The Refugee Livelihoods Team

Organizational description | 03 January 2021

Nadja Nutz

Nadja is coordinating the unit’s work on the Approach to Inclusive Market Systems (AIMS) for refugees and host communities. She has over 13 years of experience with private sector development, entrepreneurship promotion and market systems development. Prior to joining the ILO in 2014, Nadja worked on SME promotion with GIZ in Algeria, and on private sector development in the MENA region with the OECD. Nadja holds a M.A. in Economics in International Development from the American University in Cairo (AUC) in Egypt. She is fluent in English, French and German.


Fernando Martinez

Fernando is a refugee livelihoods and market systems specialist with over 6 years’ experience working for multilateral agencies, national government and NGOs throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. Fernando holds an MSc in Social Development Practice by University College London (UCL). He is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese.




Elisa Mandelli
Elisa is a Technical Officer on Inclusive Markets and Value Chains. She supports the AIMS portfolio as well as entrepreneurship and value chains initiatives by providing technical advisory and operational support to ILO projects on systemic approaches to create more and better jobs for all. She has joined the ILO in 2018 as Technical Officer on Market systems in The Lab Project. Prior to this, Elisa was Associate Programme Officer at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) working on land tenure issues and the linkages with targeting strategies and value chain development. Before IFAD, she worked for UNICEF Nicaragua on the implementation of innovative design methodologies for policy-making in indigenous regions and for the promotion of social-entrepreneurship for youth and women. She was also Principal Ethnographer for a public policy innovation start-up (Policy Lab) in Colombia and Researcher for a responsible tourism initiative supported by the NGO ACRA in Ecuador. Elisa holds a master’s degree in Anthropology from the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland). She speaks Spanish, French, Italian and English.

Adriana Sierra Leal
Adriana is a Refugee Livelihoods and Women's Entrepreneurship Development Officer. She has experience working and conducting research in the areas of gender and development, climate change, and migration including with the ILO, IOM, WBCSD and WECAN International. She holds a M.A. in Sustainable Development from IHEID in Geneva and a B.A. Honours in International Development and Environment and Resource Studies from Trent University in Canada. She is a national from Honduras and is fluent in Spanish and English.​