14 June 2022 – Ms. Kristine Blokhus has assumed her role as the new UNFPA Country Representative in Bangladesh, succeeding Dr. Asa Torkelsson. 

Ms. Blokhus, who is a national of Norway, brings over 20 years of experience in international development and humanitarian response. For the past three years, she has served as UNFPA´s Representative to the State of Palestine, leading UNFPA´s humanitarian response and development programming in areas of sexual and reproductive health, gender-based violence, and youth and adolescent empowerment across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Prior to this, she served as Deputy Representative with UNFPA in Nepal for nearly five years. 

She has previously worked with UNFPA and UNDP in a variety of settings spanning South and South-East Asia, Central America and the Caribbean, the Balkans, and UNDP´s Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS. She started her UN career as a junior professional officer in Indonesia following the 2005 tsunami, where she focused on humanitarian response and gender-based violence. 

Prior to joining the UN, she worked at the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and in research roles in academia and in international development consulting firms in the UK and in Norway.  

Ms. Blokhus holds a Master’s Degree in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and a double bachelor’s degree in Political Science and French from the University of Warwick. In addition to her native Norwegian, she speaks English, French and Spanish.