Helena Fraser

Helena Fraser is the Change Manager and Officer-in-Charge of OCHA’s Partnerships and Resource Mobilization Branch. She leads the development of OCHA's partnership and inclusivity agenda, working to build and sustain strong relationships with Member States, regional organizations and the private sector to ensure all appropriate resources are channelled towards meeting people’s needs in emergencies.

Ms. Fraser joined OCHA (then the Department of Humanitarian Affairs) in 1997 in Tbilisi, Georgia, working as a Field Adviser in the secessionist area of Tskinvali (South Ossetia). She then held a variety of positions at OCHA headquarters in New York and later in Geneva. These positions included working as a Desk Officer for the Kosovo crisis, assisting the Emergency Relief Coordinator, supporting humanitarian reform efforts and working on policy issues. In between these assignments, she was twice seconded to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, briefly supporting the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Kosovo in 1999, and subsequently working on justice, serious crimes and the transition to independence in Timor-Leste from 2001 to 2002.

Ms. Fraser graduated from the University of Oxford, UK, with a Masters in International Relations specializing in conflict dynamics in the post-Soviet Caucasus region. She also holds a first-class Bachelor’s degree in Russian Literature, Language and History.