Equity Practice Lead — International Development

Principal and Head of Practice - Equity, Abt Australia

Bio

Dr. Reerink has more than 25 years of experience in promoting gender equality and social inclusion in international development, with a strong focus on the Asia-Pacific region. She is currently leading Abt Global’s equity and localization efforts in Australia’s international technical practice.

With degrees in international relations and international development, she has designed and implemented interventions to promote better outcomes for women, girls, and other marginalized groups in international development programs. Her work has included stand-alone equity programs as well as equity mainstreaming, with a strong focus on intersectional approaches.

Prior to joining Abt, she was the senior gender advisor for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for over eight years. She also worked as gender technical advisor for the United National Development Program (UNDP) in Asia.

At Abt Global, Dr. Reerink’s responsibilities include technical assistance and oversight for equity and localization in a range of international development programs in Southeast Asia and the Pacific that focus on health, governance, service delivery, and economic growth.

While senior gender advisor for DFAT, Dr. Reerink was responsible for setting the technical direction, capability development, and quality assurance and reporting of gender equality results across Australia’s aid program. She led the department’s gender mainstreaming work in a wide range of sectors, including infrastructure, economic growth and governance, public financial management, social protection, health, and education. She also oversaw the design and implementation of DFAT international development programs on women’s economic empowerment, gender-responsive disaster risk reduction, gender data, and gender-responsive social protection.

Dr. Reerink has extensive experience in global policy development and in representing Australia in policy spaces, including on the OECD DAC’s Gender Network, of which she was the co-chair from 2019 to 2021.

• Gender equality and mainstreaming
• Social inclusion
• Intersectional approaches to equity
• Economic well-being and women’s economic empowerment
• Organizational Equity, Diversity and Inclusion policies and practices

• Ph.D. in International Relations from the Australian National University (Canberra)
• MA in International Development from American University (Washington, DC)
• BA in International Relations from The College of Wooster (Wooster, OH)