I’m Gaye Erkan, a project management consultant and team leader. For over 20 years I’ve helped public institutions and international funders plan, deliver and report on EU and donor-funded projects.
Most projects struggle at the hand-overs: from idea to proposal, from contract to start-up, from activities to results. I work across every stage, so nothing gets lost between them.
Needs analysis, stakeholder consultation and problem definition.
Logical framework, budget, risks and a fundable proposal.
Tender documents, technical offers and contract negotiation.
Team leadership, work plans, procurement and stakeholder relations.
Indicators, reporting to the contracting authority and early warning.
Lessons learned, results reporting and sustainability planning.
For ministries, public agencies, development agencies, international funders and the consulting firms that deliver technical assistance.
Leading technical assistance projects from inception to final report.
Processes, procedures and institutional capacity for public bodies.
Turning priorities into well-designed, fundable projects and winning proposals.
Practical support under IPA and sectoral operational programmes.
Recent news and writing on project delivery in the public and development sectors.
The climate framework is in place. The harder part is delivery.
Taking on team leader, key expert and advisory roles from the UK.
Five things evaluators look for, from someone who has written and assessed them.
Tell me what you’re working on and where you need support.
Get in touchI help public institutions and international funders turn plans into projects that deliver.
For more than twenty years I’ve worked where policy meets practice: in the projects that turn public priorities and international funding into real results. Most of that time has been on EU-funded technical assistance, working alongside ministries, development agencies, municipalities and civil society.
I’ve led project teams, shaped proposals and built the systems that keep programmes on track. Along the way I’ve learned that good projects rarely fail for lack of ideas. They stall when roles are unclear, planning is thin, or the people delivering them don’t have the right tools. That’s where I focus.
My work has spanned employment and social policy, civil society, climate action and regional development. Today I work independently from the UK and join projects on mission wherever they are.
Whether you’re preparing a tender or already delivering, I’m happy to discuss where I can help.
Get in touchI take on team leader, key expert and advisory roles, either directly with institutions and funders or as part of a consulting firm’s team.
Leading projects so that activities, budgets and people stay aligned with the results the funder expects.
Suits: technical assistance projects, institutional programmes, multi-partner projects.
Helping public bodies and their partners work more effectively, with processes and documents people actually use.
Suits: ministries, agencies, municipalities and umbrella organisations.
Turning policy priorities and local needs into well-designed projects, and the proposals that win funding for them.
Suits: public bodies seeking funding, consulting firms bidding for tenders, NGOs.
Practical expertise in how EU-funded programmes work, from the contracting authority’s requirements to day-to-day delivery.
Suits: beneficiary institutions, operating structures and TA contractors.
Designing and running grant schemes, from guidelines for applicants to closure, for programmes ranging from a few dozen to several hundred projects.
Hands-on training that leaves people able to do the work themselves. I’ve trained more than 1,000 staff and beneficiaries.
Describe the project and the gap you need filled. I’ll tell you honestly whether I’m the right person for it.
Get in touchNews on current assignments, events and availability.
I’m taking on team leader, key expert and advisory roles on EU and donor-funded projects, working from the UK and on mission where needed.
I completed my role as Team Leader on the Technical Assistance for the Implementation of the Employment, Education and Social Policy Sectoral Operational Programme, which I led from December 2024.
Practical notes on designing, winning and delivering publicly funded projects.
The climate framework is in place. The harder part is delivery.
Five things evaluators look for, from someone who has written and assessed them.
Where projects go off track, and the early signs to watch for.
Most technical proposals don’t lose because the team is weak. They lose because the evaluators can’t see, quickly enough, that the team understands the job.
Evaluators read many offers for the same tender. Generic paragraphs about the sector stand out for the wrong reasons. Refer to the specific institution, its current situation and the constraints in the terms of reference, and show how they shape your approach.
A good methodology connects each activity to a result and each result to the project purpose. If an evaluator can trace that line on one page, you’ve made their job easier, and they notice.
Listing “delays in beneficiary approvals” is not risk analysis. Explain why it might happen on this project, how you’ll see it coming and what you’ll do about it.
Expert days, activity timing and reporting milestones should fit together. Inconsistencies between the work plan, the methodology and the staffing table are among the easiest points for an evaluator to deduct.
Evaluation committees work through long documents against a grid. Use the grid’s headings, keep paragraphs short and put the key point first. Clarity is not a style choice here; it’s a scoring advantage.
If you’re preparing an offer and want an experienced review before submission, get in touch.
On 9 November, Antalya opens COP31. Most of the attention will be on the negotiations. For Türkiye, though, one of the clearest tests of climate ambition is much closer to home: how people and goods move around the country.
Transport produces roughly a sixth of Türkiye’s greenhouse gas emissions, and most of it comes from road traffic, particularly freight. The sector’s emissions roughly tripled between 1990 and 2019, and oil still supplies almost all of the energy it uses. Across the whole economy, emissions rose by 5.3% in 2024 to 584.5 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.
Transport is also harder to change than a power plant or a steelworks. Its emissions come from millions of vehicles, thousands of operators and dozens of public bodies, from ministries to municipalities. No single policy can fix it.
Over the past two years, Türkiye has put much of the policy architecture together:
The market is moving too: electric vehicles made up around 17% of new car sales in 2025.
Strategies don’t cut emissions; projects do. In more than twenty years on EU-funded projects, including leading the İklimIN climate action project, where we trained stakeholders in 20 provinces and supported 37 grant projects run by municipalities, CSOs and universities, I’ve seen that the hardest part is rarely writing the strategy. It is turning it into a pipeline of well-prepared projects, each with an owner, a budget and a way to measure results. In transport, three gaps stand out.
Local capacity. Much of the practical work, such as bus fleets, cycling infrastructure, parking policy and urban logistics, sits with municipalities. Now that local climate action plans are mandatory, many will need support to turn those plans into fundable transport projects.
Project preparation. International funders want to finance sustainable transport, but they need projects with clear objectives, credible feasibility work and realistic procurement plans. Weak preparation is one of the most common reasons good ideas never reach implementation.
Data and monitoring. With emissions trading and NDC reporting, institutions will need reliable data on transport emissions and on what their projects actually achieve. Without a baseline and good indicators, results are hard to prove and harder to scale.
COP31 will put Türkiye’s climate commitments in front of a global audience. Its most lasting effect, though, may be at home: if the attention it brings turns into well-prepared, well-managed transport projects, the 2035 and 2053 targets become far more credible.
If you’re working on transport or climate projects in Türkiye and need support with project design, management or capacity building, get in touch.
Send a short note about your project. I’ll reply within two working days.