Spotlighting the people shaping Dev-Afrique’s work across Africa
Betty Akoth Onyando is an Associate Consultant at Dev-Afrique with a background in communications and development studies. Her work covers development and project communications, knowledge translation, stakeholder engagement and thought leadership, with an interest in how communication can make technical knowledge and evidence more accessible to different audiences.
Betty joined Dev-Afrique as a WSH Fellow supporting the WSH Data Labs programme and has since worked across water and sanitation, agriculture, geo-health and other development areas. Much of her work involves working with technical teams to understand complex subjects and communicate them clearly to the people and institutions they are intended to reach.
In this conversation, Betty shares her journey into development advisory, her experience working across technical projects, what she has learnt along the way, and why she sees communication as an important part of the development process.
1. Let’s start with you. What path led you to your current role at Dev-Afrique?
My path to Dev-Afrique has not exactly been linear, but looking back, the different pieces connect.
My background is in communications, and over the years I became curious about development work. I began to see communication as more than visibility and storytelling, and became interested in how it can help people understand complex development issues, make knowledge more accessible and support meaningful engagement.
That interest led me to pursue a Master’s in International Relations, specialising in Development Studies, which deepened my understanding of the systems, institutions and policies that shape development outcomes.
I joined Dev-Afrique as a WSH Fellow, supporting the WSH Data Labs programme. That introduced me to a completely different side of water and sanitation, from data systems and sector governance to utilities, regulators and the role of evidence in decision making.
Since then, my work has expanded across different projects and practice areas, and I transitioned into my current role as an Associate Consultant in Corporate Communications. Much of my work today sits at the intersection of development, project communications and knowledge translation, bringing together the different strands of my professional journey.
2. What first pulled you toward development advisory work?
The complexity of development challenges.
The longer I have worked in this space, the more I have understood that development challenges rarely exist in isolation. What initially appears to be one problem is often connected to several others. A data challenge may also be an institutional capacity issue, while a service delivery challenge may involve policy, financing, governance and coordination.
I find those connections fascinating because they require you to look beyond the immediate problem and understand the wider system in which it exists.
Development advisory work gives me the opportunity to engage with those different layers while still asking an important question: what does this ultimately mean for the people these systems are intended to serve?
That intersection between people, systems, evidence and communication is what continues to draw me to the work.
3. Since joining Dev-Afrique, what has your experience been like both professionally and personally?
It has been an incredible learning experience.
Most of the projects I support are highly technical, so I am constantly working alongside people who have spent years building deep expertise in their respective fields. I genuinely enjoy being in those rooms because there is almost always something new for me to learn.
I often say, “I value being in rooms where I am not the most knowledgeable person. It keeps me humble, challenges me and reminds me to keep learning.” That sums up much of my experience at Dev-Afrique.
I have supported work across water and sanitation, agriculture, geo-health and other areas, with each assignment requiring me to immerse myself in a different subject. I can be discussing sanitation data systems one day and agricultural transformation the next. My role requires me to understand these complex subjects well enough to communicate them accurately, while making the information accessible and relevant to the intended audience.
That means asking questions, sometimes a lot of them. I read, listen to technical experts and interrogate what I do not understand. I have become very comfortable asking, “Can you explain that to me?” because I cannot communicate something effectively if I do not understand it myself.
Professionally, this has broadened my capabilities and shaped how I approach development communications. Personally, it has kept me curious and comfortable with not always having the answers. There is real value in knowing that wherever you are, there is always something, or someone, to learn from.
4. Is there a project or piece of work at Dev-Afrique that particularly stayed with you? What made it meaningful?
There are two pieces of work that have stayed with me, for very different reasons.
WSH Data Labs will always be significant because it is where my Dev-Afrique journey began. Before joining the programme, I understood water and sanitation largely through a communications, social, community and broader development lens. WSH Data Labs introduced me to the systems behind service delivery: the data, utilities, regulators, governance structures, institutional capacity and decision making that ultimately shape how the sector functions.
It completely changed the way I understand WASH and gave me a much deeper appreciation of just how interconnected the sector is.
On a more personal level, our 2026 International Women’s Day and Women’s Month campaign has also stayed with me. We collected reflections from women across Dev-Afrique and DevGlobal on the people who had empowered, mentored or motivated them, and how they were, in turn, supporting other women and younger generations.
The campaign also extended beyond our organisations through our support to AYARHEP, where we financed and facilitated financial literacy and sexual and reproductive health training for young women.
I valued the campaign because it went beyond celebrating women. It highlighted the importance of women supporting women, while also creating practical opportunities for young women to access knowledge that can shape their choices and futures.
5. What is one part of your work that often happens behind the scenes but is essential to making projects successful?
Translation, and not necessarily between languages.
A large part of my work involves translating between technical expertise, evidence and different audiences.
The people working directly on a project may understand exactly why a particular finding or piece of evidence matters, but a policymaker, donor, journalist, practitioner or member of the public may need that information presented very differently.
A lot therefore happens before the final report, policy brief, article, webinar or social media post appears. I have to understand the work, ask questions, identify what actually matters, think about the audience, decide what needs to be communicated and make sure we have not lost the meaning or nuance along the way.
People tend to see the final output. Much of the real communications work happened long before that.
6. From your perspective, what makes Dev-Afrique’s approach to development work distinct?
For me, it is the combination of technical expertise and contextual understanding.
Development solutions cannot simply be transferred from one context to another and expected to produce the same results. Even across African countries, institutions operate within very different political, economic and social realities.
One thing I have observed at Dev-Afrique is the effort to understand those realities before recommending solutions. There is also a strong systems perspective. Teams are often looking beyond the immediate challenge and asking what institutional, governance, financing, data or capacity issues are contributing to it.
I also value the African led nature of the work. There is enormous expertise within African institutions, communities and among practitioners across the continent. Development advisory work should recognise that expertise and work with it rather than assume that solutions must always come from elsewhere.
7. How would you describe the culture or team spirit at Dev-Afrique?
It is an interesting mix of personalities, cultures and areas of expertise.
We work across different countries and sectors, so people bring different perspectives and strengths to the work. There is also a willingness to collaborate and draw on each other’s expertise when needed.
One thing I particularly enjoy, and something Profiles in Practice has allowed me to appreciate even more, is getting to know the people behind the work. It gives me a chance to see the humour, interests and personalities that do not always come through in meetings or project updates.
Ultimately, an organisation is as much about its people as it is about the work they deliver.
8. What is something people at work might not immediately guess about you?
I am an introvert, which sometimes surprises people because my work involves a lot of engagement and interaction with different stakeholders.
I tend to be quite observant and intentional about how I engage with people. I enjoy listening, asking questions and understanding different perspectives, which I think complements my work in communications.
I am comfortable speaking up and leading conversations when the work requires it, but I equally value quiet time to think, process ideas and work independently. For me, the two actually complement each other quite well.
9. Has there been a moment during your time at Dev-Afrique that reminded you why this work matters?
For me, those moments come when you see how the work connects to a broader development outcome.
Working across different projects has reinforced how I think about the role of communications in development. Communication should not come in at the end of a development project just to tell everyone what happened. It should be part of the development process itself, helping to make knowledge accessible, bring people into the conversation and connect evidence to action.
In development advisory, strong evidence and technical solutions have greater value when they can be understood, communicated and used to inform decisions.
That has shaped how I approach my role. I see communications not simply as a way of telling the story of development work, but as a tool for making that work more accessible, participatory and useful.
10. Has working at Dev-Afrique changed the way you think about development challenges and opportunities across Africa?
Definitely. It has changed how I think about development through a systems lens.
Rather than looking at a development challenge in isolation, I have learnt to ask what is happening within the wider system. The issue may involve institutional capacity, governance, financing, data, policy, coordination or a combination of these factors. Understanding those connections is often just as important as identifying the intervention itself.
Working across different sectors has also shown me the depth of knowledge and expertise that already exists within Africa, across governments, institutions, communities, academia, civil society and the private sector.
For me, the opportunity lies in strengthening systems that recognise and connect that expertise, and enable locally grounded knowledge and evidence to meaningfully inform development decisions.
11. What does being “DA Proud” mean to you personally?
Being DA Proud means contributing to work that is relevant, useful and grounded in the contexts in which we operate.
It is about going beyond producing strong technical outputs to asking whether the work responds to a real need, draws on local knowledge and expertise, and contributes to solutions that can have value beyond the life of a single project.
It also represents growth for me personally. I joined Dev-Afrique through one programme and one sector, and my work has since exposed me to different sectors, countries, institutions and development challenges. Each experience has broadened how I think about development and strengthened the way I approach my own work.
Being DA Proud, for me, is therefore both about the contribution we make through our work and remaining curious, open to learning and committed to doing that work better.
