GIST was founded in 2019 by three experts with a shared passion for solving peacebuilding, relief and development challenges using rigorous, contextualised and innovative methods. The firm initially focused on research and analysis but has since expanded to deliver project design, implementation and monitoring, evaluation and learning services.

We work with governments, international organisations, and local community structures to discover, design and deliver transformative strategies and projects. We provide multi-disciplinary capabilities, with dedicated field teams and partners able to access hard to reach areas and experts engaging at strategic and operational levels. Our primary source access is complemented and reinforced through open source and remote sensing data exploitation.

We are a globally distributed company with offices in the UK and Somalia. Our partners and experts reside across countries of operations in Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Levant, Central Asia, South-East Asia, Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

Our organisational model focuses on building long-term, meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships with partners beyond the requirements of single projects. We recognise that nothing replaces local knowledge and invest our time and energy in connecting with uniquely driven and experienced researchers from the countries we work in.