Fiona has had a varied career working in roles across a range of sectors. Following her B.Sc. and working as a high school teacher, Fiona’s career in international development started as a coastal geomorphologist working in the outer islands of Kiribati. This experience formed her passion for working with communities in the Pacific and in international development.
Since then, Fiona’s work has taken her all over the Pacific and South-East Asia, working for development partners such as New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and their predecessors AusAID and NZAID, and for several non-government organisations including the Canadian Red Cross.
Fiona is a highly regarded practitioner in programme design, monitoring and evaluation; She has led teams in design and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of education and training, health, law and justice, fisheries and agriculture, transport infrastructure, economic governance, community development, gender, disability and natural disaster recovery programmes. Fiona has been a preferred Supplier for both DFAT and MFAT, including MFAT’s Activity Design and Support Service and Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) panels; an each of DFAT’s Panels for Design, M&E, Gender, and Research.
She is also a prolific publisher on evaluation techniques and frameworks for capacity development. She combined these topics for a Doctorate in Education, looking at ways to effectively evaluate capacity development programmes. Along the way she has also completed two Masters degrees as well as several post-graduate diplomas and certificates.
Her current work with Future Partners includes supporting the design and MERL Frameworks for MFAT’s Climate and Biodiversity-Smart Marine Spatial Planning and Marine Protection Programme and MERL coaching and mentoring for the Kiribati fisheries Tobwan Waara programme (phase 3). Previously Kirsty and Fiona teamed up to work for GHD Ltd on the design of MFAT’s 3rd phase of support for Kiribati Solid Waste Management.
She and her husband also run a farm in New South Wales, Australia and several small businesses. She is committed to contributing to the community – reflected through voluntary roles including over 15 years in the Rural Fire Service, 10 years as a Lifeline Counsellor and nine years as a Director with Oxfam.
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