Perspectives on Humanitarian Development Coherence in Education

Nicolai is a political economist with a technical specialty in education and international development and has worked extensively on education in crisis contexts. She was founding Coordinator of the Global Education Cluster and has served on the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Steering Group. Nicolai’s education-related research spans many developing countries and fragile states, working with international organizations and donors, including DFID, the ECW, the EU, GPE, the IEFG, Norwegian MFA, UNICEF, USAID, and the World Bank.
s.nicolai@odi.org.uk

Dr. Papadopoulos is a senior leader at USAID who provides strategic direction and management, expanding investments and strategies that target basic education and education in fragile contexts to achieve results. With over 20 years of international field experience, she is an expert in designing, implementing, and evaluating education initiatives, partner capacity building, grant writing, advocacy, and research.

She earned her M.A. from the American University’s School of International Studies and her Ed.D in International Education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
npapadopoulos@usaid.gov

Nicol leads relief and development coherence, cash programming, livelihoods, and multilateral development bank engagement for the U.S. Department of State’s PRM Bureau, promoting U.S. interests by providing protection, easing suffering, and resolving the plight of persecuted and forcibly displaced people around the world by coordinating humanitarian policy and diplomacy, providing life-sustaining assistance, working with multilateral organizations to build global partnerships, and promoting best practices in humanitarian response.

Prior to joining PRM, Nicol led on PEPFAR’s engagement in several countries, including Kenya and Eswatini, at the Department of State’s Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator. She holds masters’ degrees in Public Administration and International Relations from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and completed her undergraduate studies at Bowdoin College. She served in the Peace Corps in Benin, working on sustainable agricultural practices, and originally hails from New Hampshire.
NicolAE@state.gov

Melissa Horn Albuja is the Lead Protection Sector Advisor for OFDA where she provides technical guidance across the full spectrum of protection sector programming and coordinates OFDA’s protection activities within and outside of the USG. She has over fifteen years’ experience in international development and humanitarian affairs. Prior to joining OFDA, she was the Gender-Based Violence and Child Protection Advisor at the U.S Mission to the United Nations in Geneva with the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. In that position, she led various initiatives, including the Ambassador’s Future She Deserves initiative to advance gender equality and ensure that the protection and empowerment of women and girls is central to Geneva’s multilateral and multi-agency work.

Prior to working with PRM in Geneva, she worked with the International Rescue Committee and Save the Children with postings in Liberia, Sudan, and Burundi, specializing in Child and Youth Protection and Development.

Melissa holds a master’s degree in International Development and Social Change from Clark University, and speaks French and Spanish.
mhorn@usaid.gov

Kendall was the Education Officer for the Middle East Regional Platform based in Frankfurt, Germany, where she supported the Middle East North Africa Region on program design, procurement and strategy. Primary among her responsibilities over the last five years is her leadership of USAID’s contribution to education in Yemen, designing programs for the education sector and school feeding, and representing USAID on the Donor and Local Education Groups. Kendall came to USAID in 2011, after 17 years of teaching elementary special needs children, high school English and Social Studies, and consulting with Save the Children in Haiti after its 2010 earthquake.

She has a master’s in Curriculum and Assessment from the University of Southern Maine, and a PhD in Teaching and Learning in Conflict and Post-Conflict from Michigan State University.
skendall@usaid.gov

Jane Namadi is a Program Management Specialist in the USAID South Sudan Education Office. In the last 8 years Jane has worked in South Sudan on efforts to expand education opportunities to the most vulnerable, highly mobile and hard to reach populations in the country.
jnamadi@usaid.gov

Rabbani’s main area of interest is education governance and how different governance models affect access to, and quality of, education in different countries, especially in fragile and conflict-affected countries. He joined the Global Partnership with a wide range of experience in education, including of teaching, textbook writing, teacher training, education research, policy analysis and project management. Rabbani previously worked for USAID, DFID, and several universities.
frabbani@globalpartnership.org

As ECW’s Senior Education Economist and Head of Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting, Christian is responsible for (1) ECW’s Theory of Change, results and accountability frameworks; (2) Monitoring and Evaluation; (3) annual reports and other analytical studies, including on selected education topics, cost effectiveness and financial simulations; (4) global partnership initiatives to strengthen data systems and approaches in Education in Emergencies, including on holistic learning assessments, crisis-resilient Education Management Information Systems (EMIS), financing, as well as measuring safety and protection in learning environments. Before joining ECW, Christian worked with UNICEF as the Chief of Education in Sri Lanka (2014-2018) and Chief of Education Monitoring and Evaluation Unit in Myanmar (2010-2014). Previously he worked for the UN-ESCAP in Thailand, as a Statistician and Social Policy Specialist supporting the Asia-Pacific region, and as an Emergency needs assessment specialist in selected crisis-affected countries. In his early career he spent several years working in the Banking Sector, as an investment and credit risk analyst. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, where he also lectured in Micro-Economics and Econometrics.
cstoff@unicef.org