Belén counts with over 24 years of experience in the humanitarian aid and development sector. She was deployed for the first time in a field position in Guinea in 2001 to support ACF’s humanitarian assistance to Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire refugees. She shifted to development work with focus on policy reform, managing Oxfam’s governance programme in extractive industry sector in Chad. In this role, she was actively involved in the global campaign Publish What you Pay and the World Bank Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI). These experiences paved the way toward research/ advocacy work (Oxfam, FRIDE) in the field of governance, which ultimately lead to full-time engagement in evaluation of humanitarian assistance and development interventions. For the past 13 years, Belén has participated in different roles in over 40 evaluation assignments, namely for UN organizations (UNICEF, WFP, FAO, UNCHR, OCHA). Belén professes a keen interest in international relations and geopolitics, which connects with childhood experience living in the former USSR and other young professional experiences in the European Union institutional environment in Brussels.

Graduated in Law by the University Carlos III of Madrid, Belén specialized in Refugee and Asylum Law and is fluent in Spanish, French and English. She lives in Madrid, with her family and two basset hounds and endeavors to use her free time travelling and discovering the wonders of the world with her children and husband.