Originally from Mexico, Alina Rocha Menocal is a Principal Research Fellow in the Politics and Governance Programme at the Overseas Development Institute, a leading think tank on international development and global affairs based in the UK. Alina is co-Chair of the Thinking and Working Community of Practice and a Senior Research Fellow in the International Development Department of the University of Birmingham. She was also Senior Democracy Fellow on Applied Political Economy at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2016 to 2020.
Alina is an accomplished expert with 15 years of experience working to bridge the gap between research and policy in thinking about governance from a political economy perspective, as well as to inform more effective engagement and ways of working among international development actors in developing country settings.
Her areas of expertise include: governance and institutional transformation; state- and peacebuilding and (post-)conflict trajectories; conflict and fragility; political settlements and the politics of inclusion; corruption and anti-corruption efforts; democracy/democratization; political economy analysis; Thinking and Working Politically.
She has published extensively on these issues. Alina holds a BA from Yale University in Political Science, an MIA on Economic and Political Development, and an MPhil in Political Science/Comparative Politics from Columbia University.