Adrian van der Knaap

World Food Programme (WFP)

Deputy Regional Director East Africa

Adrian van der Knaap is currently WFP’s Deputy Regional Director for East Africa in charge of supply chain and support services. Previous positions in WFP include Chief Logistics in HQ, Head of Logistics in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Angola and Sudan as well as Head of the Sub-Office in Gulu/Uganda and Juba/Sudan. From 2002 to 2006, he helped set-up and led the United Nations Joint Logistics Centre in Rome (the predecessor of the Logistics Cluster) with stints in Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition to WFP, Adrian worked for the Primary Health Care Programme of the Sudan Council of Churches in Khartoum, for Norwegian People’s Aid as relief and agricultural rehabilitation project manager in South Sudan as well as Chief of UNHCR’s Civil-Military Liaison Group in Zaire with Mobutu’s Presidential Guard. In 2007, he was seconded by WFP to FAO’s Emergency Division. Prior to joining the humanitarian sector (in 1990), he worked in the banking sector and selection & recruitment business. He studied Law at the University of Amsterdam.