Mat Cousins

Director, Humanitarian Systems Strengthening, Oxfam in Kenya

Mat has been Humanitarian Director at Oxfam in Kenya since 2017, leading Oxfam’s strategic work in strengthening local humanitarian leadership, anticipatory action, innovative financing and emergency response.

Mat has over 20 years’ experience in international development, humanitarian action and multilateral diplomacy. He has led major humanitarian responses for Oxfam in complex, conflict and post-conflict environments around the world including Iraq, Sudan, Indonesia, and Pakistan as well as in Angola and Jordan. For Save the Children UK, Mat led the programming in post war Lebanon and in Syria. He started his career in Mongolia working to develop the resilience of pastoralist communities to severe weather events and a collapsing state-controlled economy.

Prior to moving to Kenya, Mat served for nine years at the United Nations in Geneva. He worked for OCHA on UN Secretary General’s High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis before leading the design of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, a multi-stakeholder, cross-sectoral initiative to end malnutrition in all its forms. Working with policy makers and leaders at the highest political levels, Mat was responsible for the global strategy and governance arrangements.

Mat has an MA (Hons) in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh in the UK.