Juha Uitto

Monday, August 4, 2014

UN Evaluation Group Lessons and Insights

Posted by Juha Uitto at 1:46 PM

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Welcome

This blog is about things I like. I’m an environmental professional working internationally focusing on program evaluation, so there will be a lot about the environment and the places I’ve lived in or visited. I’ve been to some sixty countries and much will comprise stories and photos from my travels and encounters around the world. There will also be academic articles I’ve written for various journals, as well as repostings of blogs and the like.

I’m also into music, especially jazz and what is often called 'World Music' (as opposed to what?). Finally, there are links to other websites that are somehow important to me. I sincerely hope you’ll find things of interest here. I would love to hear from you regarding any thoughts this all brings to you. Therefore, I hope you will comment on the pieces.

Juha

My photos

Please take a look and comment!

About Me

Juha Uitto: Washington, DC, United States; So who am I? A Finn living in Washington, DC. I was born and raised in Helsinki where I also studied until I went to Sweden for a doctorate in Social and Economic Geography at Lund University (www.keg.lu.se). These Nordic neighbors are the first two among the five countries on three continents I’ve lived in for any longer period of time. My entire adult life has been spent in international development and environment, parts of it in academia, others in international organizations, and the private sector as consultant. I now work with the Global Environment Facility evaluating the effectiveness of the programs around the world.

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GEF Independent Evaluation Office where I work
Division of Global Affairs, Rutgers - Where I'm visiting faculty
American Geographical Society - I used to serve on the Council
IDEAS - Resources for development evaluation
IPDET - The premier training course for development evaluation where I'm on the faculty

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My places

Helsinki – Daughter of the Baltic, the White City. Helsinki is at its best when you approach it by ship from the sea, past the Suomenlinna fortress island guarding the city since the 18th century. Helsinki the capital of Finland is where I was born and grew up. I also went to the university there and got my master’s degree in geography. Due to its northern location – Helsinki is situated at 60oN, which puts it at the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska – it has long dark winters and pleasant bright summers when the sun hardly disappears below horizon. In the past thirty years, I’ve only lived in Helsinki for just over a year. But I go back quite frequently. The city has changed a lot since my childhood – it now is a bustling cosmopolitan European capital with concomitant big city problems – but it has maintained its clean environment and the city center’s beautiful neoclassical architecture. Helsinki is a maritime city built on a peninsula jutting into the Gulf of Finland and adjacent islands. Whenever I’ve lived away from the coast, the sea is what I miss the most.

As students we used to take summer jobs in Stockholm, Sweden, where in those days it was easy to find work and the salaries were better (this all has changed now). I grew very familiar with our western neighbor and eventually ended doing my doctorate at Lund University in the southern part of the country. Lund was a new experience for me: a small college town where the big old university (founded in 1666) pretty much dominates life. I studied at the Department of Social and Economic Geography focusing on development studies. My dissertation focused on population issues in Kenya, when the East African country was still seen as something of a model for development in the region (that, too, has all changed now, although there are some positive signs recently).

There were other detours and places where I lived and spent time, including a three-year stint with the International Fund for Agricultural Development in Rome – my first job with an international organization and a formative one at that. Then a year after I received my PhD, in 1990, I landed a surprise job at the United Nations University in Tokyo. I had actually applied for a job with Unesco in Paris, but they had passed on my resume to UNU and suddenly I received a call asking whether I’d consider going to Tokyo instead. By that time I had made a number of trips to various countries in Asia to work on projects but had never been to Japan. I was nevertheless intrigued by the culture and decided to jump on the opportunity. This turned out to be a fateful decision, as my intended two-year stint turned into nine. Most importantly, I met my wife Yoko there, walking by chance into an art gallery where she was working. Yoko hails from a smaller town, Mizusawa, in a picturesque valley snuggled in between the snow-capped mountains of northern Japan. One of the best things about Iwate Prefecture where Mizusawa is located is that the area is volcanic and consequently dotted with Onsen or hot spring resorts. Nowhere in Japan can you escape earthquakes, unfortunately, and the 2011 earthquake and tsunami hit Iwate bad. You will see many of my blogs are concerned with these issues.

We now live in Washington, DC, the green and laid-back capital city of the United States (at least compared with New York where we spent a number of good years enjoying its fast pace and cultural life). My work brought me here, but we are enjoying the place tremendously. Luckily, nevertheless, we have Mizusawa and Helsinki to escape to occasionally.

Music links

Taikoza - My shakuhachi teacher's website
Jeremy Steig - The most original sound in flute
Ben Allison - Great composer, bassist and friend
Ayako Shirasaki - Superb jazz pianist and friend

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