Benoit d’Ansembourg

Benoit started his career as a Junior Professional Officer (JPO) for UNHCR in Kenya and Somalia from 1993 to 1996. After a transitory period in the private sector he completed a Master of International Politics. As part of this Master he studied the potential of information and communication technology (ICT) for development and humanitarian responses. His work in education in emergencies (EiE) started with the Foundation for the Refugee Education Trust (RET) - an organisation that was founded by the former High Commissioner for Refugees Madame Ogata – as Regional Programme Manager based in Kenya from 2004 to 2009. During that period, he launched and supported programmes for Sudanese refugees in Chad and Burundian returnees in Burundi. Prior to joining the UNHCR Education team in August 2018, he worked for UNICEF from 2009 to 2017, initially as a consultant (in Sri Lanka and Western and Central Africa), then as the regional focal point for EiE in Eastern and Southern Africa from 2011 to 2016 and finally as the Education member of the New-York-based Emergency Response Team and as Education Project Manager in the Maiduguri Field Office (northeast Nigeria) in 2017. Benoit is the happy father of four girls.