ExCo

The Executive Committee (ExCo) functions as the board of the DCED, providing oversight of the thematic groups, as well as support and guidance to the DCED Secretariat in the implementation of the DCED’s work programme. The ExCo typically meets once a quarter and takes all decisions that are not reserved to the Annual Meeting. The Co-Chairs in particular provide strategic and policy overview for the DCED. The three members and two co-chairs are elected for two-year terms; elections are held once a year at the DCED Annual Meeting.

Current ExCo members

Liliana de Sá Kirchknopf, co-chair

Liliana de Sá Kirchknopf is Head of the Private Sector Development Division in the Economic Development Cooperation Directorate at SECO, promoting a better business environment and access to finance for enterprises as well as strengthened skills.

She has been working for SECO since 1996 in different positions, including as Senior Advisor at the Swiss Executive Directors Office at the World Bank Group in Washington D.C., as private sector development specialist for the International Finance Corporation IFC and as Head of the Swiss Contribution Office in Budapest, responsible for the set-up and implementation of a 130 million CHF cohesion programme in Hungary. She holds a masters in economics from the University of Berne with a minor in political science. She speaks five languages.

Merten Sievers, co-chair

Merten Sievers is the Value Chain Development and Entrepreneurship Coordinator in ILO’s Enterprise Department. In this position, he is responsible for the ILO’s global technical cooperation programme on Value Chain and Market Systems Development. He also manages ILO’s portfolio on entrepreneurship training, on women’s entrepreneurship development and an expanding portfolio of refugee livelihood interventions.

His team and related ILO field offices backstop technical cooperation activities in 70 countries. Merten is the author and co-author of several publications on strategies to enhance competitiveness and job creation in specific sectors and value chains, using a market systems development approach. He holds a degree in Economic Geography (Hamburg and Madrid), and a Diploma in Development Management (Berlin).

Elisabet Montgomery

Elisabet Montgomery is the Senior Policy Specialist for Employment at Sida, based in Stockholm. Elisabet joined Sida in 2013, where her focus has been on Employment promotion and Market Development. In particular, Elisabet has led on the institutionalisation of the Market Systems Development approach within Sida.

Elisabet has worked on Economic Development and Employment in Sweden and abroad for the past 20 years, including 15 years in development cooperation for Sida, the ILO and the private sector. Her areas of work included enterprise development, business environment reform, job creation, local economic development, social entrepreneurship, market systems development, gender and human rights. Elisabet has worked in Africa and Asia and has been based in Sri Lanka and Rwanda. She holds a Master’s degrees in business studies and political science from the University of Stockholm.

Kristin O’Planick

Kristin O’Planick is the Market Systems Team Lead in USAID’s Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security where she seeks to advance market systems facilitation throughout the Feed the Future portfolio. She also manages the Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships Activity and the Climate Finance for Development Accelerator.

With more than two decades of international development experience across all geographic regions, Kristin has worked in a variety of technical areas including market systems, enterprise and livelihoods development, workforce, food security, youth employment, entrepreneurship, agribusiness, rural finance, and sustainable tourism. She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guinea. Kristin earned an MBA with distinction from the Johnson School at Cornell University.

Rens Twijnstra

Rens Twijnstra is Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Advisor at the Department for Sustainable Economic Development at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 2014, he was awarded a PhD in Sociology of Development by Wageningen University, for research into diaspora entrepreneurship and economic governance in fragile and conflict affected states. He subsequently worked as researcher and consultant on the nexus between enterprise development and socio-economic recovery after conflict. Rens joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2020, where his responsibilities now include providing strategic advice on the formulation of thematic and country-level theories of change, and designing iterative monitoring, evaluation and learning systems. Rens has lived and worked in Africa for more than 10 years, with previous roles including Research Director in South Sudan and Programme Manager in Rwanda.

ExCo Minutes

DCED Members can view the ExCo Minutes on demand; please contact the Secretariat.