Theresa Beltramo

UNHCR Senior Economist

Theresa Beltramo is a Senior Economist for the Middle East North Africa (MENA) Bureau and previously was the Senior Economist/ Head of Research and Analytics within the UNHCR’s Division of Resilience and Solutions. A Ph.D. and Masters in Economics, she has nearly two decades experience as a senior advisor and project manager for multilateral organizations, private companies and academic institutions contributing to the design, implementation and evaluation of public policies and programmes. Her research covers topics in development economics, behavioral economics, welfare and social protection resulting in numerous economics journal publications.

Theresa is currently also an academic fellow at the University of Geneva School of Economics and Management and has ongoing research projects in countries in Africa and Asia related to a wide range of topics in development economics including optimal targeting of assistance, impact evaluations of development and humanitarian programs, innovative ways to measure multidimensional poverty in forcibly displaced settings, and longitudinal panel survey across refugees and hosts.

You can follow @BeltramoTheresa on Twitter and theresabeltramo on LinkedIn.

Blog posts by Theresa

Education as a catalyst for refugee and host community integration in Kenya

Understanding the new Malian refugees in Mauritania: a path forward amid growing challenges

Refugees enjoy better integration when they and their hosts are more financially secure

Collecting data on the forcibly displaced is essential for better inclusion

Refugee children are disproportionately poorer (and thus more vulnerable) than other household members and as a result require a larger share of social assistance to meet their basic needs

Understanding successful social and economic integration – an example from Uganda

Compelling evidence that the graduation approach promotes economic and social integration in displacement settings: the case of Mozambique

New high-frequency data highlights COVID-19’s major impact on livelihoods and food insecurity in Costa Rica

Rapid phone surveys in Kenya show disproportionately negative impact on refugees

COVID-19 socioeconomic impact worsens for refugees in Uganda

Investment in comparable socioeconomic data for forcibly displaced and hosts yields tangible outcomes in improving people’s lives

After three decades, how are refugees in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp faring?

Compounding misfortunes – refugee women and girls lose even more ground during the COVID-19 pandemic

Beneficiaries of monitored livelihoods programmes see gains in employment, income and savings