Michael Dunford
Regional Director for Eastern Africa, United Nations World Food Programme
Michael Dunford became Regional Director of the WFP Eastern Africa Bureau based in Nairobi in June 2020. Michael is a lawyer who has worked for the United Nations for over 20 years, commencing at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in 2001. As Regional Director, Michael oversees WFP operations, providing strategic guidance, supervision and support across the region in ten countries – Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda. WFP aims to reach 49
million people with an annual budget of over 6 USD billion. Michael's leadership steers WFP’s interventions in providing vital food and nutrition assistance to food insecure populations. Michael has extensive management and operational experience, having been WFP Deputy Country Director in Uganda, Bangladesh and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. He was deployed as WFP Emergency Coordinator at the onset of the Rohingya refugee crisis in Cox’s Bazar in 2017. He was the acting UN Resident Coordinator in Tanzania between August
2019 and February 2020. He first joined WFP in its Headquarters in Rome as Head of the Commercial and Constitutional Law Branch of the Legal Office, after practising law in Australia and the United Kingdom. He also has had assignments in Georgia, Russia (Ingushetia) and started his career as a UN Volunteer in Crimea, Ukraine. Michael holds a BA in Political Science from the Australian National University (ANU) and a LLB from the University of Technology (UTS), Sydney, Australia. An Australian national, Michael is married and has two children.
