Tigist Girma is Director of Localization at HIAS, based in Washington DC. The first localization lead with HIAS, she comes to the role with two decades of experience in humanitarian partnership and emergency response in forced displacement. Prior to her current role, Tigist worked for UNHCR for 15 years in the Syria Response, The Crimea Response in Ukraine, The Mediterranean Response as well as in protracted refugee crisis in Nepal, Rwanda and Tanzania. As a humanitarian practitioner with protection background in the context of displacement, she is determined to showcase the importance of localization in the international humanitarian policy and practice.
Tigist believes the International Humanitarian space should not be judged by the length of time we stayed in humanitarian crisis environment but by how sustainably they exited. As someone who spent her entire career with organizations, that stayed, yes, she sees the irony.
A human, a mother, and a career woman – the order changes day-by-day. After experiencing the good, the bad and the ugly, she is now in that happy, boring space where she gets excited about a long walk in the woods with her daughter and her two dogs.