Florence Simbota

Florence Simbota has over four years of experience dedicated to conducting research, monitoring and evaluation. Currently, she is the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Lead at Art and Global Health Center Africa in Zomba. She obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Horticulture from University of Malawi and a Master of Science degree in Agronomy from Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources in Malawi. She has benefited from Intra-Africa Academic Mobility Scheme of the European Union (Mobreed) program, who supported my master’s degree research which was conducted at Jimma University in Ethiopia. In her career, she used her experience to design sound monitoring and evaluation systems for community-based projects at ArtGlo, conducting participatory monitoring and evaluation and building the capacity of civil society organisations in project management. I strive to use my proficiency and experience in data collection to collect quality data that inform project designs and implementation. She is passionate about community-based projects, understanding community’s specific needs, knowledge and challenges. She is pursuing a PhD in rural development and extension. Her research interests include assessing the habitability of critical zones, rural livelihood sustainability and rapid appraisal methods. By conducting this PhD research, she intends to explore how local knowledge systems can inform decision making at community level, policy development at national level and ultimately improve livelihoods and life in critical zones.