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Ritu Nayyar-Stone

Pronouns: She/Her

Principal Research Scientist
Ritu evaluates programs focused on local governance, gender-based violence and civil society.

Ritu is an economist with over 28 years of experience in project implementation, assessment, and evaluations. Ritu has worked on multiple Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning platforms; led a five-year performance and impact evaluation examining literacy improvements and reduction in school related gender-based violence; and assessed local governments’ response to COVID-19. Other examples of Ritu’s assessments and evaluations are in governance and economic management support, local governance, child protection and family strengthening, community driven development projects, decentralization, and civil society organizations.

Ritu’s local government experience includes analyzing citizen feedback on municipal services such as education, health, water, and access to information from local governments in Pakistan, Rwanda, Georgia, and Albania. She has also provided capacity building technical assistance to local governments to improve municipal budgeting and service delivery. In addition, she managed and provided technical assistance to several USAID and World Bank-funded projects in Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Russia dealing with the development of a monitoring and evaluation framework for governments, think tanks, and CSOs to measure the impact on improved service delivery in a decentralized framework.

Ritu previously worked at the Urban Institute, International Development and Governance Center from April 1995 to March 2013 implementing, assessing, and managing donor-funded programs and projects in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Russia. She also served as a consultant at the World Bank from 1992 to 1993, focusing on intergovernmental fiscal relations in Russia, and fiscal decentralization in the transition economies of Eastern Europe, China and Vietnam. She was data analyst for the Economic of Aging Project at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1989 to 1990.

Project Contributions

Building Evidence for Decision-Making (BE4D)

High-quality evidence, learning, and adaptive management services for USAID program decisions

Client:

U.S. Agency for International Development

Democracy, Human Rights & Governance: Learning, Evaluation & Research Activity

Generating and promoting the use of data, evidence, and learning to inform DRG programming worldwide

Client:

U.S. Agency for International Development

Gender-Based Violence Portfolio Performance Evaluation

Making gender-based violence prevention, protection, and accountability programs more effective

Client:

U.S. Agency for International Development

LARA Performance and Impact Evaluation in Uganda

Evaluating an early-grade reading and violence reduction program on learning and retention

Client:

U.S. Agency for International Development

LGBTI Global Development Partnership Evaluation

Empowering lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) leaders and organizations

Client:

U.S. Agency for International Development

Tanzania Data for Development Activity

Improving education, health, poverty, governance, and economic development

Client:

U.S. Agency for International Development

Ukraine Civil Society Assessment

A post-Euromaidan examination of Ukraine’s civil sector

Client:

U.S. Agency for International Development

Ukraine Monitoring & Learning Support

Providing top quality performance monitoring, GIS services, media monitoring, and surveys

Client:

U.S. Agency for International Development