IDMC’s Advisory Group assembles a body of experience and expertise which provides invaluable counsel on the organisation’s strategic vision and direction. It is comprised of sector experts, and representatives of IDMC’s main partners, particularly among countries and UN agencies dealing with the issue of internal displacement. The Group held its first meeting in September 2019.
Principal Advisor on Internal Displacement, UNHCR
Sumbul Rizvi was appointed as Principal Advisor on Internal Displacement to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ in June 2019. Immediately prior she served as the United Nations Coordinator for the Rohingya Refugee Response in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. She has served as the second Chairperson of IDMC’s Advisory Group since 2021.
An Indian national, she has spent over 33 years in human rights and humanitarian work including as a litigating counsel, NGO advisor and with the United Nations. She has served in diverse conflict situationsincluding - Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur-Sudan among others, also establishing emergency response and coordination mechanisms in Syria and Kyrgyzstan in the early stages of the conflict. Skilled in refugee, IDP and asylum-migration management, her roles have included inter-agency coordination leadership and operational management. She has also served as UNHCR’s Policy Adviser on asylum and migration in Geneva during the Mediterranean Crisis, working with the global migration fora and on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Sumbul holds degrees in Economics and in Law and spent over a decade as a practicing lawyer in India working on corporate and criminal law and pro bono human rights interventions. She also served as a State Counsel and taught law prior to joining the UN.
Visiting Professor at the School of Governance in the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Peter de Clercq of the Netherlands is currently a Visiting Professor at the School of Governance in the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg South Africa. He is the former UN Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Somalia and Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator in that country.
Mr. de Clercq worked with the UN for 34 years at various duty stations in peacekeeping, political affairs, development and humanitarian operations. He served as the Deputy Special Representative for the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti and Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim in Sudan. He worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for 27 years, during which time he held various positions in its headquarters in Geneva and Budapest, as well as in field assignments in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Angola and Pakistan. He has also been seconded to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to the United Nations Development Programme in Sudan.
He served as the first Chairperson of IDMC’s Advisory Group from 2019 to 2021. His specific interest is to help place the internal displacement issue firmly at the centre of attention of the international community and in particular to enhance understanding between displacement, urbanisation and social and demographic transformation.
Mr. de Clercq holds a master’s degree in development sociology from the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands and is a graduate of the Netherlands’ Institute for International Affairs Clingendael in The Hague.
Senior Advisor on Internally Displaced Persons, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Sebastian von Einsiedel is the Senior Advisor on Internally Displaced Persons at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Previously he served as UN University’s (UNU) Vice-Rector in Bonn and founding Director of UNU’s Centre for Policy Research. Sebastian also worked in the Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General; the UN Department of Political Affairs; the UN Mission in Nepal; the research staff of the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change; and the International Peace Institute. Before joining the UN world, Sebastian worked as a foreign affairs staffer in the German Parliament and at NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
He has written widely on the UN’s role in peace and security and is the co-editor of The UN Security Council in the 21st Century (LRP, 2016) and Nepal in Transition (CUP, 2012)
Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa, UNDP
Ahunna Eziakonwa of Nigeria is the Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Ms. Eziakonwa has many years of distinguished service with the United Nations, including as UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Ethiopia.
Prior to these posts, Ms. Eziakonwa served as Resident Coordinator in Uganda and Lesotho, and held several posts with the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as Chief of the Africa Section in New York and in a number of field duty stations (Liberia, Sierra Leone). She also worked for the UN Departments of Peacekeeping Operations and Public Information in New York.
Before joining the UN, Ms. Eziakonwa held a series of senior positions with civil society organisations in Africa. She holds a Master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, with a focus on Economic and Political Development, as well as a Bachelor’s of Education degree, English and Literary Studies from the University of Benin, Nigeria.
Head of the Unit for Migration Policy, Registration and Identity of Persons in the Ministry of the Interior, Mexico
Rocío González Higuera is currently the Head of the Unit for Migration Policy, Registration and Identity of Persons in the Ministry of the Interior. This past year, she has coordinated under the Deputy Interior Minister of Human Rights, Population and Migration, the official recognition of internal displacement in Mexico and the elaboration of the much needed national framework on the topic.
She has built her professional career in the fields of Public Administration and Social Communication, while working in the executive and legislative branches of the government on a federal, as well as on a local level. She has also collaborated with different civil organizations and with the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Ms. González holds a Master of Arts Degree in Social Communication from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communication from the Metropolitan Autonomous University, Mexico. She has further studies in Political Analysis, Transparency and Accountability.
Director, Policy and Programming Branch UN Development Coordination Office
Helena served as UN Resident Coordinator in Uzbekistan from July 2017 to August 2021. She was concurrently UNDP Resident Representative in Uzbekistan until December 2018. Prior to this appointment, Helena served for twenty years with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), including two assignments in UN peacekeeping operations (Kosovo and Timor-Leste). Most recently, Helena headed OCHA’s Regional Office for the Syria Crisis in Amman (2014-2017). In this role, she supported coordination of the humanitarian response inside Syria across five different response hubs, as well as overseeing inter-agency needs assessment, humanitarian access analysis and reporting. Prior to this, Helena established and led OCHA’s Partnerships & Resource Mobilization Branch in Geneva, serving simultaneously as Chief, Private Sector Section, following a four-year stint as Chief of OCHA’s Donor Relations Section. Helena has also served twice at UN Headquarters in New York. She began her UN career in 1997 as a Field Adviser with OCHA in Georgia. Helena holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor’s degree in History and Russian Language and Literature, also from Oxford. She speaks English, French and Russian.
Professor Emeritus of international and constitutional law at the Faculty of Law, University of Bern and currently Envoy of the Chair of the Platform on Disaster Displacement
Walter Kälin is professor emeritus of international and constitutional law (Faculty of Law, University of Bern) and currently Envoy of the Chair of the Platform on Disaster Displacement, a State-led process working towards better protection for people displaced across borders in the context of disasters and climate change. He also supports the Resident/Humanitarian Coordinators in Somalia and Ethiopia as Special Advisor on Internal Displacement with a focus on durable solutions.
Previously, Mr. Kälin was Representative of the UN Secretary General on the human rights of internally displaced persons and a member of the UN Human Rights Committee. He also served as Envoy of the Chairmanship of the Nansen Initiative on Disaster-induced-Cross-border Displacement.
In his different capacities, Mr. Kälin has been cooperating with IDMC for more than a decade on issues related to both conflict- and disaster-induced internal displacement and is particularly interested in its work on internal displacement associated with slow-onset environmental change linked to climate change.
Mr. Kälin received his Doctor of Law from the University of Bern and his LL.M. from Harvard Law School.
Former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Ethiopia to United Nations Office at Geneva and other International Organizations in Switzerland
Negash Kebret Botora served as the Permanent Representative of Ethiopia to the United Nations Office at Geneva and other International Organisations in Switzerland and Vienna, as well as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia to Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.
Mr. Botora also served as the Chair of the Council of the International Organization for Migration, Regional Coordinator of Africa for the International Labour Office and member of the Consultative Group of the Human Rights Council.
Prior to this, Mr. Botora served as the Director General for International Organisations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia and as Director General for the African Directorate General at the Ministry. He was also the Ambassador and Acting Permanent Representative of Ethiopia to the United Nations in New York, and held Ambassador posts to Israel, Greece, Holy See and India. As a diplomat, he also worked for the Ethiopian Permanent Mission in Geneva, as well as at the Ethiopian embassy in Stockholm, Sweden.
Mr. Botora holds a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and Government Studies from the Addis Ababa University as well as a Master's degree in International Relations from Webster University in Geneva. He also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in International Relations from the University of Stockholm.
Director of Operations and Emergencies, IOM
Mr. Jeffrey Labovitz has served as the Director of the Department of Operations and Emergencies (DOE) at the Headquarters of the International Organization for Migration since August 2019. The Department leads the response and coordination of all humanitarian and post crisis stabilization programming.
Prior to joining DOE, Mr. Labovitz was IOM’s Regional Director for East and Horn of Africa for four years. He was also Chief of Mission in Thailand, managing one of IOM’s largest offices. Mr. Labovitz has also served the organization as the Regional Representative for South Central Europe, Regional Coordinator for the Western Newly Independent States, IOM Chief of Mission in Ukraine, and as IOM’s global advisor for Out of Country Voting programmes.
Mr. Labovitz holds a Master of Arts Degree in International Relations from the University of San Diego, USA; Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science and International Relations from the University of California, USA and an International Diploma in Humanitarian Affairs (IDHA) from the Hunter Colleague City University in New York, USA.
Central and West Africa Regional Director, NRC
Maureen Magee is the Central and West Africa Regional Director for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), an independent humanitarian organisation providing assistance to millions of refugees, internally displaced people, and host communities.
For the past 10 years, Ms. Magee has worked in a variety of senior posts for NRC. Most recently, she was the Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East. Prior posts include Head of Humanitarian Policy and Director of NRC's office in Geneva. She has also held the post of Country Director in the Central African Republic, Cote d’Ivoire and Iraq, and as Area Manager in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Before joining NRC, she worked for a number of humanitarian and international development NGOs in various places around the world.
Ms. Magee has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s degree in communication and development studies from Ohio University.
Former Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Iraq and currently Ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to Greece
H.E. Mr. Mouayed Saleh is the Ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to Greece. Prior to his appointment, he served as Deputy Foreign Minister, Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva and other International Organizations in Switzerland, and Ambassador to Australia, Fiji and New Zealand.
He served as Director-General of Foreign Relations and Political Affairs in the office of the Prime Minister of Iraq, as well as an Advisor on foreign relations in the same office. Prior to joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Saleh worked in the private sector in the United States as an electronics engineer.
Mr. Saleh has a Bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering from the State University of New York, Buffalo, New York.
Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Fiji to UNOG
Nazhat Shameem Khan is the Permanent Representative of Fiji to the United Nations in Geneva and Ambassador of Fiji to Switzerland. As a priority for Fiji in Geneva is climate change and human rights, and climate induced migration, Ms. Khan served as the Chief Negotiator of the Climate Change Conference in Bonn, during Fiji’s Presidency.
Ms. Khan is a barrister of Inner Temple in London, and a legal practitioner of Fiji. She started her career as a prosecutor in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and was the first woman in Fiji to be appointed a public prosecutor. Ms. Khan became the Director of Public Prosecutions of Fiji and was appointed Fiji’s first woman High Court judge.
After she left the judiciary, she opened her own law practice specialising in human rights law, and the training of judges, lawyers, and the business community in law, ethics, human rights and governance.
Ms. Khan was born in Fiji and attended the Sussex University and Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, where she studied law and criminology.
Honourable Minister of the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development (FMHADMSD)
The FMHADMSD was created to ensure Nigeria’s preparedness and resilience to man-made or natural disasters and fully institutionalise the various humanitarian and social protection interventions of the government in its support of the vulnerable in Nigeria. Sadiya was appointed as the pioneer Head of the Ministry by President Muhammadu Buhari on August 21st, 2019.
Prior to being appointed the Minister, FMHADMSD, Sadiya Umar Farouq served as the Honourable Federal Commissioner of the National Commission for Refugee, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI) from October 2016 to August 2019. During her tenure at NCFRMIDP, she successfully positioned the Commission as the leading government agency responsible for coordination, protection and assistance of Persons of Concern (PoC). She also worked diligently to review and re-enact the bill for the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, which was passed by the National Assembly.
Sadiya, an indigene of Zamfara State, began her formal education at the Federal Government School in Zamfara State where she also completed her early education. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with specialisation in Actuarial Science (1998), a Masters in International Affairs and Diplomacy (2008), and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) (2011), all from the prestigious Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Nigeria.