Our team

Viet Nam

Ramla Khalidi

Resident Representative

Khalidi has over 30 years of experience working in development and policy research at both the national and regional levels, including 25 years with UNDP and the UN Secretariat.

At the regional level, Ms. Khalidi has led the interdisciplinary and strategic planning efforts of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia on the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, and managed the organization’s technical cooperation programmes and policy advisory services to the 18 Member States. She has also led the organization’s partnership with donors, UN agencies and civil society partners.

Ms. Khalidi’s policy work has focused on poverty reduction, inclusive social development, gender equality and good governance. She has also worked as a journalist, a researcher, and a programme manager in diverse country contexts.

Most recently, Ms. Khalidi was UNDP Resident Representative in Syria between 2019 and 2022, where she managed a $50 million programme focused on delivering early recovery and resilience support through the creation of livelihoods opportunities, the rehabilitation of critical social infrastructure, and the promotion of social cohesion.

Ms. Khalidi is a national of Jordan and holds a Master of Arts in Arab Studies from Georgetown University and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Tufts University. She is fluent in English and Arabic with a working knowledge of French.

Patrick Haverman

Deputy Resident Representative

Patrick was born in the Netherlands where he grew up in a small family together with one elder brother. He studied Business Administration at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and worked for four years in the private sector before joining UNDP in 2000 working in Honduras. In 2003, under the LEAD programme, he moved to Tanzania as the Deputy of Strategic Operation. Afterwards he travelled to more than 20 African countries to work with the country offices to increase the delivery of their programme. While based at HQ New York, he met his wife got married and they now have two children. In New York Patrick was the project manager for the Millennium Villages project. He exchanged NY for 北京, and for five years was the Deputy Country Director of the UNDP in China. From 2018 – 2020 he was the Regional Partnership Advisor for the Bureau for External Relationships and Advocacy, based in Bangkok, after which he headed the External Relations and Partnerships for UNDP in Afghanistan.