Jan Menke is a humanitarian and social protection professional with eight years of field and policy experience across Central, West and East Africa, the Middle East and Bangladesh. He currently works as an independent consultant and is based in Abuja.
Much of his work has been where the data PRISM tracks is generated. He began with refugee assistance in Turkey, Jordan and Cox's Bazar. In North Kivu, DRC, he led a multi-sector portfolio as Head of Sub-Office in Beni, steering the transition out of the Ebola response to a multi-sectoral, diversified Nexus portfolio. In Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, he was NRC Area Manager, turning a rapid-response setup into a functioning area office and negotiating humanitarian access in contested territory. With WFP in Kenya, Niger and the Dakar regional bureau, he advised governments on shock-responsive social protection and national cash programs, developed capacity strengthening instruments and supported research agendas.
Protection, humanitarian access and accountability to affected populations run through that record, alongside gender and a continuing interest in how assistance shapes social cohesion in displacement-affected communities.
He trained and worked as a journalist for German outlets before entering the sector, and has since written and reviewed evaluations, studies, donor reports and policy briefs, including published research on social protection. He holds a BA in Political Science and Economics from the University of Münster and an MA in International Relations from IBEI Barcelona, and works in German, English, French and Spanish.