Katherine Garven
Senior Partner and Co-Founder
Based in Montreal, Canada
Fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Intermediate Arabic and Portuguese with Basic Kiswahili
Katherine Garven is a Senior Results Management Specialist with over 10 years of experience designing, implementing and evaluating human rights and inclusive development programming in vulnerable contexts across the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and North America (including Indigenous communities). She has led the design and implementation of a number of multi-million dollar social inclusion and economic development initiatives in indigenous Cree communities in Northern Canada and has evaluated dozens of programmes for UN agencies (including UNICEF, UN Women, UNFPA, the IOM, and UNRWA), international financial institutions, and international non-profit organisations.
Programme Design and Implementation
Through extensive community consultation, Ms. Garven worked with the Cree Nation of Wemindji in Northern Quebec to design and implement a million dollar social integration program called the Wemindji Career Programme to help Indigenous youth feel more empowered, develop positive self-esteem, and to find productive ways to integrate in and engage with their community. She also developed a Recognition of Acquired Competencies (RAC) program for the Cree School Board, which is a customized training program that allows women and men who already have work experience in the vocational trades to receive accreditation for their skills, thus increasing self-esteem and upward professional mobility for the indigenous labour force in Northern Quebec.
Katherine managed a 23 million dollar project extension for the 41 million-dollar Cree Jobs Partnership programme, which was a training partnership between private and public-sector Cree (indigenous) entities (Creeco, Cree Human Resources Development, and the Cree School Board) designed to provide institutional and on-the-job training to male and female Cree workers in the construction, catering, and airline industries. She also worked with the Cree Nation of Oujé-Bougoumou to develop a five-year economic development strategic plan for the Enterprises Inc. to support youth development in the economic and social streams. Additionally, Katherine participated in the creation of an Indigenous Employment Strategy for the City of Saskatoon with a particular focus on integrating more Indigenous women and youth into the workforce. She also contributed to the creation of a Directory of Support Services for Indigenous People Pursuing Agriculture in Saskatchewan and documented the need for an Indigenous Women’s Shelter in Northern Saskatchewan.
Programme Monitoring and Evaluation, including Quality Assurance Systems
Katherine has significant technical experience in designing and managing evaluations and results management quality assurance systems for international organisations, including UN agencies, international financial institutions, and international non-profit organisations. In 2018 and 2019, Ms. Garven was the Technical Lead and Coordinator for UNICEF’s Global Evaluation Reporting Oversight System (GEROS), where she led the quality assessment of all UNICEF evaluations at the global, regional, and country levels. Since 2015, Katherine has personally assessed over 100 UNICEF Final Evaluation Reports, Draft Reports, Inception Reports, and Terms of References to ensure compliancy with OECD/DAC evaluation standards. She was also a Senior Reviewer for the UN Women Global Evaluation Reports Assessment and Analysis System (GERAAS) in 2017 and 2018, and led the UN Women Programming Quality Assurance System to improve the quality of the organisation’s country and regional annual reports and strategic notes in 2017, 2018, and 2019. She is currently leading a process to develop a stronger quality assurance mechanism and assessment template for UN Women’s annual reporting and strategic planning.
With thematic expertise in children’s rights, child protection, gender equality and women’s empowerment, health, education, migration and economic empowerment, and communications, Katherine has recently been engaged in a number of UN evaluations. As a Senior Evaluation Expert, she recently conducted the global Joint Evaluation of the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on the Abandonment of Female Genital Mutilation: Accelerating Change, and was Deputy Team Leader for the End of Programme Assessment for the UNICEF Programme ‘Prevent and Protect: Armed Violence and Weapons in Child Protection’ – Focus on Armed Violence Reduction and Prevention in Latin America. Katherine was recently the Team Leader for a Multi-Country Portfolio Evaluation of UN Women’s Programme Presence Offices in Asia Pacific and led a UN Women Regional Evaluation in Asia Pacific on Protecting Women Migrant Workers. She was also Deputy Team Leader for the Final Evaluation of the IOM X Campaign, a communications for development (C4D) campaign led by the IOM to empower migrant workers. Katherine also recently conducted the Final Evaluation of UN Women’s Fund for Gender Equality that promoted women’s economic empowerment, and is currently leading an Assessment of UN Women’s Joint Programming at the global, regional, and country levels.
As Senior Programme Evaluator and Gender Specialist, Katherine conducted a Mid-Term Programme Evaluation of the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Programme at BRAC in Uganda. She led the quantitative data collection process, which comprised of designing, implementing, and analysing the results of a national paper survey distributed to over 1,350 respondents throughout the country. Katherine also supported a Meta-Analysis of Global Affairs Canada Programming, and conducted a meta-synthesis evaluation of the organizational effectiveness of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for the Multilateral Organization Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN)’s 2010 UNFPA Assessment. Katherine also recently developed a Gender Assessment Framework and Gender Programming Framework for Développement International Desjardins (the largest Canadian financial development organisation), and its field offices to ensure that microfinance lending and programming thoroughly mainstreams gender equality principles. Recently, Katherine was a Senior Programme Evaluator and Gender & Youth Inclusion Specialist for the Global Evaluation of the IDRC’s Governance and Justice Program (GJ), which funds research that addresses development challenges posed by insecurity, injustice, and the abuse of power.
Katherine is committed to human rights and inclusive development and has actively supported human rights initiatives across the Middle East, including hosting a weekly radio programme in Montreal in solidarity with Palestinian rights. She also filmed and produced a short documentary film that was shown at the Montreal International Documentary Film Festival (RIDM) to raise awareness about protecting glaciers in Chile.