Transformational Change for People and the Planet Evaluating Environment and Development

Juha I. Uitto
is Director of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Independent Evaluation Office (IEO). He has more than three decades of experience in international development and environment working in multilateral organizations, academia and as consultant. For the past two decades he has worked as evaluator with the GEF and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) conducting and managing evaluations focusing on the nexus between development and environment. In addition to his fulltime positions, he has served as the Executive Coordinator of the UN Evaluation Group (UNEG) in 2009-12 and again 2014. He currently chairs UNEG Working Group on Integrating Environmental and Social Impact into Evaluations. He has also been a visiting scholar at the Rutgers University, Kyoto University and the University of Montana.

Geeta Batra
is Chief Evaluation Officer and Deputy Director at the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Independent Evaluation Office (IEO). She has 25 years of experience in international development and evaluation in the private sector and at the World Bank. For ten years, she worked with the World Bank on private sector operations and advisory services, and over the last fifteen years she has worked as an evaluator-at the IFC heading the global unit for evaluation of advisory services, at the World Bank managing the portfolio of country and corporate evaluations in the Independent Evaluation Group, and with the GEF IEO conducting and managing evaluations focusing on environment interventions. In addition to managerial responsibilities, she continues to publish evaluation findings in journals and World Bank Group Publications.