Louise Piel McKay

Ms Louise Piel McKay has for more than 10 years worked with human rights programming in development and post-conflict contexts. She has worked as an advisor and resource person in human rights and justice programmes and capacity development of national human rights institutions, state institutions and CSO partners in a number of countries in Southern and Eastern Africa and South-East Asia, primarily for the Danish Institute for Human Rights from 2005-2011. During a recent posting in Thailand from 2010-2014 she worked for two years as Programme Director in a human rights NGO further developing its strategy and design of programmes on human rights education in Myanmar (Burma). The organisation implemented human rights education activities across Myanmar for youth, women, land and labour activists, lawyers, CBOs and NGOs, applying non-formal learner centred methodologies for human rights education, as well as competence-building in community organisation and evidence-based advocacy.

Louise has extensive experience with the full project management cycle from numerous program and project management roles. She has carried out a large number of needs assessments, baseline studies, reviews and evaluations in these functions, and has designed M&E frameworks and tools. She has managed large policy and programme oriented research studies with multiple stakeholders and partners within the field access to justice and informal justice systems, and has experience with both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods and the organisation of data collection processes.

In her different roles she has worked with a number of international partners such as the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs / DANIDA, DfID, GTZ, Irish Aid, SIDA, NORAD, OHCHR, UNDP, UNICEF, UNIFEM, and EU Delegations in various countries as well as a number of NGOs such as Norwegian Church Aid, Dan Church Aid, Stefanus Alliance, Diakonia, OSI, NED, and Freedom House.

She currently works as an independent consultant based in Denmark, and recent work includes policy and advocacy papers on the situation of women’s rights in Myanmar and on its borders and the strengthening of women’s groups and networks.

She recently completed a second Masters in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford, with a focus on women and children’s rights, and extensive research on sexual violence in conflict-affected regions in Myanmar. She also holds a Masters in International Development and Public Administration from Roskilde University in Denmark.