Management Team and Evaluation Officers

Rakesh Nangia is the Director of the Operations Evaluation Department of the African Development Bank. Mr. Nangia brings to the AfDB more than 25 years’ experience in development work. Prior to joining the AfDB, he was the Director of Strategy and Operations for the Human Development Network at the World Bank. He also served as Acting Vice President for the World Bank Institute (2007-2009); Manager, Portfolio and Country Operations, in Vietnam (2001-2006); and Lead Operations Officer in Tanzania (1998-2001). Mr. Nangia attended the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi and Harvard University and holds degrees in business administration and engineering. Email

Mohamed H. Manaï is the Manager of the Project and Program Evaluation Division (OPEV.1) of the Operations Evaluation Department. Mohamed graduated from theInstitut des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (IHEC) de Tunisie in 1976. Before coming to the Bank, he worked as a manager with Price Waterhouse in Kuwait, Tunisia, and Morocco. He joined the Bank in 1991 and in 1998 was made a chief evaluation officer responsible for conducting institutional evaluations, reviewing and updating evaluation policies and guidelines, and liaising with other development institutions, including the OECD-DAC Evaluation Netwok.

Since 1996, he has represented the Department in the Multilateral Development Banks’ Evaluation Cooperation Group (ECG), which works toward greater harmonization of evaluation activities. In 1999, he was active in the establishment of the African Evaluation Association. He is involved in capacity building and participates in a variety of seminars and workshops related to evaluation topics. Email

Odile Keller was appointed Manager, High Level Evaluations Division in the Operations Evaluation Department in 2010. She worked previously as Head of the Evaluation & Controlling Division in the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) in Switzerland. She also worked as an Assistant to the Executive Director for Scandinavian countries, Switzerland and India in the African Development Bank; Program Officer in SECO for budget support operations in a range of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa; and as an Adviser for the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) Program in the World Bank.

Odile trained in political science and holds Masters degrees in European Studies and in International Relations from the University of Geneva and the London School of Economics, respectively. Email

Jessica Kitakule-Mukungu is a Lead Evaluation Officer in the Operations Evaluation Department. Jessica joined the Department in 2009, from the Evaluation Office of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi. She previously worked with the Evaluation Section of the Commonwealth Secretariat in London; the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF); and the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development in Uganda. She is currently leading an evaluation of the implementation of the Paris Declaration at the AfDB.

Jessica holds a Masters degree in Socio-Economics from the University of Manchester (UK). Email

Herimandimby Razafindramanana is a Principal Economist with the Operations Evaluation Department. Herimandimby joined OPEV in 2001, after ten years as Principal Country Economist in Bank Group Operations Departments. He worked previously for several years in Madagascar as Head of the Economics Department of the University of Antananarivo; Adviser to the Minister of Industry Energy and Mining; and Professor of Economics. He has recently completed several country assistance evaluations.

Herimandimby holds a “Doctorat d’Etat ès Sciences Economiques” from the University of Paris (France). Email

Girma Earo Kumbi is a Senior Research Assistant with the Operations Evaluation Department. Girma’s work experience includes two years as an Economic Analyst in the World Bank’s Ethiopia Country Office; and 6 years in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development at the regional level in Ethiopia. He also has experience in project monitoring and evaluation, fiscal decentralization, development strategy analysis, fiscal policy, donor coordination and public finance.

Girma holds an MSc in Economics and Policy from Wageningen University (The Netherlands); a Masters degree in International Development Economics from Namur University (Belgium); and a BSC in Agricultural Economics from Alemaya University (Ethiopia). Email

Detlev Puetz joined the African Development Bank’s independent evaluation department (OPEV) in 2005. He now is a Chief Evaluator in OPEV’s division for high-level evaluations (ie. policy, thematic and corporate evaluations). His most recent work concentrated on environmental mainstreaming and management in road projects; on Africa’s regional integration in the context of a joint sector evaluation of agriculture and rural development in Africa by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and a general review of development partnerships and alignment on the continent.

Before joining the AfDB Dr. Puetz served for many years as a research fellow and team manager at the Washington DC based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Since 1985 he has been carrying out research and applied policy studies and related outreach work, mainly on agriculture in African development, food-security, and food aid.

He was instrumental in setting up IFPRI country programs to enhance country and regional knowledge systems for agriculture and food-security policy in Africa (SAKSS and ReSKSS). Dr. Puetz also worked as a long-term food-security and M&E specialist for several international agencies, including the World Bank, the World Food Program, and IFAD. He gathered extensive experience on the post-crisis relief-to-development continuum.

Of German nationality, Dr. Detlev Puetz and obtained his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Bonn University, Germany. Email

Grace Kyokunda is a Chief Evaluation Officer (Private Sector Operations) in the Operations Evaluation Department (OPEV) of the African Development Bank.

Prior to joining OPEV in January 2011, Grace spent 5 years in the Bank’s Operations, Private sector and Microfinance Department, Financial institutions Division as a Task Team Leader. She was part of the team that focused on product design and innovations that increase the relevance of financial services for the underserved in Africa, especially small and medium enterprises to lead to greater financial inclusion.

Grace worked for many years in the Banking Sector and private sector before joining the African Development Bank as National Program Manager, Uganda Country Office in 2000.

She specializes in financial and economic analysis of projects and public policies, country strategy formulation and programming, banking and finance, economic governance, trade and regional economic cooperation, public sector reform. Email

Guy Blaise Nkamleu is a Principal Evaluation Officer with in the Operations Evaluation Department of the African Development Bank.

Prior to joining the Bank in 2008, Blaise worked for more than 10 years with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. He also held short-term positions for several international organizations, including the World Bank in Washington D.C, and served for five years as senior lecturer at the University of Yaoundé (Cameroon), and guest lecturer/examiner for various universities across Africa.

Blaise has published widely on African Development, with more than 60 articles in more than 15 different accredited international journals.

His most recent publication is a book entitled Root Causes of the Food Crisis: Technological Progress and Productivity Growth in African Agriculture (NovaPublishers, 2010). He is currently evaluating the Bank’s assistance to agricultural water management in Africa.

Blaise holds a Doctorat d’Etat in Public Economics, a Doctorat de 3eme Cycle in Agricultural Economics and a Masters degree in Econometrics. Email

Mr. Foday Turay is Chief Evaluation Officer in the Project and Program Evaluation Division of the Operations Evaluation Department (OPEV), African Development Bank (AfDB). Since joining OPEV in December 2004, he has had seven years of experience in development evaluation mainly on evaluation guidelines and quality assurance, and managing project, programme, sector, country assistance and process evaluations. Previously, he had more than ten years of international and national development experiences. He served for three years the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations as Projects Officer in Benin and Projects Coordinator in Burkina Faso. Prior to the FAO, he worked in Sierra Leone, as Senior Economist (Economic Policy and Research Unit, Ministry of Finance), Lecturer (University of Sierra Leone), Community Development Programme Socio-Economist (GOPA Consultants) and Monitoring and Evaluation Officer (Ministry of Agriculture and natural Resources). He trained in development evaluation, macroeconomic modeling and development oriented research, and has a Ph.D. in Economics (University of Portsmouth, UK), MSc in Agricultural Economics (University of Ibadan, Nigeria) and BSc in Agriculture (University of Sierra Leone). Email

Hajime Onishi joined the High Level Evaluations Division in the Operations Evaluation Department in 2012 as a Principal Evaluation Officer. Before joining the Bank, he worked for 5 years for Mitsubishi UFJ Research & Consulting Co, Ltd., a private think-tank based in Tokyo, serving as a Chief Consultant of the Department of International Studies.

He has been intermittently participating, as a private third party consultant, in post evaluation studies for recent 7 years, especially the evaluation of Japan’s foreign aid projects. Given his background as a consulting engineer and a project economist, the evaluation encompassed a wide range of infrastructure projects in Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Sahara Africa, Southeast Asia, South Asia and CIS countries. His work experience also covers the research on trade and investment promotion, the sectoral study on transport, energy and agriculture, and the project feasibility study.

Mr. Hajime Onishi holds masters in Civil Engineering (in 1997), Construction Economics and Management (in 2001), and Development Administration and Planning (in 2002). Email