Velina leads the delivery agencies workstream and co-leads the pilot stage of Development Initiatives’ work on the scale of humanitarian needs.
Prior to working for DI, Velina was the humanitarian aid researcher at FRIDE, a Madrid based independent think tank. Her work has focused on quality standards and good practice in humanitarian assistance, the Good Humanitarian Donorship initiative, and government donors’ humanitarian policies and practice. Velina has also worked as an associate researcher at DARA, an independent non-profit organisation dedicated to evaluation and research, where she participated in the 2005 Tsunami Evaluation Coalition and was part of the original Humanitarian Response Index (HRI) development team.
Velina has undertaken a number of evaluations and assessments of humanitarian assistance in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean. She is Political Science graduate and holds a specialisation in International Relations. Velina is fluent in Spanish, English and Bulgarian.
