Leadership Team

Lionel Laurens, Resident Representative, UNDP Somalia

Lionel Laurens has over 30 years of experience serving in international organizations. He took up the role of UNDP Resident Representative in Somalia in 2023 after serving for four years as UNDP’s Resident Representative in Zambia.

Prior to this, Laurens was the UNDP Guinea Country Director. From 2014 to 2015, he was the UNDP Sierra Leone Head of Programmes and supported the reprogramming of interventions to respond to the Ebola crisis.

From 2008 to 2014, he was the UNDP Iraq Inclusive Growth and Area-Based Development Cluster Team Leader, managing a portfolio of projects focusing on local governance, service delivery, economic recovery and poverty reduction. Before that, he worked in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2008 as a UNDP Programme Manager, engaging with communities to rebuild rural infrastructure, deliver basic services and promote economic development.

From 2002 to 2005, Laurens contributed to the launch of the World Bank-supported CDD Poverty Reduction Fund in Laos as a Senior Technical Advisor. From 1997 to 2002, he worked with the Laotian Government, ILO, and UNDP, developing participatory and integrated planning approaches. He has also worked with NGOs on a variety of humanitarian issues in Cambodia, Haiti, Georgia, and Liberia.

A French national, Laurens holds a Master’s in Engineering and Management from the French Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Métiers and an MSc in Sustainability and Responsibility from Ashridge Business School in the UK.

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Dr. Christopher Laker, Deputy Resident Representative for Programmes (DRR-P), UNDP Somalia

Dr. Christopher Laker
Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP Somalia

Dr. Christopher Laker brings 25 years of experience in project and programme management, including nearly 20 years in conflict and post-conflict settings.

Christopher's programme management and coordination career began in an EU funded programme in south eastern Uganda, and subsequently scaled up in Northern Uganda during the LRA insurgency (2004–2008), where he played a crucial role in humanitarian response programming and early recovery development initiatives. He started his UN career with UNDP Somalia in 2009, managing a Joint Programme for IDP protection, reintegration, and resettlement. Since then, he has held key roles in Kenya, Darfur, Sudan, and Libya, where he most recently served as the Deputy Resident Representative for Programmes, and ultimately as the Resident Representative a.i. until his departure in July 2024.

In Darfur, he oversaw operational and programmatic activities across five field offices, focusing on joint programmes and resource mobilization during the United Nations-African Union Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) transition. In Libya, he led donor-funded projects in an extremely challenging environments.

Christopher also has extensive experience in rural development. Early in his career, he managed a USD 100 million World Bank-supported project on rural livelihoods, community infrastructure, and conflict management in Uganda.

A Ugandan citizen, Christopher holds a Ph.D. in Epidemiology and Economics and a Master’s degree in the same field.

Ms. Jelena Raketic, Deputy Resident Representative for Operations (DRR-O), UNDP Somalia

Jelena Raketic has over 20 years of experience in crisis prevention, recovery, rapid response, and program and financial management, including oversight and implementation of global, regional, and country-level interventions.

Before joining the Somalia Country Office, Jelena worked at the UNDP Regional Service Center for Africa (2015–2022), where she led the Regional Programme Management Unit and oversaw the implementation of over 30 regional projects across six sub-regional locations. Prior to this role, she served as the Team Leader for the Country Support Team in the UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa, providing management, program, and operations support to 17 country offices in East and Southern Africa. She acted as the UNDP Deputy Resident Representative for Programme and Operations in Ghana.

She also worked for the UNDP Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery in New York and Geneva (2004–2014) and, since 1999, served as national staff in the UNDP Country Office in Serbia and for the World Food Programme in Montenegro.

Jelena holds a BA and a Master’s degree in Economics.

To learn more about UNDP Somalia and its current activities, including how you can contact us, please visit our CONTACT US.