Chris is the Director of the Centre for Development Impact (CDI), which is a joint initiative between IDS and ITAD. His work focuses on impact evaluation and other evaluative methodologies, and works particularly in the areas of civil society, governance and livelihoods.

Chris is an experienced team leader and director of a number of evaluations, and has led work on designing several performance management systems. He is currently the Project Director for the Impact Evaluation of the Millennium Villages Project in northern Ghana, working closely with the Principal Investigator, Dr. Edoardo Masset. He is also the Team Leader of the Independent Impact Evaluation Agent (IIEA) for Tilitonse (Malawi), which is a four-year assignment to measure the impact of a £12.5 million civil society fund. Chris currently provides technical support on monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and value for money (VFM) to a number of governance funds in West Africa, including: the Strengthening Transparency, Accountability and Responsiveness programme in Ghana (STAR-Ghana), as well as the State Voice and Accountability Initiative (SAVI) in Nigeria. His recent work includes being Project Director for the multi-donor evaluation of support to Conflict Prevention and Peace Building (CPPB) activities in Southern Sudan, and team leading the Sida evaluation of the Chia Se poverty alleviation programme in Vietnam (a rights-based initiative).

Chris also works on VFM. He led the team that undertook the DFID study on 'Measuring the Impact and Value for Money of Governance Programmes', as well as the subsequent work for Bond (the UK membership body for non-governmental organizations). He has undertaken research studies for two National Audit Office VFM reports on DFID’s bilateral assistance; the first of Malawi’s country programme, and the second of DFID’s 10-year strategy for primary education (with work in Ghana and Kenya).

He is also interested in exploring approaches to feedback loops, where rapid feedback can be used to improve downward accountability to citizens; plus, the use of innovation prizes to stimulate new ideas and solutions in international development.