Elise Stegehuis

Elise Stegehuis has been passionate about development issues, especially those relevant to African countries, throughout her educational and working career. Having joined the NABC in 2022, her tasks include providing assistance to the Head of Community, Events and Africa Insights Desk; and the Head of Programmes. She supports the NABC’s implementation of its mandate by helping with the organisation of events, providing market intelligence information, and by managing the NABC’s client relationships.

The focus of her educational career reflects her commitment to improving people’s livelihoods, circumstances, and wellbeing. A people-oriented person, she likes nothing more than collaborating with a team to enhance good communications networks that facilitate the work of the organisations she has worked for.  Elise holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Studies from the University of Leiden and a Master’s degree in International Development Studies from the University of Wageningen. Throughout her studies, she supplemented her theoretical/academic work by working in Africa and other locations for such organisations as Better Me Kenya, where she learned to conduct livelihood assessments and to interact, on a day-to-day basis, with the local population to hear first-hand what people’s needs actually were and to empower them with the practical skills they needed to transform their lives. These in-depth interviews enabled her to hone her data-collecting, analytical, and communications skills and to assist the organisation’s teams to articulate and achieve concrete goals. While completing her Master’s degree, she interned at Aeres Training Centre International (Aeres TCI), where she carried out assessments and evaluations of that Centre’s training programmes, enabling it to enhance its effectiveness.

Elise strongly believes that sustainable economic growth can be achieved through private sector development, in that the private sector has the potential to be the catalyst of socio-economic transitions in Africa. Creating vibrant private sector activities that can compete with contemporary global market structures will contribute to a prosperous and flourishing continent and to the enhancement of people’s quality of life.