Deputy Representative officer-in-charge at UNICEF Turkmenistan Country Office
Ms. Maaike Bijker is the Deputy Representative officer-in-charge at UNICEF Turkmenistan Country Office. Ms. Maaike joins from the UNICEF office in India, where she is the Chief of Evidence and leads the Evidence for Children section, providing leadership for evidence, data and knowledge management to ensure UNICEF’s work is relevant, credible and informs policies and programmes for better results for children. Her team works closely with UNICEF colleagues across 13 offices in India, and also anchors partnerships with the Government of India’s planning, statistics, monitoring, and evaluation offices. Ms. Maaike has over 15 years’ experience internationally in research on topics related to social development and children, specifically in health behaviour change. Before joining UNICEF India in 2019, Ms. Maaike worked as a Senior Research Manager at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South Asia in Delhi, leading research projects on childhood immunization, adolescent empowerment, school education, and energy and environment. She previously worked for Dalberg in London on projects related resilient supply chains, public procurement for development outcomes, and private sector development in developing countries. She started her career at the University of Cambridge on a large scale research programme to promote healthy lifestyles. A Dutch national, Ms. Bijker studied in the United Kingdom and holds Master’s degrees from both the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the University of Cambridge.