HANAA SINGER - NEW UNICEF REPRESENTATIVE IN AZERBAIJAN
Singer is the first official UNICEF Representative to Azerbaijan and she takes over from Dr. Akif Saatcioglu.
Singer is well versed on the region of Central and Eastern Europe/Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS). Prior to coming to Azerbaijan she was serving as the regional emergency advisor for UNICEF regional office for CEE/CIS and the Baltics based in Geneva, Switzerland. Her job has allowed her to visit every single country in the region where she provided technical support for UNICEF country offices to build up staff capacities in vulnerability assessment and analysis, emergency preparedness and response, early warning and preventive methods. In this capacity she assisted in the coordination of UNICEF response to the crises in Afghanistan and Iraq through setting up and establishing UNICEF emergency operations in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Turkey offices respectively.
Singer said she welcomes the new assignment. “I feel very fortunate to serve in a country like Azerbaijan, which I feel is the peak of interaction between East and West,” said Singer. “I dream of seeing how the fruits of this tremendous development Azerbaijan has achieved over the last few years reach all the children in all parts of this great country. I hope that I myself and my team will be partners in making this dream come true.”
Prior to the regional post she served in Haiti, Burundi, Maldives and Egypt with UNICEF.
In Haiti she acted as the Programme Coordinator for UNICEF office coordinating the programmes of health and nutrition, education and child protection programmes.
In Burundi she acted as the Officer-in-Charge of the UNICEF office between October 1999 - April 2000 during a very critical and challenging period for the country. In addition to managing ongoing UNICEF emergency interventions in Burundi, she was also responsible for coordinating the overall UN humanitarian intervention in nutrition and water, environment and sanitation. She also assisted in coordination with the security management team in the country to draft security protocol with the government.
As a Project Officer in the Maldives she was responsible for managing UNICEF programmes in education, early childhood development and water and sanitation programme.
As a National Officer in Egypt she started her career with UNICEF in 1990 as a rural community development officer. In that capacity she led the design and implementation of the credit scheme targeting the poor, an Egyptian version of the internationally renowned Grameen Bank model. After the positive outcome of the pilot, several national partners including the Social Fund and a National Bank adopted the model and expanded it to other parts of the country.
Before joining UNICEF, Singer served as a lecturer on political science and sociology at the English department of the Faculty of Political Science, Faculty of Law and Sadat’s Academy for Management Sciences. She was also an assistant professor at the American University’s in Cairo Sociology/Anthropology department.
She graduated the American University in Cairo with a bachelor’s degree in political science (1984) and a master’s degree in political sociology (1990). She also holds a post graduate diploma in "Planning and Management of Decentralised Development Studies" from Bradford University (1992).
The new UNICEF representative has started her official meetings and plans to have project site visits to the regions shortly.
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