Dr. Sylvia Bergh is senior researcher at the Centre of Expertise on Global Governance at THUAS and Associate Professor in Development, Management and Governance at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Hague, the Netherlands.
Dr. Bergh completed her D.Phil. thesis in Development Studies at the University of Oxford in 2008, focusing on decentralisation and local governance in Morocco. Previously, she worked at the World Bank, both in the President's Office in Washington D.C. and in the Morocco Country Office. Her academic background includes a strong focus on the Middle East/North Africa region; having gained a First Class degree in Arabic and International Relations from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in 1999, she obtained an M.Phil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Oxford in 2001. She has extensive consultancy experience, including for UNIFEM (evaluating the Gender Responsive Budgeting Program in Morocco) and Dutch NGOs (on democracy promotion in Morocco).
Areas of Interest: Decentralisation and local governance, capacity building and institutional sustainability, participatory approaches to rural development, natural resources management and collective action (water governance in particular), project implementation and evaluation, donor policies and aid harmonisation, migration and developmental impact of remittances.
Geographical focus: Morocco, Middle East and North Africa region, Uganda, Suriname, Georgia
Dr. Bergh is leading the 'Heatwaves project' funded by The Hague municipality. It also involves Thea Hilhorst (ISS), Peter Knorringa (ISS and ICFI), Jan Fransen (IHS and ICFI), and Erwin van Tuijl (ISS and ICFI), as well as several students, and has been awarded a subsidy of € 69.300. The project aims to better understand and counter the effects of heatwaves on vulnerable population groups living in The Hague, including through appropriate risk communication by the municipality. In addition, the project aims to identify and take stock of simple and affordable (so-called ‘frugal’) innovations developed by and for local citizens, both in The Hague and globally, in order to formulate practical policy recommendations. The research adopts a mixed-methods design including adapting the European Cool Towns Heat Stress Measurement Protocol for use in internal spaces such as Care Homes, citizen science to measure temperatures in private homes, household surveys to better understand compounding vulnerabilities, and Participatory Action Research
