEF, HKI, World Vision and Save the Children) and has managed nutrition projects in Chad, Mali and Mauritania. Currently, under Valid Evaluations, she is the project manager for DFID Multi-Year Funding Evaluation in DRC, Sudan, Pakistan and Ethiopia, co-manages the overall project implementation and is closely involved with the DRC research component, implementing qualitative field work on resilience in North and South Kivu. Basia is fluent in Polish, English, French and Spanish.
Lynn Owen
Lynn is a project and development manager with a background in pilot programme design, project delivery, operational performance and account management. She comes to Valid Evaluations with over 20 years of cross-functional experience across private and not-for-profit sectors, including several years of working for a charity by Royal Charter. Passionate about making society a better place, she has spent many years within the Corporate Social Responsibility field working closely with businesses to challenge attitudes, create opportunities, inspiring others to make positive changes and creating lasting social impact.
Lynn’s remit with Valid Evaluations is to ensure all evaluations are fully supported. From project management of the evaluations through to contract negotiations; allocation and mobilisation of staff; travel and logistics; resolving issues that arise during fieldwork; report editing and finalisation; and budget control. Lynn supports us all, enabling our evaluators to get out and get evaluating.