Saila Toikka

Saila is a PlanAdapt fellow based in Helsinki, Finland.

She has over 15 years of experience as a project and programme professional in the UN, academia, the non-governmental and private sectors, as well as an independent consultant. Her primary area of expertise is in applying monitoring and evaluation (M&E) approaches to generate lessons learned and recommendations to strengthen policies and programmes. Saila is also a PhD candidate at the University of Helsinki, where her research focuses on climate change adaptation indicators, monitoring and evaluation in city-level climate governance.

Saila has worked across a broad range of topics relating to climate risks, inclusive local governance, environment and security, environmental policy implementation and humanitarian action. She has lived and worked in Kenya, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, India, and Finland, contributing at project, country programme and headquarters levels. During her time with the Evaluation Office of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), she designed and managed evaluations of UNEP and Global Environment Facility (GEF) initiatives. In addition, as an evaluator, she has contributed to several strategic evaluations, including the UNEP evaluation of the UN Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN) and the Evaluation of Finland’s International Climate Finance. Saila is also accustomed to designing fit-for-purpose monitoring approaches at the project and programme levels.

Saila holds a Master’s degree in Social Sciences (Environmental Change and Global Sustainability) from the University of Helsinki and a Master’s degree in Administrative Sciences from the University of Tampere. She has also studied international development and completed numerous professional training courses in monitoring and evaluation, crisis management and results-based management.

For more information, see Saila’s LinkedIn page.