Professional Experience:
Christopher Devlin is a British humanitarian and development professional with more than twenty-five years in the aid sector, seventeen of them on the field. His career spans country-level programme leadership, institutional fundraising, and strategic consultancy for UN agencies and international NGOs.
He is currently an independent international consultant, registered in France since May 2025. From January 2023 to May 2025 he was Country Director for Humanity & Inclusion (HI) in Afghanistan, representing the organisation with government and donors, leading a 550-person team across five bases, managing a twelve-member senior management team, and overseeing the strategic development of the country programme to ensure principled, fit-for-purpose delivery. Previously, from September 2019 to December 2022, he consulted for a range of clients: co-leading a mid-term review of a SIDA-funded Access to Justice project across South, Southeast Asia and the Pacific (USD 10m consortium) for UN Women; developing fundraising strategy, tools and flagship proposals for UNESCO's International Bureau for Education; improving fundraising processes between operations and communications at UNESCO; and advising Rights and Security International on programming, fundraising, strategy and change management. He has also lectured in fundraising and project cycle management at the School for Social Change since 2017.
From May 2018 to August 2019 he established and led the Institutional Fundraising Division at Terre des hommes foundation in Lausanne. Before that, he was Director of Development and Donor Relations at the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva (November 2014 to April 2018), leading global fundraising and project development and embedding a results-based approach across the organisation.
His earlier career combines field management and strategic review work. For World Vision he undertook a Pakistan strategy review and market research on alternative funding sources for the MEER office (2013), and earlier managed children's programming and a technical support unit in Pakistan (2006 to 2007). As Desk Officer South Asia at Handicap International in Lyon (2008 to 2014), he managed programmes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, overseeing strategy, finance, HR, representation and programme development. With Terre des Hommes Italy in Bangladesh (2002 to 2005), he managed an EC-funded child rights project and served as Country Representative for Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Myanmar.
His field career began in the Balkans and West Africa: grant and return coordination for Alisei in Sarajevo (2001 to 2002), monitoring and evaluation for a rural development programme in Burkina Faso (2000), ECHO-funded rehabilitation with Nuova Frontiera in Bosnia (1998 to 2000), and NGO capacity-building and social-service reform projects with IBHI in Sarajevo (1996 to 1998).
Across these roles, his core strengths include results-based management, proposal writing and project development using participatory strategies, mobilising restricted and unrestricted funding, donor relations, representation and networking, conflict resolution, and mentoring and training on international aid tools such as M&E, PCM and theory of change.