Dr
Sukai Prom-Jackson, a national of The Gambia, and Inspector of the Joint
Inspection Unit of the United Nations System (JIU), is a well-recognized global
expert on evaluation, education, and institutional development.
She
has over 25 years of experience and leadership roles working at the
international, national and private sector in diverse areas including policy
research, policy formulation, strategic planning and programme development and
management, and development evaluation. Her work experiences have covered all regions of the world and over 80
countries.
Dr
Sukai Prom-Jackson was nominated by the Government of the Gambia and elected by
the United Nations General Assembly as an Inspector and has worked since 2013
with the JIU.
The
JIU is the only external independent body of the UN system supporting the
governance role of the United Nations General Assembly (GA) and governing
bodies of United Nations organizations, and addressing inspection, evaluation,
and investigation of the whole of the UN system.
At
the JIU, she has focused on complex system-wide evaluations for both
organizational and development effectiveness. She gives a clear focus on
development results in countries and has taken a lead role in the General
Assembly pilot initiative on the system wide evaluation of the relevance of the
United Nations system and the effectiveness and added value of its actions in a
changing global context.
Based
on her work, she has been invited to make numerous presentations to UN System
Organizations, Member States of the UN System, Universities, and professional
networks.
Prior
to the JIU, she played a most significant role in the development of the
Independent Evaluation Office of the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP). Between 2005 and 2012, she took a lead role in the development of a
UNDP policy for evaluation and its institutionalization, in the pilot of
country-led evaluations, in restructuring and enhancing the quality of the
evaluation function, improving the methodology of complex thematic and impact
evaluations, and in enhancing UN staff capacities for an evaluation culture and
critical inquiry.
She
represented UNDP and the United Nations Evaluation Group in various bi-lateral
and multilateral conferences and meetings on advancing development evaluation
and managing for development results.
Between
1989 and 2005, Dr Prom-Jackson worked with the World Bank in policy research,
policy based lending, and investment operations in education including higher
education. She also took a lead role in institutional development and
professional excellence of World Bank staff and managers, on the development of
global partnerships programmes, and on the evaluation of major initiatives such
as the Fast Track Initiative - Education for All of the Millennium Development
Goals.
1979-1986:
She worked for over 5 years with USA government, and private institutions in
the USA focused on basic research and
evaluation. This work involved major universities and research institutions
including Harvard, Yale, UCLA,
Howard, and Regional Research Centers.
Her own research at that time focused on minorities and cognitive science. She
was a lecturer and graduate thesis adviser at Howard University.
1969-2011: She has worked intermittently on education
for over 5 years with the Government of The Gambia and national institutions
including the Peace Corps. She
continues to funds scholarships for secondary education in the Gambia and
supports several Gambian-led initiatives in the diaspora. Her current private initiatives include the
development of the Junior Professional Pipeline, the Baby Jeay School of
Fashion and Sewing, and the Center for Knowledge Management, Research and
Evaluation for Learning and Action.
Dr
Prom-Jackson is a graduate of Saint Joseph’s and the Gambia High School Sixth
Form, and of Howard University and Middlebury College in the USA. She has been
the recipient of several awards. She has an extensive number of technical
reports and publications, has served in several advisory panels and led several
taskforces.
She
was recognized and invited to the Bellagio Thought Leaders Forum on Evaluation
in Africa in 2012. She is currently a
member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Learning on Evaluation for
Anglophone Africa.
