Mette Mikkelsen

A clear communicator with strong people skills, Mette is adept at providing policy advice, managing large-scale projects with multiple deliverables in the social sector, and is an experienced evaluator.

Mette brings an international perspective that is grounded in a deep understanding of how New Zealand government operates. She has 10 years of experience in project management, policy development, stakeholder engagement and evaluation from the government sector, the United Nations (UN) and several international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in New Zealand, the Pacific, the United States, Europe and the Middle East.

Mette joined MartinJenkins in mid-2017 from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) where she managed New Zealand’s policy work on humanitarian and development issues at the UN. Most recently, she led a piece of work to make the Ministry’s humanitarian work more innovative.

She has overseen evaluations of complex international development projects focused on public health, human rights and gender equality for government agencies, UN agencies and NGOs. Mette easily builds trust and has worked closely with vulnerable groups at grassroots level through insightful interviewing and clear, jargon-free communication. She has developed results-based methodologies and tools and promoted the use of evaluation findings and lessons learned.

Mette has experience working with a wide range of government agencies, including MFAT, the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, UN agencies (including UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF), the US Agency for International Development, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Pacific Community and the European Commission.

Examples of recent work:

• Providing strategic policy advice to MFAT to support innovation in Pacific disaster readiness and response.
• Leading New Zealand’s policy engagement on a UN Security Council Resolution which enabled the UN to deliver humanitarian assistance to Syria.
• Project management of complex public health projects in the Solomon Islands involving multiple organisations, timeframes and deliverables.
• Leading the programme development of a large-scale United Nations education project for Afghan refugees.
• Design and implementation of a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation framework for Family Planning New Zealand.
• Preparing and executing a major United Nations agency’s first partnerships and external relations strategy.