The American University of Nigeria (AUN), Yola, the Adamawa State capital will today host Mr. Arman Navasardyan, who heads the regional office of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, (OCHA).

An expert with 20 years’ experience all over the world in disaster relief and emergency preparedness, Mr. Navasardyan will speak at the AUN Library at 5pm on ‘Humanitarian Coordination Architecture and Importance in the Context of North East Nigeria’.

Most recently, Mr. Navasardyan, a citizen of Armenia, has led UN humanitarian efforts in South Sudan and Uganda. Prior to the UN he worked for Oxfam, Care International, Médecins Sans Frontières, the Red Cross, and the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The American University of Nigeria, in partnership with the Adamawa Peace Initiative, has been at the forefront of the humanitarian response to the Boko Haram-created refugee crisis in northeast Nigeria. On Tuesday, the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID) announced an $801,000 grant to support AUN’s project to educate IDPs. The group had earlier launched a One Billion Naira Insurgency Appeal Fund to raise money for humanitarian assistance to thousands of IDPs in the state.

Before his engagement in Nigeria, Mr. Navasardyan coordinated humanitarian sectors in the sovereign state of South Sudan, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, and several other crisis-ridden countries. He was working for Oxfam GB, Care International, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the Red Cross in his native Armenia and elsewhere.

Mr. Navasardyan holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the Armenian State University of Economics, a diplomatic rank of Second Secretary from the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Federation, specialising in humanitarian diplomacy, and P-4 rank in the United Nations system.

•Photo shows Arman Navasardyan.

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