Sarah is the regional adviser on social and economic policy for UNICEF, covering East and Southern Africa. Prior to being based in Nairobi in her current post, she led UNICEF’s country portfolios on economic and social policy in Lebanon, Ghana and Burkina Faso.

Before UNICEF, she worked for Save the Children as head of research as well as the World Bank’s poverty team and the Government of Rwanda.

She is an economist who prefers chasing practical policy change over theorizing and is proud of leading results, such as developing the first global measure of child poverty and establishing the first social grant in Lebanon.

More recently, she has published new evidence on child poverty in Africa with the World Bank and on inefficient public spending allocations that are undermining human capital development.