Monica Sandri

Ms. Monica Sandri has been Representative of UNHCR in North Macedonia since 2018. Her experience in the region goes further back, to 1999, when she began her long-standing career with UNHCR, working in the field in Kosovo. She later worked in North Macedonia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2002, she was deployed for a field position in Afghanistan, after which she spent several years in UNHCR’s Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. She has since worked in Chad, and has held positions as UNHCR Representative in Eritrea and Venezuela before assuming her position in North Macedonia.

Prior to her engagement with UNHCR, she spent three years working for the OSCE in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She previously held positions of Head of Mission and Regional Coordinator for the Caucasus for the non-governmental organization Nuova Frontiera, across Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Ms. Sandri comes from Italy, and has an academic background in political science, obtaining a doctorate from the University of Florence in 1995, and having also completed academic stays at the London School of Economics and Political Science (Law Department, Human Rights and European Law) and the Scuola Superiore di Studi Universitari e di Perfezionamento in Pisa, Italy.