Adrian Di Lollo is an Associate at Southern Hemisphere and an independent public policy practitioner, researcher, and program evaluator and project / program manager with over three decades of experience working at the intersection of evidence and action. He has worked across the full spectrum of socioeconomic development — from direct community service work, to policy development and institutional capacity building, to complex programme evaluation for government, NGOs, and international organisations across Southern and Eastern Africa and beyond.
Adrian holds an M.Phil in Public Policy from the University of Cape Town, a Master of Social Work in Administration from Fordham University in New York., and a Bachelor of Social Work from Curtin University in Perth, Australia. He began his career in social work, disability issues and social protection policy in Australia before moving to New York where (inter alia) he worked as Advocacy Director for the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development working with organisational leadership of numerous NGOs to shape affordable housing policy, lobby elected officials, and conduct research into community reinvestment practices.
Since moving to South Africa in 2004 Adrian has also served in full-time management roles at the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Research and Development Division at the Social Housing Foundation (2007–2010), where he advised human settlements departments across all three spheres of government. He has since worked with a wide range of public entities and institutions including the Housing Development Agency, the Social Housing Regulatory Authority, the Human Sciences Research Council, and the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand. He has collaborated with the Development Action Group (DAG) on approximately a dozen projects, and has worked extensively with organisations such as Communicare, Rooftops Canada, and the National Association Social Housing Organisations (NASHO) on housing- and service delivery-related evaluation, policy work, organisational development and more.
Adrian has undertaken over 40 programme and project evaluations across a wide range of sectors, scales, and geographies. His international development work spans HIV and AIDS, disability issues, employment and training programming, children’s rights, social protection, youth development, LGBT, issues, community health, and civil society strengthening. He has worked with a broad array of bilateral and multilateral clients, including UNICEF, USAID, the Ford Foundation, Global Affairs Canada, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (GIZ), and the African Union.
In South Africa, Adrian’s evaluation and research portfolio spans government, civil society, international development entities and the private sector. In the national government sphere alone He has worked with the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation in the Presidency, the South African Human Rights Commission, the Department of Science and Innovation, the South African National AIDS Council, among others.
Adrian’s areas of expertise include programme and project evaluation; qualitative research; policy development and analysis; monitoring and evaluation systems design; organisational strategy; stakeholder engagement; project and program management, and communications and advocacy. He has a particular interest in bridging the gap between community needs, policy design, and institutional capacity — and in helping organisations and governments translate research findings into meaningful, practical change.