Continuing our Get to Know the Team series, we are delighted to introduce Dr Monique Bennett, our Policy Dialogue Manager.
Monique’s academic and professional journey spans international relations, environmental governance, computational social science and evidence-informed policymaking. She began her studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in International Relations and English Literature, developing a strong interest in global affairs and environmental governance, particularly the ways in which governments and states respond to climate change. This led to her doing Honours research on food sovereignty and environmental governance. She later completed a Master’s in International Relations specialising in computational social science, where she developed skills in coding, statistics and data visualisation and became interested in using data to understand and communicate complex social and environmental challenges.
Following her Master’s, she joined Good Governance Africa, progressing from Data Analyst to Senior Researcher and working across areas including environmental issues, elections, human security and conflict, while supporting colleagues with data analysis, visualisation and local government rankings. During this period, she also began her PhD research on peacebuilding and disarmament in Mozambique, using previously unexplored United Nations archives to investigate the implementation of a peacebuilding mission in the 1990s.
Another area of Monique’s research explores the relationship between the quality of governance and environmental governance in developing countries, including through her work with the African-Europe CoRE research cluster. Across her research and professional work, she is particularly passionate about bridging the social sciences and technical fields, advocating for greater engagement with coding, statistics and data visualisation. She believes that combining these technical tools with the perspectives and analytical approaches of humanities scholars can enable deeper exploration into complex societal challenges.
At the Policy Innovation Lab, Monique serves as Policy Dialogue Manager within the Sustainable Development Goals Initiative Phase II project, funded by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Her work focuses on strengthening evidence-informed policymaking by bringing together diverse stakeholders, including government, civil society, business and academia, to engage with complex policy challenges and develop evidence-based solutions. Through multi-stakeholder engagements, she helps create spaces for different perspectives to inform policy processes, with the resulting insights translated into knowledge products that can contribute to policy advice. This approach also informs her work on regulatory sandboxes, where she explores how consultation across sectors can help governments determine appropriate ways to test, regulate and govern emerging technologies. Alongside this, her most recent policy research examines issues including economic diplomacy and approaches to scaling local interventions addressing crime and violence.
Outside of work, Monique is a fitness enthusiast with a serious love for movement, having been a Pilates instructor since 21, later qualifying as a yoga teacher and even running her own Pilates business for almost a decade. She is also a lifelong Arsenal supporter, a passion she shares with her father, so weekends can involve both staying active and keeping up with her team. And when it’s time to slow down, her cat is more than happy to help because Monique enjoys spending time with her, alongside reading, journaling, cooking and taking walks in Stellenbosch.
With her combination of social science expertise, technical skills and commitment to bringing diverse voices into policymaking, Monique brings a distinctive perspective to the Policy Innovation Lab. We are excited to see how her work continues to contribute to stronger evidence-informed policymaking and more inclusive policy processes.
We’re delighted to have Monique as part of the team.