Dr. Juha Uitto is an internationally recognized leader in program evaluation at the nexus of environment and development. He was the Director of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Independent Evaluation Office (2014-2024). Prior to that, he was Evaluation Advisor and, later, Deputy Director at the UNDP Independent Evaluation Office. Juha spent the 1990s as environment and sustainable development research and training program manager at the United Nations University. As an independent evaluation and environment advisor he supports organizations in strengthening their monitoring, evaluation and learning systems.

A native of Finland, Dr. Uitto was educated at the Universities of Helsinki and Lund, and holds a PhD in Social and Economic Geography. He has been a visiting scholar at Kyoto University and at Rutgers University, and currently at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, DC. He has written widely on topics related to the environment and sustainable development, environmental hazards, and evaluation.