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Erin Patrick

Erin Patrick, Senior Program Officer, Fuel and Firewood Initiative, has worked in refugee policy and humanitarian response programs since 2001. She currently manages the Women’s Refugee Commission’s Fuel and Firewood Initiative, focused on ensuring that displaced women and girls have safe access to appropriate cooking fuel.

She led the Women’s Commission’s development and co-chairing – with the World Food Programme (WFP) and UN High Commissioner for Refugees – of the InterAgency Standing Committee Task Force on Safe Access to Firewood and alternative Energy in Humanitarian Settings (SAFE). The SAFE Task Force developed the first-ever global guidance documents for the UN system on the proper management of household energy collection, supply and use in humanitarian settings. Since the launch of the SAFE guidance in 2009, Erin has been conducting a series of workshops and trainings for agency staff worldwide and partnering with WFP to implement the guidance in a variety of countries. She is also responsible for developing the first Rapid Assessment Tool for household energy needs in humanitarian settings, which she field-tested in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti.

Erin has worked for the Migration Policy Institute, Human Rights Watch, the Kettering Foundation and for CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen. She holds an MA with distinction from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a BA from Indiana University.