Maria has over 25 years of experience in the provision of evaluation, advisory and technical assistance services to various development partners. She has been extensively involved in the evaluation of single and multi-country programs and projects promoting private sector development and an enabling business environment in low- and middle-income countries. This work has primarily involved the assessment of investment climate reforms in a variety of areas supported by the IFC (e.g. access to finance, investment promotion in the agribusiness and tourism sectors, private-public dialogue, business regulation). In recent years, much of her work has focused on the review of initiatives in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS), including areas of forced displacement, and their adoption of fragility- and conflict-sensitive approaches. In addition, Maria has a solid background in financial inclusion (including access to digital financial services), having led several assessments with analyses at different levels (macro, meso, market, micro) for UNCDF and the World Bank. Her long-standing evaluation experience also includes the assessment of several EU initiatives and directives.

With a remote past as a forklift truck driver, Maria is a meticulous evaluator who enjoys building or reconstructing theory of change frameworks, seeking to understand the challenges to be addressed, the activities to be implemented and the results to be achieved towards reaching a final objective. She thrives on engaging with stakeholders and beneficiaries, from focus group discussions with microfinance clients to high-level interviews with policy makers. The inclusion of gender is an important transversal area in most of her evaluation work. She is also passionate about supporting the economic and financial integration and entrepreneurship of refugees, having carried out targeted market studies and baseline assessments for UNHCR as well as provided business start-up and development training for refugee microentrepreneurs. Maria’s experience beyond the EU covers some 25 countries (including several FCS countries), mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, but also Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, as well as Eastern Europe.

Maria holds an MA in International Relations and Economics from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University (USA) and a BSc in Economics from the University of Göteborg (Sweden). She is also a graduate of the Boulder Institute of Microfinance.