Martina Melis brings to RCG 15 years’ experience working with international organizations, governments, donors and civil society in the design, appraisal and evaluation of service provision programs for vulnerable groups. Her main areas of sectoral focus are mixed migration, and drug and health policies, including in prisons.

Martina’s professional career started with a five-year stint at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), primarily at the Regional Center for East Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, where she worked on responses to drug issues and human trafficking.

In 2007, Martina moved to Brussels to manage the European Network on Drugs and Infections Prevention in Prison, a network of more than 100 members representing governments, international and civil society organizations and research institutes from 27 EU member states and Central Asia. During this time, she also coordinated the UNODC Treatnet working group on prisons, was a member of the European Commission’s civil society forum on drugs, and provided technical expertise to initiatives on drugs and prisons in Kosovo and Iran.

Since 2010 Martina has worked as an independent consultant with the European Commission (EC) and the UN. With the EC, she has worked as a technical expert on evaluations for the Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency, the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers, the Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs, and as vice-chair of one of the Research Executive Agency evaluation committees.

Recent assignments with the UN have included evaluations on the UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking for UNODC, and on multiple mixed migration projects for the International Organization for Migration in Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan.

Martina has also worked as a senior policy analyst at the New Zealand Drug Foundation, and for CareNZ, the largest provider of alcohol and other drug services in New Zealand, developing the organization’s program logic, and monitoring and evaluation framework.

Martina holds a Master of Science from the London School of Economics, a summa cum laude undergraduate degree from the University of Trieste in Italy, and is an alumnus of the UWC Atlantic College. She has co-authored two books and published in journals and magazines. She has also been a member of numerous scientific review committees for the World Health Organization, UNODC and the Nossal Institute for Global Health, and a peer reviewer for The Lancet.