Dirk Gillebert

Project Manager

Dirk Gillebert is a Project Manager for Altai’s Governance, Stabilisation and Security activities in West Africa. His focus is mainly on delivering actionable research on real and potential conflict dynamics and their impact on social cohesion, national and international development efforts, migration and environmental issues.
Before joining Altai, Dirk worked on conflict research and peacebuilding projects – for Concordis International and briefly for Search for Common Ground, with particular attention for inclusivity, community voices and bottom-up dynamics. As such, he coordinated and participated in data collection – from designing tools to interviewing key informants and animating focus groups, analysis and publishing reports. Running Concordis’ flagship project, Dirk led broad community-level consultations on farmer-herder relations, reinvigorating as well as developing new conflict resolution mechanisms based on their input.
Earlier in his career, Dirk managed several projects to analyse information flows and find appropriate solutions for healthcare and other public services. In Burundi, he opened the first operational hub for BlueSquare, building the teams, running the operations, kickstarting the administration and representing the company throughout the region.
Over the past decade, he has garnered extensive project management, team coordination and analysis experience in many West and Central African countries, amongst others in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Cameroon, working with a wide variety donors.
Before his postgraduate studies in conflict and development at The Open University, Dirk gained Masters in business engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and in general management from the Vlerick Business School in Belgium.