Geneviève Wills Biography

Geneviève Wills is Director of the World Food Programme for France and the Principality of Monaco since 2017.

Active in the humanitarian sector since 1994, Geneviève Wills has gained field experience with international NGOs and UN agencies (mainly WFP, OCHA, briefly OSCE and UNESCO). After having been on mission in the Balkans for various international solidarity NGOs (Solidarités International, Children’s Aid Direct, Mercy Corps International), she joined the WFP in 1999 as a programme officer specialized in minorities in Mitrovica, Kosovo.  Subsequently, she managed emergency programmes specialising in food security and monitoring & evaluation (VAM and M&E) (Kosovo, Central African Republic, Burundi, Jerusalem) and was in charge of the office for 2 years in the Gaza Strip. In 2008, after spending more than 12 years in difficult duty stations, she was seconded to the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) Secretariat at the Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in New York to lead the underfunded emergencies ($150 million per year). At the same time, from 2008 to 2011, she was part of OCHA’s emergency teams, deployed to Yemen (2009) and the Haiti earthquake response (2010).

In 2011, Ms. Wills returned to WFP in the School Feeding Unit and was the architect of the development of comprehensive training in the School Feeding Division. In 2012, the organization tasked her with redesigning operational information management, creating new skills for staff, and designing and leading the new 24/7/360 Operations Centre (OpsCen). At the same time, it introduced comprehensive training on information management and, in 2014, co-founded the Operational Information Network with OCHA and the Secretary-General’s Crisis Centre -UNOCC, which is still active.

PUBLICATIONS: Baseline study of WFP’s beneficiaries Coping Strategies, T. Abu El Haj, M. Marc Regnault de la Mothe, G. Wills, VAM WFP, February 2004. Food security situation in the oPt, JL. Siblot, T. Abu El Haj, G. Wills, Overseas Development Network, 2004. Study on Livelihoods, Shocks and Coping Strategy, T. Abu El Haj, J. McHarris, G. Wills, VAM, WFP, April 2005.  Training on: Humanitarian Reform (2008), School Feeding (2011-2012), Information Management: 1. Humanitarian Landscape, 2. WFP in emergencies, 3. Competencies for IOM and Report officer, Reporting in WFP, 2014 a 2016 (2013-17).