Francesca Stuer has over 25 years of international experience in social and health sector development, with specialized expertise in child protection, social welfare systems strengthening, social service workforce development, alternative care, family strengthening, and positive parenting. She is known for her highly consultative approach, fostering stakeholder ownership and collaborative action planning.
Francesca collaborates closely with national governments and civil society organizations to translate policy into effective programs, using evidence to inform policy, strategic planning, programming, and system reform. She has led or contributed to operational research and capacity-building efforts at both national and sub-national levels, including assessments, evaluations, and situation analyses in regions such as East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Turkey. Her work includes mapping and assessing child protection systems, developing and piloting evidence-based positive parenting models, analyzing social service workforce capacity, and informing national workforce action plans. Additionally, she has supported the drafting of evidence-based policies and national frameworks on child protection, alternative care, and violence prevention. Francesca has also contributed to global guidance for organizations like UNICEF and WHO.
With extensive experience leading multidisciplinary and multinational teams, Francesca has managed complex evaluation and systems-strengthening processes in diverse contexts. She holds a Master’s degree in Commercial Sciences and a nursing diploma. Fluent in English, French, and Dutch, she is based in Belgium.