Sarah Poole

Sarah is a strategic leader with over 33 years of international experience in the United Nations, USAID, and the US Department of State, serving in complex development and humanitarian contexts in Africa, the Middle East, the Western Balkans, and Turkey.

She has a track record of effectively leading large, multi-cultural, and multi-functional teams across geographic locations to deliver results and impact, including in challenging contexts requiring humanitarian, development and political engagement.  As her last UN assignment, she was appointed as the ad interim UN Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). She has also served at the level of Assistant Secretary General at UNDP, leading the organisation’s programming, operations and partnerships in the Arab States region.   

Her additional leadership roles include UNDP Special Representative in oPt, and Deputy Resident Representative/Resident Representative ad interim in Turkey; Deputy Director/Deputy Assistant Administrator of UNDP’s Bureau for Programme and Policy Support during the roll-out of the Sustainable Development Goals; Deputy Director for the Arab States, and Senior Advisor for Europe and the CIS; Advisor on UN Reform; and Regional Refugee Coordinator for the former Yugoslavia, for the US Department of State/Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM).

She has translated her professional experience to academia and learning, including co-designing and co-teaching a graduate course on the linkages between conflict, peacebuilding and development at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Administration.  She has initiated and led mentoring programmes for young women professionals working in international development, and is currently completing her Executive Certificate in Public Leadership at Harvard University’s Kennedy School.