Esther Mala is an international development practitioner with 9 years of experience in gender and youth development, project management, and human rights programming. Esther holds a Bachelor’s in Development Studies from The Catholic University of Eastern Africa and is pursuing an MA in International Development at Maynooth University, Ireland. She has led gender equality and girls’ empowerment initiatives in Kenya, providing technical expertise in integrating gender equality, human rights, and social inclusion through participatory training, mentorship, tool development, and documentation of best practices for scale-up. Her expertise includes participatory feminist monitoring and evaluation, outcome harvesting, stakeholder engagement like cross-sector engagement, capacity building through training needs assessments, curriculum design, and facilitating participatory training. Additionally, she has extensive experience in grant administration, safeguarding, PSEA compliance, and fraud management, ensuring quality and impactful project delivery.

Currently, Esther serves as the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Education Specialist. Her primary focus is on Community-Led Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (CoLMEAL), which ensures that communities are actively involved in tracking and assessing the impact of programs, fostering accountability, and integrating their insights into decision-making processes. Additionally, she develops training content tailored to build capacity, promote participatory learning, and support the effective implementation of CoLMEAL approaches.